Baltimore Hats, Past and Present

Straw braid preparatory to being sewed is wound upon reels, from which it is easily fed to the sewing machine; this department of winding and reeling is also located upon this floor.

Adjoining is the machine room. This department is not only the hospital for invalid and incapacitated machines, where they receive the treatment required to put them in suitable working condition, but its field of usefulness is extended to the making of much of the required machinery, implements and various tools used throughout the establishment.

Another flight of stairs and the fifth floor is reached. This is the straw hat pressing department, occupied entirely by men. Here are the more weighty evidences of labor and work. Heavy and powerful hydraulic presses are used in shaping the ordinary kinds of straw hats, and the necessary metal moulds that form the "dies" for these machines represent tons of zinc. Also in this room is row after row of benches, equipped for that special branch of "hand-finish," which has so greatly assisted in the reputation of the straw hats sent from this establishment. These benches each accommodate six workmen, are supplied with a labor-saving appliance of great merit, the invention of one of the firm's employees and at present in use only in this factory, which is, that by means of rubber tubes a combination of gas and air is carried into the pressing irons, by which heat is regulated to any required degree. The advantage of this may be realized when it is known that heretofore these press-irons were heated by "slugs" or pieces of iron or steel, which, drawn from the furnaces of anthracite coal fires, were encased in the hollow irons. By this new invention a remarkable saving is made, by the abandonment of the furnace, in the coal necessarily used, also in the not insignificant matter of time consumed by the presser in the constant replenishing of "slugs." Its work is acceptable to the workman and desirable for securing an improvement to the goods.

The next, the sixth floor, has a department of both the straw and felt hat branches of the business. The finishing department of felt hats is a large room 150 by an average of 25 feet, closely studded on three sides with large windows, which at this height throw upon the workmen an unobstructed flood of light, affording unusual advantages for the most thorough perfection in the finish of these goods. This room has capacity for one hundred finishers, allowing generous space for each, giving the convenience and comfort that but few factories afford their work-people.

Adjoining is the department of bleaching and dyeing of straw plaits. This department is supplied with all the modern conveniences for securing the best results. Large wooden vats receive the straw plaits for a thorough cleansing before it is ready for manufacture. Bleaching tubs are near at hand, and large copper vats with all the required steam attachments for dyeing the many desired colors are here conveniently arranged.

Ascending still another flight of stairs, the drying department is reached; this is the most spacious of all the many divisions of this establishment, for it has the sky for a ceiling and unlimited space, being virtually upon the roof. Here, ninety feet from the ground, is carried on one of the important divisions of the straw hat business. Two large rooms, really houses in themselves, are built upon this roof; these are the bleach houses, which are provided with artificial stone floors, rendering them thoroughly secure from the chance of ignited brimstone coming in contact with any part of the woodwork of the building. The remaining space upon the roof, equal in its extent to two good-sized city building lots, is secured around and over by a substantial wire netting. Within this enclosure the hats and straw braids coming from the bleaching and dyeing departments are dried.

Ascent has been provided by stairways leading from the front part of this building; descent is also had by the rear, where broad stairs are partitioned off from the work-rooms, making a continuous spacious hallway from top to basement – a wise precaution, taken in consideration of the safety of the lives of those employed. This building, capable of accommodating six hundred work-people, is provided with the most convenient means of escape in case of fire by these broad stairways at each end of the building.

As additional precaution for safety, the boilers supplying the required steam for the various departments, as well as for the motive power and heat, are in a building adjoining the main one, but separated by a fire-proof brick wall, and is only accessible by entrance from the outside; here are located two boilers, with a combined capacity of one hundred horse power. Above this boiler-room are two departments desirable to be kept apart from the others; these are the moulding and casting departments, in one of which is made the vast number of plaster shapes and blocks required in the factory, and some idea may be gained of the quantity when it is here mentioned that this department converts annually two hundred barrels of plaster of Paris into hat blocks.

In the casting department are the necessary melting furnaces and other requisites for casting metal "dies," parts of machinery, and the various things needed in a large manufacturing business.

Two large freight elevators, reaching from basement to roof, each of one ton capacity and propelled by steam power, are placed in the building. These elevators are furnished with automatic attachments by which as they ascend and descend each of the floors open and close, thus avoiding permanent openings, the frequent cause of accidents and assistance in the spread of a conflagration; an additional small elevator gives the convenience of transmitting light packages to and from every floor.

Electric bells and tubes afford telephonic communication with every department. Steam heat radiates throughout the entire building, and a reel of hose attached to a water supply pipe is in readiness upon each floor in case of fire. The length of steam, gas, and water pipes throughout the building is estimated at five miles. The telegraph call-box signals for the messenger, and the telephone, aids in the execution of the advanced method of reducing the detailed requirements of a large business to a perfectly controllable system in its management.

The engine supplying the motive power for this establishment is located in the basement. With exception of this room, partitioned off for the engine, the entire space of the basement of this large building is used for receiving and storing raw materials used in the manufacture of both straw and fur hats. Here the visitor's imagination may indulge in a wide scope, and his thoughts wander away to many foreign lands, for in this store-room are found the products of nearly every country in the world. China is seen in its strong and durable straw plaits; Japan, a new and formidable rival, shows its handsome goods; far-off India contributing its products, while England, France and Belgium send their choice plaits; Italy, Germany, and Spain are represented, as also South America, Canada, and our own United States, while the Hawaiian Islands make a pretence at competition with the world in the making of straw plaits, by submitting creditable specimens of their native products. Furs for making derby hats are also here, sent by Russia, France and Germany. In observing the firm's connection with countries quite encompassing the entire globe, some idea of the extent of this business may be realized.

Thus a fair description is here given of a thoroughly equipped hat factory existing in Baltimore, in the year eighteen hundred and eighty-nine, and the reader may realize by comparison the advance of improvement from the last decade of the eighteenth century to the commencement of the last decade of the nineteenth century.

THE END

1

This article was written in 1887, since when these two have passed on.

2

This department has lately been removed to the city, and is located corner Paca and King streets.