008 - The Beaver Hat

For over hundreds of years, beaver hats were a fashion trend among men. But, in order to make those hats, people needed the fur from a beaver. At one time, the Adirondacks provided the world with many of the beaver pelts needed to make beaver hats. Find out the effects this had on the beaver population in the Adirondacks and what the hat making process involved. 

Transcript

The Beaver Hat

[Podcast Preview]

[Taylor] Did you know that the state animal of New York is the beaver? There are approximately 50-75,000 beavers currently in the Adirondack Park alone! That’s a lot of beavers. But, what if I told you that at some point in Adirondack history, there were almost no beavers left in the entire 6 millions acres of the Adirondack Park. But why?

[Diane] On today’s podcast episode, we’re going to talk about how beavers became involved with one of the biggest fashion trends in history— the beaver hat! Why did a hat made from beaver fur become a men’s fashion trend for centuries? How did people obtain the beaver pelts in the first place? And how did they make the pelts into hats?

[Intro] Ready to earn some extra credit? This is Taylor and Diane and you are listening to ADKX-tra Credit. A history podcast for students made by the Adirondack Experience, the Museum on Blue Mountain Lake,  located in the heart of the Adirondack Park of New York State.

[Content] [sound effects] 

[Taylor] As part of our School Outreach, we teach a program called “Native American Fur Traders.” It’s one of our most popular and fun programs! It involves us bringing several museum artifacts from our education collection to school classrooms in order to help students understand this part of Adirondack history. We may have even visited you at your school! 

[Diane] We bring items such as a copper kettle, broadcloth and cotton fabrics, important historical documents, and a lot of animal pelts. Pelts are the fur and skin of an animal. These pelts help give students a hands-on opportunity to learn more about these animals using both their senses of sight and touch. We bring pine marten, fox, otter, bobcat, bear, and, of course, beaver. Out of all of these animals, the beaver’s fur was considered the most valuable of them all. 

[Taylor] Starting from the late 1500s until the mid 1800s, hats made out of Beaver fur were considered very fashionable for men and everyone seemed to want one. Why? Hats were valuable because they showed what a person’s social status was and what kind of job they might have. Some hats were also passed down from the previous generation, say from a father or grandfather. Over the years, hats have come in a variety of shapes, styles, and materials-- changing to reflect the fashion trends of society at the time. One U.S. president, Abraham Lincoln, famously wore a tall, stovepipe hat wherever he went, although his were often made out of silk. But hats made out of beaver fur were a popular fashion accessory for men for over 200 years--which is saying something about beaver fur!

[Diane] Beaver hats had many qualities that made them the top choice for hat material.

#1: They repelled water. Because the beaver naturally has 2 layers of fur(top coat and undercoat) and spends a considerable amount of time in the water, their fur is waterproof and makes the perfect material for a hat. Umbrellas didn’t become popular among men until the mid-1750s, so this also explains why water repellent beaver hats were the trend. 

#2: There was the belief that hats made out of beaver fur made the person wearing the hat more intelligent. Many thought the natural oils found in the fur would rub into a man’s hair and make him smarter. Oh! & I almost forgot--they also believed it would increase his memory!

[Taylor] Beaver fur was also valued because it naturally produces an oil, called castoreum, which was commonly used to make perfumes and medicine. 

[Transition]

[Diane] Going back to fashion, beaver hats were a popular trend for men for centuries in Europe, and this greatly affected the beaver populations there. In order to make the beaver hats, people needed to trap beavers to be able to use their fur. Because of this, beavers in Europe were extirpated from the region. You may have heard the term “extinction” before, but extinction and the word extirpation are two different things. Extinction means an entire species of an animal is gone forever. Extirpation means an entire species is gone from a certain area, like Europe, but not the entire world. 

[Taylor] With beavers gone from Europe, how could people make their beaver hats? 

By the early to mid 1600s, European countries like England, France, and the Netherlands had started establishing their own settlements in North America. They discovered that North American beavers had thicker fur than beavers in Europe. This made the demand for beaver furs increase!  

Europeans realized that the Indeginous peoples living in North America already were great animal trappers. They relied on natural resources for everything they needed to survive. From plants to animals, Indeginous peoples truly lived off the land. Europeans, on the other hand, were far more technically advanced. They lived in a more industrialized society and had access to machines that helped them make forged tools and other goods for their everyday life. The Ideginous people didn’t have this, and they saw value in some of the tools and goods that Europeans had that would make their lives easier. As a result, a trading system was developed between the Europeans and the Ideginous peoples. Europeans received animal pelts, such as beavers, pine martens, bears, otters, and foxes, and the Indeginous peoples received axes, knives, cooking pots, weapons, fabrics, and other goods they didn’t have.

