Tea at Trianon: Nineteenth-Century Easter Bonnets

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Sunday, April 17, 2022

Nineteenth-Century Easter Bonnets

From Mimi Matthews:

In the nineteenth century, Easter Sunday was an occasion for ladies of all classes to don their most fashionable bonnets. Some of these bonnets were specially bought for the holiday. Others were old bonnets made up with new trimmings. In either circumstance, Easter bonnets were as essential to celebrating Easter as were eggs and bunnies. An 1889 edition of the Ladies Home Journal even went so far as to declare that it was “an accepted fact that every woman who can buy or make a dainty bonnet for Easter-day must wear it.”
[...]
Nevertheless, the Globe states that “this, the season of rejoicing through all Christendom, is emphasised by a woman in a bonnet” and that “on Easter Sunday a new bonnet is de reigueur.” What were these Easter bonnets like? Addressing the Easter bonnets of 1889, the Ladies Home Journal reports that:

“There are large hats and small ones, though the tendency, as is usual in summer time, is to large hats. There are tiny bonnets, and those a little larger. There are bonnets that affect an air of primness, and there are those that are really frivolous looking.”

(Read more.)

Easter bonnets and church hats are not a thing of the past. From Southern Living:

In many congregations across the country, statement-making hats are as synonymous with Sunday mornings as robed choristers and gospel readings. For writer Craig Marberry, who grew up in a Chicago congregation of the Church of God in Christ, the spectacular toppers were just part of the sanctuary topography. "In my church, women only wore three types of hats," he says. "Large hats, larger hats, and 'why'd you have to sit in front of me?' hats."
While the pastor's grandson took the tradition for granted as a boy, Marberry gained new appreciation for the fabulous church hats of his youth when he partnered with photographer Michael Cunningham to produce a tome filled with portraits of church-hat-wearing Southern women and their stories—Crowns: Portraits of Black Women in Church Hats, published in October 2000.

"I realized that church hats weren't merely fashion accessories," he says. "They are an expression of faith, as well as a celebration of fashion. Every woman has a different and compelling story about what church hats mean to them."

The tradition of church hats has its roots in scripture—in particular, a passage from one of Paul's letters to the Corinthians declares that women should cover their heads during worship to honor God. "In many religious denominations, women cover their heads for worship as a sign of respect for God and the church hierarchy," says Marberry. "But Black women alone have interpreted that edict with singular flair."

There's an important cultural element at play too, he notes. "African Americans oftentimes think we were severed from our African culture, our heritage because of slavery," says the author. "But there are a lot of things we do without realizing that they're connected to the motherland." Hats are one of them. "Many African societies believe that the soul is housed in the head, not in the heart, and therefore you adorn the head as a way of honoring it," he says.

Perhaps that's part of the reason women leaders of the Civil Rights Movement often marched in their church hats, a symbol of dignity.

"If you look at the photos of Civil Rights marches from the '60s, you'll see women wearing church hats: Dorothy Height, Coretta Scott King, and countless others," says Marberry. "Even Rosa Parks, the mother of the Civil Rights Movement, had on a hat the day that she refused to give up her seat to a white man."

Church hats, in other words, are a proud declaration of who you are, how you worship, and what you stand for. And the grander the hat, the better. (Read more.)