In true Wednesday fashion, weâre getting a little weird today! If you havenât read our other Weird Wednesdays, you can find the whole series here. For now, letâs head to Laddâs Addition to check out a turn of the century museum all about headgear â weâre taking a look at the Hat Museum!
Have you ever taken a minute to think about how many different styles of hats and headwear human beings have created over the years? Itâs mind-blowing.
And the Portland Hat Museum has practically every iteration. Director Lu Ann Trotebas currently oversees the collection of nearly 2,300 hats accumulated over the years.
âMy passion for collecting hats is in the desire to preserve hat fashions and their cultural heritage before these precious, historical gems disappear with the passage of time,â Lu Ann says. âThe museum houses a curated collection of hats and serves as a research and resource depository for theatrical productions, colleges and universities, historical societies, television studios, as well as other museums and hat enthusiasts. We have received research inquiries from around the world, and have most recently completed work on a project with the New York Historical Society.â
The museum itself is in the historic Ladd-Reingold House in the Laddâs Addition neighborhood, Portland’s first planned residential development built in 1905 (The house itself is worthy of a Weird Wednesday feature given its eccentricities and quirky strangeness.)
âBesides the strange design of the house which includes pocket doors, a secret hiding place, doors hung backwards and a dumbwaiter, there are more obvious eccentricities, like the giant-sized mermaid painted on the dining room ceiling.â
The Reingolds themselves were quite the characters as well, and Rebecca Reingold became a womanâs hat-maker â a milliner â and was the original hat collector of the home. Then in the 1970s, Alyce Cornyn-Selby, purchased the home and discovered a huge collection of hats that Rebecca had collected. Pairing her own passion for hats with Reingoldâs collection, she opened the National Hat Museum. As of February of 2020, the museum is now run by Lu Ann, a family friend.
What kinds of hats are you likely to find inside the museum? The answer is all of them.
âVintage, menâs, womenâs, Victorian, Edwardian, silly, novelty, retro, and international,â Atlas Obscura writes. âAlso featured in the museum is movie memorabilia, some rare designer hats, and for those that just arenât that easily impressed, a Thanksgiving table hat that sings.â
Although the museum is still closed due to the pandemic, (keep your eyes on their website for when things start to reopen), there are ways to still support this beautiful piece of Portlandâs weird history. Make a cash donation (both for hats and monies), or send them an email at [email protected] (or call âem at 503-319-0799). The Hat Museum is interested in partnering for outreach events so if you are involved with an organization and want to help, reach out!
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