by Barbara Rimkunas
This "Historically Speaking" column was published in the Exeter News-Letter on Friday, April 9, 2021.
In 1850, Mrs. Mary Simpkins and her stepdaughter, Joanna, advertised their millinery business on Water Street. “Straw Bonnets, Ribbons, Flowers, Laces, Caps, Silk Bonnets plain and drawn, Mourning Bonnets on hand and made to Order.” The pair also offered cleaning services for straw bonnets, “Pressed and sewed to the present fashion. All work executed by experienced hands.” Readers of the Exeter News-Letter would have found it unusual to find women listed in the advertising section of the paper. There were only a few types of businesses respectable women would advertise—dressmaking and millinery. The dressmakers rarely had a designated shop. It was common for dress cutters and seamstresses to come to the patron’s house. Milliners, however, needed a shop to promote their wares.
Ladies’ hats were nearly always produced by women. George Brackett may have advertised “straw bonnets of every size and quality, of the latest Paris fashions,” but he was not the one making them. Brackett purchased his bonnets straight from the manufacturer. Women seemed to prefer purchasing hats from other women. By the mid-century, there were numerous millinery shops in Exeter, more than one might think necessary. Mrs. and Miss Simpkins had a slight edge over their competition. Both were from England and were therefore considered exotic in their tastes. Perhaps, when seeking a livelihood, they’d consulted “The Hand-Book of Millinery”, by Mrs. M.J. Howell. Written in 1847 in London, the book is an instructive guide to the practical art of millinery. “A cap, or bonnet,” Mrs. Howell advised, “should not be considered merely as a covering for the head, but also as an ornament, which, by the aid of judicious management, maybe made subservient—as an adjunct—to render more interesting the countenance on which nature has lavished her most lovely graces.” Howell correctly considered the creation of headwear an art. Her instructions were primarily practical. “The Art of millinery consists of the more or less skillful construction of bonnets, hats, caps, turbans, and head-dresses in general,” she wrote. But she also explained the philosophy of that “construction” in a way worthy of Miranda Priestly. “And let it not be objected that it is superfluous to ‘paint the lily’ and add perfume to the rose. Human nature is seldom, if ever, so perfect in outward form, so faultless in feature, as not to admit—let us even say to require—improvement by the judicious aid of dress,--that potent talisman which often imparts a charm where nature has been most sparing of its gifts.” Women need the beauty of hats.
With Mrs. Howell’s guidance, a woman in need of income could set up shop—a public shop, no less—and earn her keep. Women were quite used to working, but most worked alongside their husbands in family businesses, or worked for hire as seamstresses, maids, cooks or laundrymaids. Most milliners were single women who’d either never married or were widows. Their patrons needed a great deal of personal attention to choose the right hat. L.B. Getchell, “dealer in Fine Millinery” reminded, “there is no portion of the costume more conspicuous, so there is none that exerts a greater influence over the entire appearance than does the hat or bonnet which may be worn, and every lady should use care in selecting this part of her apparel, for in no other is a proper individuality more pleasing and effective. In order to learn what is best suited to one’s personal needs there is no other way equal to visiting an establishment where a complete variety of the latest fashionable productions in the millinery line are kept in stock, and there inspecting the different shapes and combinations.” Milliners often added that they frequently traveled to New York or Paris for the latest styles. For most Exeter women, the milliners must have been the most stylish and cosmopolitan women in town.
In actuality, millinery was a great deal of work. Even a quick glance through Mrs. Howell’s instructive book shows an occupation that required not only a keen eye for color and shape, but a lot of painstaking stitching. Hands had to be strong enough to repeatedly push a needle through the tough straw and supportive structures that formed the base of the hat or bonnet. It turned out to be too much for Lucy Getchell. After ten years of work in the millinery trade, she became “very sick with inflammatory rheumatism and has not yet recovered use of her hands” in 1898. She had to leave the trade after another flare-up in 1916, becoming the matron at the Standish Manor House for Girls in Halifax, Massachusetts.
She didn’t leave Exeter without a milliner. The 1915 Exeter directory lists six milliners in town: Katherine Cashman, Eliza Chesley, Agnes Henderson, Nellie Rollins, Annie Tuttle and partners Elizabeth Wilson & Gertrude Lane. All were single women working in a time when single women had little social status. Some would stay in the trade their entire lives, often managing a small workforce. But most, like Lucy Getchell, eventually moved on to other occupations or, more commonly, marriage. Married women left business. Joanna Simpkins left her stepmother’s shop to marry George Shute. They settled in town; George commuted every day to the customs house in Boston while Joanna stayed at home raising a large family including future author Henry Shute. His books, twenty in all, are humorous accounts of childhood antics. His mother features prominently and affectionately in the series, but never once is it mentioned that she’d been an independent businesswoman before she became his mother.
Barbara Rimkunas is curator of the Exeter Historical Society. Support the Exeter Historical Society by becoming a member! Join online through our website (you are here!)
Image: from a hatbox found in the Fogg Rollins House. One of the few respectable occupations for single women in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was that of milliner.
To see photos of the wonderful craft of millinery, watch our Exeter History Minute on the subject. There’s a slideshow of women’s hats at the end.