Danbury Hatters Project Papers

The hatting industry thrived in Danbury in part due to the available natural resources and proximity to major transportation and population centers. Danbury was the largest producer of hats in the United States in 1800 and was home to around 30 factories in 1887 producing millions of hats each year. At first most hats were made by hand. Raw materials were wetted in large vats of hot water and then molded or formed. Eventually machines replaced much of the significant manual labor involved.

Between the 1890s and 1920s, labor unrest and market changes caused significant declines in the industry and by the mid-1960s the Danbury hatting industry had disappeared.

The Danbury Hatter's Biographical Project began in 1982 as a class assignment in the Introduction to Historical Research class at Western Connecticut State University. It was stimulated by the discovery in the Danbury Land Records, Grantee Index, Book 122-130, of a list of approximately 200 members of the United Hatters of North American AFL who had their property placed under liens in the September 1903 "Hatters Case"(Dietrich Loewe v. Martin Lawler (Secretary of the Union)). In 1902, the hatters’ union instituted a nationwide boycott of the hats made by a nonunion company. The case ultimately went to the Supreme Court that ruled unanimously that a secondary boycott by a labor union was an illegal conspiracy in restraint of trade and violated the Sherman Anti-Trust Act. Most of these liens were not lifted until 1917 when the United Hatters paid the $240,000 damages imposed by the Court.

Dr. Herbert Janick, the teacher of the course at Western, felt that this list of union members presented a dual opportunity for students to learn to use local history sources in their research, and for historians to learn more about the kind of people who made up the principal occupation in Danbury. Consequently, each year, for seventeen years, every student in the research course was assigned one of the union members caught in the Danbury Hatter's case. They were asked to examine seven basic sources: (1) The Land Records to find out the circumstances of buying and selling the home that was attached, (2) Probate Court Records, (3) Vital Statistics, (4) Manuscript Census, (5) City Directories, (6) Danbury News-Times Obituaries, and (7) Appropriate maps. In addition, students were urged to be creative in finding other sources such as cemetery records, school records, oral history, etc.

Sources:

• Danbury Museum & Historical Society. "Hatting." [http://www.danburyhistorical.org/Hatting.html]
• Bailey, J.M. (1896). History of Danbury: 1684-1896. New York: Burr Printing House.