For offer, a nice old advertising tradecard lot. Fresh from an estate in Upstate / Western  NY. Never offered on the market until now. Vintage, Old, antique, Original - NOT a Reproduction - Guaranteed !! Nice graphics. Beautiful, rich color lithograph / chromolithograph printing. "New and attractive goods" - ribbons, lace, ruchings, ornaments, hats, gloves, hair ornaments, corsets, collars, etc. etc.  Measures 5 1/2 x 3 7/8 inches. In very good condition. Lower rh corner blightly bumped, and upper lh corner as well - nothing too major. Please see photos for details. If you collect Americana advertisement ad, 19th century American history, Victorian trade card related, fashion, interior decorating, floral, etc., this is one you will not see again soon. A nice piece for your paper or ephemera collection. Perhaps some genealogy research information as well. Combine shipping on multiple bid wins!  02015

Hatmaking or millinery is the design, manufacture and sale of hats and head-wear. A person engaged in this trade is called a milliner or hatter.

Millinery is sold to women, men and children, though some definitions limit the term to women's hats.[1] Historically, milliners, typically female shopkeepers, produced or imported an inventory of garments for men, women, and children, and sold these garments in their millinery shop. More recently, the term milliner has evolved to describe a person who designs, makes, sells or trims hats primarily for a female clientele. The origin of the term is probably the Middle English milener, meaning an inhabitant of the city of Milan or one who deals in items from Milan,[2] known for its fashion and clothing.

Types

Main article: List of headgear

Many styles of headgear have been popular through history and worn for different functions and events. They can be part of uniforms or worn to indicate social status. Styles include the top hat, hats worn as part of military uniforms, fedora, cowboy hat, and cocktail hat.

Women's hats

A great variety of objects are or formerly were used as trimmings on women's fashionable hats: see Trim (sewing)#See also.

In former times use of colorful bird feathers and wings and tails and whole stuffed birds as hat trimmings led to the formation of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB).

Link to images and descriptions of hats trimmed with birds

This link, with references to 1880s newspaper issues, describes as ornaments on fashionable hats, bird feathers, and stuffed birds and other small animals, and fruit, flowers, ribbons and lace. It says that in 1889 in London and Paris, over 8,000 women were employed in millinery, and in 1900 in New York, some 83,000 people, mostly women. It also described a fashion for stuffed kittens' heads as hat ornaments in or around 1883 in Paris (France), often posed looking out from among foliage and feathers, to the point where some people were reported to breed kittens for the millinery trade.[3]