101 



are in Norfolk county, "whose manufactures are estimated at 

 $3,442,337, being nearly three-fourths in value of the -whole 

 amount in the State. Connected with these factories, there arc 

 employed in this county, male and female, 6784 persons. The 

 number employed in the cotton mills in the county is only 658, 

 and the value of cotton goods manufactured only $835,491.82. 



The manufacture of straw goods in Norfolk county is second 

 only in value and the number of persons employed to that of boots 

 and shoes, and falls but little below that important branch of 

 mechanical industry. 



Until within thirty j^ears the straw bonnets manufactured in 

 this county and elsewhere were made almost exclusively from rye 

 straAv, the growth of our own soil. In several towns the women 

 and children, and some men, were almost exclusively engaged in 

 braiding the straw, and, to some extent, making on their own ac- 

 count the braid into bonnets. All the dry goods and groceries of 

 some families were purchased of the shopkeeper, in exchange for 

 braid and bonnets. At this time, the finest straw bonnets worn 

 on Broadway are wholly the growth of Amercan soil and the 

 product of American labor, performed around the domestic fire- 

 side. 



Shops or factories for the manufacture of bonnets, except for 

 bleaching and pressing on a small scale, were unknown in this 

 county till about the year 1840, when the writer and some others, 

 about the same time, began the experiment of having bonnets 

 sewed to some extent in shops, as well as bleached and pressed. 

 Since this plan has been adopted and in consequence of it, there 

 has been a great improvement in the manufacture of bonnets, and 

 a great increase in the business. 



At the present time there is but little straw braid made in the 

 county. Most of the bonnets are manufactured of foreign straw, 

 braid, hair, and other materials, imported exclusively into New 

 York by some ten or twelve houses, and sold to the manufacturers, 

 who distribute what is to be made up or sewed into plain bonnets 

 into the famihes to be sewed, and Avhat is to be mixed or made 

 into fancy bonnets of the better quality is sewed by females em- 

 ployed in the shops, who constitute perhaps one-tenth of the whole 

 number of females employed in the business. 



By this statement of facts, it will be seen that the material of 

 our straw bonnets is mostly a foreign article, that its manufacture 

 into bonnets is controlled by a few men, and that in order to 

 secure an exhibition of straw goods at all commensurate with this 

 branch of industry, premiums should be oflered to attract the no- 

 tice of manufacturers, and invito competition among them fur the 

 prizes and honors of the Association. 



The Committee are .iware that there are many obstacles in the 

 way of accomplishing so desirable an object. 



