Museum offers hat-making class for upcoming 1835 celebration

Period costumes from the 1830s will be shown at the Aiken County Historical Museum at Banksia through Jan. 10.

The exhibit will demonstrate various articles of clothing typical of those worn by Aiken residents at the time that the town was officially founded by charter in 1835. The founding and history of Aiken are the focal points of the 2010 yearlong celebration recently announced by the City's Celebrate Aiken Committee.

On display at the museum will be dresses and hats common to the times, and patterns for interested seamstresses, as well as information about the basic tenets behind the styles of that period.

The styles varied among the various classes of women, according to their means, but every woman strove to be fashionable in her own way. For instance, hats were "quite gaudy," said Mary White, director of education at the museum, adding that women adorned their hats with feathers, flowers and other bric-a-brac.

White noted that all of the hats on exhibit are for sale, and others will soon be available for purchase at the Museum Gift Shop in the $40 range.

Also available at the museum will be handouts on how to adapt modern clothing to become 1830s-style garments and how to make and decorate an 1835-appropriate hat for Aiken residents to wear to some of the Celebrate Aiken events.

There will also be a handout listing sources for purchasing period clothing.

Those who wish to make their own hats for the upcoming 175th anniversary of Aiken celebration may attend a workshop at the museum on Saturday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.

Materials required are an inexpensive straw hat with a brim at least 4 to 5 inches wide; three-quarters of a yard of fabric such as moiré, cotton, broadcloth or other fabric that is lightweight but not opaque.

In addition, workshop attendees should bring heavy duty thread and a needle, glue gun and glue sticks, if available, plus 2¬½ yards of wide ribbon for the bow, and decorations of feathers, flowers or other adornments.

To register for the workshop, call Tommie Culligan at 641-6777; registration will be limited to 15 participants.

White said that the Museum display and workshop have been developed to complement Celebrate Aiken and are excellent examples of how the County and City are working together on a common project. "We need more projects that cross over, where we work together," she stated.

The kickoff event of Celebrate Aiken on Jan. 9 will be the first quartoseptocentennial (175th) event of the year. On that date, parts of Downtown Aiken will revert to 1835, with interpreters in period clothing demonstrating how everyday activities were done during that time.

A free, family event, the kickoff celebration will feature venues to exhibit and experience entertainment, food, the arts, education and home life. Visitors will witness potters, spinner, a cheese maker, broom maker, blacksmith, basket maker, rope maker, a medicine show and a flea circus, and various other interpreters all working at their trades.

A full schedule will be released closer to the date.

Questions and offers to volunteer may be directed to Tommie Culligan, special events co-chair, at 641-6777.