Images(2)

Bonnet

Date1790-1840

OriginAmerica, Virginia

MediumLinen, wood (possibly bamboo)

DimensionsHeight: 11.5 inches Length: 10.25 inches

Credit LineGift of The Valentine Museum, Richmond, VA

Object number2023-50

DescriptionSmall linen child bonnet with ten slats inserted into channels to help hold the bonnets shape. One eyelet is worked on either side of the last channel stitched for the wood inserts and one eyelet is work at the top of the bonnet. Remains of two ties sit along the interior lower slat on each side of the face. It is unknown if the current method the ribbon is attached is how it was used in the period.
Label TextStarting in the late 18th century, children often wore bonnets to portect their faces from the harmful rays of the sun. In 1795 Benjamin Henry Latrobe, drew a family in Oaks, Virginia wearing similar style bonnets. Likewise in 1795, Isaac Weld notes a similar site in his Travels through the states of North America, "The common people in the lower parts of Virginia have very sallow complexions, owing to the burning rays of the sun in summer, and the bilious complaints to which they are subject in the fall of the year. The women are far from being comely, and the dresses which they wear out of doors to guard them from the sun, make them appear still more ugly than nature has formed them. There is a kind of bonnet very commonly worn which in particular disfigures them amazingly. It is made with a caul, fitting close on the back part of the head and a front stiffened with small pieces of cane, which projects nearly two feet from the head in a horizontal direction. To look at a person at one side, it is necessary for a woman wearing a bonnet of this kind to turn her whole body around."
ProvenanceNotes from The Valentine suggest that this bonnet was passed down through the Briggs family of Virginia. The Briggs family lived in South Hampton, Virginia during the 18th century and moved to Sussex and Greensville, Virginia in the early 19th century.