The fur trade goes back into the mists of time. Animal skins were a useful source of warm and durable clothing, and back before the human population swelled and fur animals were hunted to the scarcity and even extinction, the supply must have seemed inexhaustible. Even so, by the 17th Century most European populations were severely diminished, and the eyes of European traders turned to the United States. In particular, traders wanted beaver pelts, not for the pelt or even the leather, but for the fur. Beaver fur provided the highest quality felt for hat making. It is tight yet supple, and holds its shape.

Hats, like other forms of dress,  played a large role in reflecting one’s social  identity.  The shape and style of one’s hat indicated to a passerby one’s profession, wealth, and social rank and position.  Color, shape, and material all carried specific meaning.  In Ecclesiastical heraldry, for example, a red, wide-brimmed hat clearly  indicated that its wearer was a cardinal, and  interactions required a specific social protocol.  In  seventeenth century England, the shape and style of one’s hat reflected political and religious affiliation.  Due  to the expense of a beaver hat, being able to purchase one made a visual statement about one’s wealth and social status. [A brief history of the beaver trade: https://humwp.ucsc.edu/cwh/feinstein/]

Felt is made by applying heat and pressure to a collection of fibres, and beaver fur is particularly suited for felting because of the way the strands of fur stick together. The following video shows the way the process has worked for the past 100 years. It was much harder before the fancy machines.

Back then, the guard hairs were plucked from the pelt by hand, then mercury was brushed over the pelt to roughen the fibre and help each hair to stick to the next. The pelt was dried and then shaved.

The resulting fluff was mixed and then carded. Carding is a process of raking to get all the fibres running in the same direction. Next, the hatter weighed out the quantity of fluff he needed for a particular style of hat.

The fluff then went through a process called bowing to begin the process of sticking all the fibres together. The object was to create two large oval sheets about 4 feet long, 3 feet wide and 6 to 12 inches high, called batts. Now the hatter used heat, pressure (from his hands), and moisture to compress this batt. The process released mercury, which the hatter absorbed. Over time, hatters developed mercury poisoning, which is where we get the phrase, mad as a hatter. By the time this part of the process ends, the two batts have been put back together into a large cone, as you saw in the video.

Then comes planking–dipping the cone into a very hot solution of diluted sulfuric acid, beer-grounds and wine sediments, then working it by hand on planks around the kettle and doing it all over again until the felt was half its size.

After that came blocking, dying, stiffening, brushing, and lining, till at last the hat was ready for the market. The shape of hats changed according to fashion (some of which are explored in the following video). The process remains much the same, except without the mercury poisoning.