Question? What does a bonnet 'a la gabrielle' style look like?

[Hank Trent]

Re: Question? What does a bonnet 'a la gabrielle' style look like?

It may be that the color means nothing. Though if it didn't have a symbolic meaning, it was also being used exactly at a time when black and white were considered a fashionable combination.

"MEMPHIS DAILY APPEAL [MEMPHIS, TN], February 3, 1861, p. 2, c. 8
Bonnets have not undergone much change in form since last month. The mixture of black and white is still very fashionable, although colors are rather gaining favor." Source

"In the trmming of bonnets, the mingling of black and white, with or without the addition of colours, has latterly been much in vogue in Paris." The Draper and Clothier, 1860

If you do wear something totally different, be sure to carry a copy of the original text in your hat, because plenty of folks will question your authenticity if it strays far from the norm.

I'd say it depends on the kind of event. If it's about showing off clothing and talking about it from a modern perspective, sure. If it's about trying to be accurate overall, it seems like a gratuitous inaccuracy to be carrying a modern paper in your hat during an event. Beforehand, if there's an inspection or anything, it might be useful.

Hank Trent
hanktrent@gmail.com

[Hank Trent]

Re: Question? What does a bonnet 'a la gabrielle' style look like?

Ah ha! I think Tom Arliskas nailed it.

"...as an illustration of the condition of public feeling after the attack on Fort Sumter, I insert the following incident: In April [Timothy Webster] was traveling by railroad from Winchester west, and observed in the car six commissioners or emissaries from South Carolina and Georgia, each of them wearing conspicuously a black and white cockade. They received marked attention from the passengers, and from the people at the stations..." To make a long story short, he bullies them off the train by repeatedly announcing "Hurrah for Andrew Jackson and damn all traitors who wear cockades!" Harper's Magazine, 1868.

Another example, reported later:

"Mrs. Warne displayed upon her breast, as did many of the ladies of Baltimore, the black and white cockade, which had been temporarily adopted as the emblem of secession... " The Spy of the Rebellion, Allan Pinkerton, 1883)

So it looks like black and white were at least one of the color combinations of secession at the beginning.

Hank Trent
hanktrent@gmail.com

[csuniforms]

Re: Question? What does a bonnet 'a la gabrielle' style look like?

Well, just to be a little noise from the corner of the room, I don't think that the colors mean much at all. Although many magazines of the time simply copied text from other magazines and articles, some were so totally different that you'd never think they were written in the same year. Sometimes being the different, and "saying" it was the latest fashion from flubdub land, you'd read something so unusual that people believed it to be the latest trend. After all, they were there to sell magazines, not really publish accurate news. Modern magazines do the same thng.

If you do wear something totally different, be sure to carry a copy of the original text in your hat, because plenty of folks will question your authenticity if it strays far from the norm.

I agree with your statement that dont believe everything you read in the newspapers or magazines. In this case, the Secession Bonnet-- the one we are talking about here was for sale in Charleston before the Fort Sumter firing. It did make a splash!! As far as carrying around your research when wearing an odd piece of clothing-- kind and color and style-- that would be fun to pull out your research and say here it is-- and then say can I see yours? Kind of Catty huh... But I do know that this has happened in certain circles and once you have proven you do your research-- after that they usually leave you alone.

Tom Arliskas
CSuniforms