Baltimore Hats, Past and Present

The main entrance to this building is marked by its liberal dimension. A slight elevation is made from the sidewalk, and beyond a recess of several feet are framed two large French plate glass windows, which afford a view of the entire extent of the first floor with its offices and extensive storage room. Entrance doors are placed on either side of this recess.

Broad stairways connect every floor, providing easy and quick ingress and egress at both the front and the back part of the building, rendering in the greatest degree security to the lives of those employed within.

Adjoining, in the rear, is another structure three stories high, separated from the main building by fire-proof brick walls, and used as a boiler-room, as also for other departments of work desirable to be kept apart from the general work-rooms. This separate building was designed as an additional means of safety, in not having the large boilers within the limits of the main building.

From basement to roof this model factory is well equipped with all necessary modern plans for producing the best that is capable of being made in this manufacturing line.

WAYS AND MEANS OF THE PRESENT TIME

No. 18

TAKING the start for a tour of inspection through the establishment of Brigham, Hopkins & Co., one is ushered directly into the first or main floor of the building, which is partly occupied by offices for the members of the firm and for the necessary clerical force, as well as the show-rooms for the exhibit of the products of this factory. These various apartments are partitioned off with handsomely beaded cherry, and a series of arched windows give beauty to the architecture and serve the practical purpose of ventilation.

The several rooms upon this floor are handsomely finished in solid cherry; this was done solely with the view of harmonizing the effect with that of the exterior of the building, rather than for an indulgence in luxury.

In the first office is a capacious fire-proof vault, having its counterpart in size in the basement, upon which the one in the office rests; it is built of yellow enameled-face brick, and with its handsomely finished iron door surmounted with a bold decoration in terra-cotta, adds greatly to the ornamentation of this room. The desks are all of cherry, large and capacious, designed expressly for the required accommodation of the bookkeepers.

Adjoining is the private office of the members of the firm; among the decorations of this room is a spacious open fire-place, ornamented with terra-cotta tile and a handsome mantelpiece in carved cherry. The carpeted floor and tasty furniture serve to give that comfort that is looked for in the modern office of the business man. Beyond and leading from this office are show-rooms for the exhibition of the firm's products. These show-rooms, two in number, are without doubt the best in finish, breadth of space and arrangement of any in this branch of business in the United States, affording the best conveniences for the display of the handsome goods they contain; the first in size, 25 x 18 feet, with an adjoining one 18 x 12 feet, is supplied with handsomely designed show-cases of solid cherry and of glass; the wall space is colored a light tint, while the ceilings are laid off in yellow and brown. A long table of cherry occupies the centre of the large room, while the hard-wood floors are partially covered with oriental rugs. When these rooms are filled with the choice products of the firm, embracing the finest qualities of straw, with their trimmings of various hues and colors, intermingled with the sombre black of the derbys and the brilliant lustre of the silk hat, upon which is thrown a bountiful supply of light that comes from the spacious windows, a striking melange of harmonious colors is produced. Here the customer is surrounded by all that is desired from which to make his selection.

Beyond these show-rooms is still another room devoted to the valuable collection of hat trimmings. While to the uninitiated the trimmings of a hat, consisting merely of its band and binding, may appear quite insignificant, yet to the manufacturer it is a part of great importance. Here in this room, stored in various quantities, are two hundred different designs of hat-bands, every one of which is the product of a French or German loom, mostly made from original designs furnished and sent abroad to be executed for this firm.

From this, the last of the series of departments on this floor, exit is gained to the remaining space, which is used for the packing and storing of goods ordered and received finished from the factory.

With an ascent to the second floor by a broad stairway, the "finishing" department of silk and fur hats is entered; this department occupies the entire space of this floor. Here the silk hat is made and finished complete, and the derby, whose process of manufacture belongs to several departments, receives its finishing touches, of curling and setting the brim, after which it is neatly nested in tissue paper and placed in paper boxes to be sent to the packer.

The third floor provides three departments: that of silk and felt hat trimming, straw hat trimming department, and that very valuable and necessary auxiliary to business, the printing department. Although two branches of the hat business are carried on under the same roof (that of straw and that of silk and felt hats), they are kept entirely separate and distinct in all their requirements and details, which affords a reason for the difference in aspect of the trimming departments on this floor. In one, the multitude of busy hands is at work upon hats of black, while in the adjoining department, the many nimble fingers are handling the light and delicate straw and the bright ribbons, making a contrast of the sombre with the gay.

Entering the next department, we find that element of development, that force of propulsion by means of which modern business plans are moved and executed – the printing press. This department is fitted and furnished complete with such requirements as are necessary to the advance of an enterprising business. A large Gordon press, propelled by steam power, is kept constantly in use to supply the vast amount of printing required in the details of this business. Tips, labels, size-marks, tickets for use in the various departments of "making," "sewing," "sizing," "finishing," and "blocking." Order tickets, coupons, boxes and box labels and mercantile printing are but a portion of the work done here. In addition, a patent gas-heating press is used for printing in gold and silver leaf. There also emanates from this department a monthly trade journal, conducted under the auspices of the firm.

Ascending to the fourth floor, the noisy sound of machinery is first heard. This is the department for sewing straw braid; here unquestionably centres the interest in a hat factory; the hum of a hundred machines quickens the pulse, and to the observer, the interest and astonishment increases as the wonderful machine with its lightning speed, guided by the magic touch of the young woman who rules it, draws towards itself yard after yard of the delicate strand of straw plait which it sews together by the finest stitch of the most slender thread, till suddenly a hat comes forth, complete in its full perfection of shape. One's surprise would not be more greatly heightened by a display of the magician's art. The marvel of this accomplishment may be effectively demonstrated by a simple statement. That bit of mechanism occupying a space of 10 x 12 inches, with its apparently simple arrangement of levers and cogs, merely carrying a needle to and fro, up and down, will do in a single minute the work an industrious woman with her unaided fingers could not do in less than an hour. That little machine is capable of doing within the working hours of a day the labor of sixty women; while a hundred machines in a factory are capable of producing the handwork of six thousand people; this shows the progress of the world, and the advance that has come to this branch of industry within the last thirty years.

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

notes

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.