Sunbonnets

Photos taken inside the Hobart Historical Society museum.

In honor of yesterday's sunbonnet-wearing woman, here are a couple of sunbonnets on display in the museum.


(Click on images to enlarge)

They look much the worse for wear — as you might expect, since sunbonnets were work clothes, and on the head of a woman who worked a farm or garden, or washed or hung clothes to dry outdoors, the bonnet would have spent hours under the glare of the sun, wet with sweat, blown about by the wind, speckled by dust and insects until it had to be washed and then hung out on the line to dry … in the sun and the wind.

Yes, these could have been costume bonnets made expressly for the 1947 centennial festivities, but that checked one is so badly faded that I'm inclined to think it was a working bonnet.

It appears to be fashioned with a blend of hand- and machine-stitching.