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A beaver hat is a
Image:Beaver-felt-hat-ftl.jpg, A silk reproduction felt hat, Lower Fort Garry NHS.
Image:Chapeaux en peau de castor.jpg, Shapes and styles of beaver hat 1776–1825
Image:1800s -Masonic Knights Templar- Beaver Fur Chapeaux Hat.jpg, 19th century Masonic Knights Templar Beaver Fur hat
Image:John By.jpg, English military engineer
A beaver hat is a hat
A hat is a head covering which is worn for various reasons, including protection against weather conditions, ceremonial reasons such as university graduation, religious reasons, safety, or as a fashion accessory. Hats which incorporate mecha ...
made from felt
Felt is a textile material that is produced by matting, condensing and pressing fibers together. Felt can be made of natural fibers such as wool or animal fur, or from synthetic fibers such as petroleum-based acrylic or acrylonitrile or wood ...
ed beaver fur. They were fashionable across much of Europe
Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...
during the period 1550–1850 because the soft yet resilient material could be easily combed to make a variety of hat shapes (including the familiar top hat
A top hat (also called a high hat, a cylinder hat, or, informally, a topper) is a tall, flat-crowned hat for men traditionally associated with formal wear in Western dress codes, meaning white tie, morning dress, or frock coat. Traditionally m ...
). Smaller hats made of beaver were sometimes called beaverkins, as in Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle (4 December 17955 February 1881) was a Scottish essayist, historian and philosopher. A leading writer of the Victorian era, he exerted a profound influence on 19th-century art, literature and philosophy.
Born in Ecclefechan, Dum ...
's description of his wife as a child.
Used winter coats worn by Native Americans were actually a prized commodity for hat making because their wear helped prepare the skins, separating out the coarser hairs from the pelts.
To make felt, the underhairs were shaved from the beaver pelt and mixed with a vibrating hatter's bow. The matted fabric was pummeled and boiled repeatedly, resulting in a shrunken and thickened felt. Filled over a hat-form block, the felt was pressed and steamed into shape. The hat maker then brushed the outside surface to a sheen.
Evidence of felted beaver hats in western Europe can be found in Chaucer's ''Canterbury Tales
''The Canterbury Tales'' ( enm, Tales of Caunterbury) is a collection of twenty-four stories that runs to over 17,000 lines written in Middle English by Geoffrey Chaucer between 1387 and 1400. It is widely regarded as Chaucer's ''magnum opus ...
'', written in the late 14th century: "A Merchant was there with a forked beard / In motley, and high on his horse he sat, / Upon his head a Flandrish lemishbeaver hat." Demand for beaver fur led to the near-extinction of the Eurasian beaver
The Eurasian beaver (''Castor fiber'') or European beaver is a beaver species that was once widespread in Eurasia, but was hunted to near-extinction for both its fur and castoreum. At the turn of the 20th century, only about 1,200 beavers survi ...
and the North American beaver
The North American beaver (''Castor canadensis'') is one of two extant beaver species, along with the Eurasian beaver (''Castor fiber''). It is native to North America and introduced in South America ( Patagonia) and Europe (primarily Finland ...
in succession. It seems likely that only a sudden change in style saved the beaver.
Beaver hats were made in various styles as a matter of civil status:
*the Wellington (1820–40)
*the Paris beau (1815)
*the D'Orsay (1820)
*the Regent (1825)
*the clerical (18th century).
In addition, beaver hats were made in various styles as a matter of military status:
*the continental cocked hat (1776)
*Navy cocked hat (19th century)
*the Army shako (1837).
The popularity of the beaver hat declined in the early/mid-19th century as silk hats became more fashionable across Europe.
John By
Lieutenant-Colonel John By (7 August 1779 – 1 February 1836) was an English military engineer. He is best known for having supervised the construction of the Rideau Canal and for having founded Bytown in the process. It developed and was des ...
(1779-1836)
Image:Edward Arthur Walton - The Beaver Hat.jpg, Edward Arthur Walton
Edward Arthur Walton (15 April 1860 in Glanderston House, Barrhead, Renfrewshire – 18 March 1922 in Edinburgh) was a Scottish painter of landscapes and portraits, associated with the Düsseldorf school of painting.
Life
Edward was one o ...
– ''The Beaver Hat''
References
External links
{{DEFAULTSORT:Beaver Hat 16th-century fashion 17th-century fashion 18th-century fashion 19th-century fashion Hats Fur Beavers Fur trade