From undies to top hats
Visitor Information Centre staff raids Alberton museum’s attic again
There has been a bit of a change at the Alberton Art and Heritage Centre’s Visitor Information Centre.
Earlier this summer staff at the centre raided the attic area at the Alberton Museum to put together a display of women’s undergarments from the 1800s: bloomers, pantalets, knickers, etc. Pardon the pun, but the display got lots of exposure.
“I could have a different display every week of the year,” Isabel Delaney gushed about the variety of items stored away in the attic.
This time, though, she settled on hats. She did some research so she could give visitors more to reflect upon while viewing the display.
For instance, she learned the meaning behind the expression, “mad as a hatter.” Hat makers, she discovered, used mercury in making felt, and the mercury caused brain damage.
Taxis were built taller so men wouldn’t have to remove their hats, and people ran the risk of being beaten up if they wore straw hats after Sept. 15. They switched to felt hats after Sept. 15, or else.
“I always liked top hats,” Delaney said.
They remind her, she said of Frosty the Snowman and magic. She learned, though, that the first person known to have worn a top hat, at the end of the 18th century, got arrested, because people were scared of it.
A beaver pelt top hat, sitting on a hatbox with the name J.K. Fraser on the box, is a focal
point of the display. Delaney said she discovered the hat belonged to a Presbyterian minister, John Kier Fraser.
The Alberton Arts and Heritage Centre where the hat display is located, is a former Presbyterian Church where Fraser had served as minister. Delaney points to a worn spot
on the brim of the hat. That, she said, would have been caused by the minister “tipping his hat” to those he met. She also learned that the minister had taught renowned Island author L.M Montgomery when she was 10.
“All over a hat,” she said in marveling over what a tour of a museum attic has led to.