PROCEEDINGS OF THE POLYTECHNIC ASSOCIATION. 415 



is ready for the trimming. Tliis process was formerly performed by hand, 

 and the poor and unbraided cuds of straw were tiresomely cut off with 

 shears. A slig-ht improvement was mada upon this manner of doing the 

 business when a razor was used in the same operation, the blade being 

 fixed, and the braid drawn under it. Of late years, however, a machine 

 has been perfected by which one man can trim nearly four thousand yards 

 of medium (quality braid in a single day — an amount of work which it 

 formerly required a good share of a week to perform. The braid, in pass- 

 ing through the machine, has been measured, and is now ready for being 

 tied into the long flattish bundles, in which it remains until ready for use. 

 These bundles contain braid of uniform style; for thus early in bonnet- 

 making has the system of numbering goods commenced, and during nil 

 the processes described, the different qualities of braid are kept entirely 

 distinct. The braid is now ready for the sewing. 



There was a time when the manufactuie of bonnets was a purely domes- 

 tic affair. The straw was grown, prepared, braided, and sewed by the 

 same family, and the bonnet stiffened with common starch, and ironed with 

 a common flat. But as the days of homespun have passed away, so have 

 these days of home-made bonnets. Although no great invention has been 

 produced to mark a progressive leap in the manufacture of straw bonnets — 

 although the machinery now used is simple, and not large in quantity, yet 

 improvements have been gradually taking place, until now every operation 

 has been so systematized that we have boftnet factories as truly as cotton 

 factories — factories containing a great living machine, each portion of 

 which has peculiar functions, and is fitted for certain parts of the work. 

 These factories have particular localities where they are most fully devel- 

 oped, or perhaps it would be better to say, have a particular locality; for, 

 aside from two establishments in Connecticut, and two or three in New 

 York city, they are all confined to South-eastern Massachusetts. Here we 

 find a dozen tov/ns relying upon not quite a score of bonnet factories for 

 their principal means of support — towns in which straw is queen as truly 

 as cotton is king in many other of our manufacturing villages. Twelve 

 thousand persons would be a fair estimate of the number employed by 

 these establishments, and from these are sent away annually nearly eight 

 million bonnets and hats. 



The manufacture of straw bonnets is confined to this section of New 

 England, because it was here that the American branch of the business 

 originated. In 1798. Miss Betsey Metcalf of Providence, Rhode Island, 

 now Mrs. Baker of West Dedham, Massachusetts, saw an imported Dun- 

 stable bo«net in a Providence store, and straightway wished one like it. 

 Taking some oat stubble from a field where Ijer father's laborers had been 

 reaping, she split the straws with her thumb-nail, and made her first 

 attempts at plaiting. After several failures she succeeded in imitating the 

 braid of the admired affair in the shop, and made herself a bonnet. Thus 

 the ingenious girl, only twelve years of age, acquired the honor of being 

 the first American manufacturer of straw bonnets. She is now an old lady 

 of seventy-eight, and still braids, having presented us with a specimen of 

 her handiwork, a beautiful straw ornament, on a late visit to her. Many 

 persons urged her to get a patent on her process of braiding; but being 