[Diane] And now with access to more beaver pelts, Europeans could continue making beaver hats that would remain a fashion trend until the late 1800s.

[Transition]

[Taylor] But, how does one make a beaver hat? Well, it’s not an easy process. But we’re going to break it down for you.

[Diane] The first step involves preparing the beaver fur to be made into a hat. The winter fur of a beaver was the best when making a hat. A beaver needs to stay warm in the winter. Because they don’t hibernate, their fur was much thicker during the cold winter months and made for a better hat. 

[Taylor] Once the beaver is dead, it is skinned, and the fur is ready to start the process of becoming a hat!

[Diane] Beaver fur is unique--it has 2 layers— a top coat that is made of long, coarse outer guard hairs, and the 2nd layer is a soft underfur, often referred to as the beaver wool. It’s the second, soft bottom layer, the beaver wool, that is used to make the beaver hat. 

[Taylor] The top course guard hairs are removed from the beaver pelt, leaving just the soft underfur. Then, the beaver wool is shaved off of the pelt. The fur that is shaved off is now called beaver fluff. This step was most often done by women because it was not considered skilled work and hat makers could get away with paying them a much lower wage. 

[Diane] The second step involves making the beaver fluff into felt. Have you ever used felt? Your teacher may use it in your classroom! It’s a soft, but stiff kind of fabric that can easily be used for crafts! It has also been used in clothing.

[Taylor] In order to make felt out of beaver fur, hat makers long ago used a solution of mercury nitrate on the pelt or fluff that would help the hairs stick together better and made the process easier. However, mercury nitrate was not a safe substance to be working with--it’s considered toxic and people have experienced terrible side effects from working with it for long periods of time. Many hat makers started having serious health problems from using mercury nitrate. It caused drooling, memory and hair loss, unusual, erratic, and crazy behaviors, and it attacked their nervous system. And these are only a few of the many side effects of working with mercury.

[Diane] Have you ever watched the Disney movie, “Alice in Wonderland”? If so, you may remember a character called, “The Mad Hatter.” A hatter is a person who makes hats. And mad is another term for “crazy.” So, if you’ve ever seen the movie, you know the Mad Hatter’s behavior is a bit unusual and that his name suits him well.

[Taylor] Back in the 1800s and 1900s, people often would say “you’re as mad as a hatter”, and it referred to the unusual behaviors that hatters would develop after working with mercury nitrate. Today, the substance isn’t used to make beaver hats, and hat makers no longer have to worry about the risk of mercury poisoning.

[Transition]

[Diane] Once the fur has gone through the long process of becoming felt, it’s time to shape the felt into a hat. The felt was usually wrapped around a cone shape and shaped to kind of look like a wizard’s hat!

[Taylor] But they weren’t done there. After the hat body had shrunken and thickened, it was placed over a wooden form and molded into its desired shape. The hat was then brushed, trimmed up, and given a smooth and neat appearance and ready to wear by the most fashionable men of the time. 

[Diane] You can still find beaver hats today--but they’re definitely not as popular as they were long ago. As you’ve heard, it’s a long process to take the fur from a beaver and turn it into a hat. 

[Taylor] You’re more likely to find a beaver in nature--near bodies of water, especially up here in the Adirondacks. After the beaver hat went out of fashion, beaver populations here started to increase. Remember how we talked about extirpation earlier in the podcast and how there were almost NO beavers left in the Adirondacks? Well, 34 beavers were released into the Adirondacks between 1901 and 1907 and this helped slowly increase their population in this region.

[Diane] Like we said earlier, today, now there are between 50-75,000 beavers living just in the Adirondacks alone! Seems like the beaver was the perfect choice as New York’s state mammal, don’t you think?

[Outro] Thank you for joining us for an episode of ADKX-tra Credit. This podcast is brought to you by Adirondack Experience, the museum on Blue Mountain Lake. Our mission is to expand understanding of Adirondack history and the relationship between people and the Adirondack wilderness, fostering informed choices for the future.

Listen in again two weeks from now when we will have a brand new episode. In the meantime, if you want to learn more fun Adirondack history visit our website theadkx.org