A fascinating look at the hat-making industry in America, from its origins in colonial times to the present day. This book explores the history, technology, and cultural significance of the American hat, and includes profiles of some of the industry's most influential figures. This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

Revised to include presidential hats, new celebrity hats, and a fully updated resource listing of custom hatters. The Cowboy Hat Book features an impressive array of cowboy hats, showcasing the wide variety of styles, colors, and fabrics used to create the cowboy hat, now a symbol of America and western culture that is recognized all over the world. Beginning with a brief history of the cowboy hat, the authors go on to explain the building of the perfect hat, its care and feeding, hat etiquette, hat hair, and more. Beautiful photos of real cowboys and movie cowboys sporting their trademark hats illustrate how creases, brims, shapes, and trims are unique to the individual who wears each hat. The Cowboy Hat Book celebrates the history and importance of this unique piece of clothing that hasn't fundamentally changed in more than 100 years. Ritch Rand's family has been making handcrafted hats for over twenty years. His hats have rested on dozen's of famous heads-from presidents to kings and heads of state to movie stars. He lives in Billings, Montana. William Reynolds is president and CEO of the marketing, PR, and advertising agency Banning Company, Inc. The company has a special division that services the western and equine industries. He lives in Malibu, California.

This collection of original essays documents technology's centrality to the history of early America. Unlike much previous scholarship, this volume emphasizes the quotidian rather than the exceptional: the farm household seeking to preserve food or acquire tools, the surveyor balancing economic and technical considerations while laying out a turnpike, the woman of child-bearing age employing herbal contraceptives, and the neighbors of a polluted urban stream debating issues of property, odor, and health. These cases and others drawn from brewing, mining, farming, and woodworking enable the authors to address recent historiographic concerns, including the environmental aspects of technological change and the gendered nature of technical knowledge. Brooke Hindle's classic 1966 essay on early American technology is also reprinted, and his view of the field is reassessed. A bibliographical essay and summary of Hindle's bibliographic findings conclude the volume. The contributors are Judith A. McGaw, Robert C. Post, Susan E. Klepp, Michal McMahon, Patrick W. O'Bannon, Sarah F. McMahon, Donald C. Jackson, Robert B. Gordon, Carolyn C. Cooper, and Nina E. Lerman.

Although perhaps best known today as the home of Vauxhall Motors, Luton's industrial roots run much deeper. Long before it became associated with motor cars, Luton was the centre of ladies' hat production in this country - a success founded upon the earlier regional industry of straw-plaiting. Many surrounding towns and villages fed into the industry and helped to make the region globally renowned. At its peak in the 1930s, the region was producing as many as 70 million hats in a single year; however, it entered a rapid decline following the Second World War from which it never recovered. This has left Luton, Dunstable and a number of other local towns with a challenging inheritance of neglected and decaying fragments of a once vital industry. This book is intended to be an introduction and guide to the area's historical depth and to its distinctive and varied character, seeking to explain the development of the region as the centre of the hatting industry in the south and exploring the lives of the people working there during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The historic links between the surviving building stock and the hatting industry are assessed and the book highlights the significance of the surviving fabric and the potential of the historic environment within future conservation and regeneration plans.