Hats Off to Brownie

Forty-ish and slightly stooped, Brownie steadied his box camera on the platform he built for it and adjusted the clip-on reflecting finder. He tapped the new accessory. It was a vast improvement over the V-shaped sighting lines on the original Kodak model that he bought the year before, in 1900.

“Aye,” he stood as straight as he could. “Good shot.”

After checking the bright overcast sky for its even light, he bent over again. Holding his breath, he released the shutter and took a picture of the rubble that, until the night before, had been a hat factory—his only means of income—until a fire destroyed it. Shattered brick walls looked as if they were stained with blood, not simply soaked with water. A sense of accomplishment—documenting its death—mitigated his anger. He swallowed hard as he looked toward the Still River, lined with similar sweatshops. It ran whatever color the hat factories were dyeing that day.

He saw red. Orange actually. He looked from the river to his stained hands. He worked as a carroter. His job was to wash rabbit and beaver fur in an orange-colored mercury nitrate bath that separated fur from pelt, then shrank, matted, and felted it. Because of the chemical, however, he had started to develop the Danbury Shakes, the local idiom for erethism merculialis—mercury poisoning, Mad Hatters’ Disease.

The men at the factories knew about it. So did the state board of health. But as long as it didn’t affect the general public, nobody did anything. That’s what made him angry. The itching, burning, and peeling skin, loss of hair and teeth, sweating, asthma, slurred speech, dizziness, mental confusion, and hand tremors. He already had the tremors. Exposure, the union warned, also caused irritability, timidity, and difficulty in getting along with people. But since he’d been socially awkward his whole life, he couldn’t blame hat making for that.

“Ah dinnae know,” he said aloud, shaking his head and pounding one orange fist into the other. He didn’t know what he would do next.

But there was a lot he did know.

He knew that Danbury was the designing and manufacturing hub for hats. The factories along the Still River supplied more than a quarter of all the hats purchased in America in the early 1900s.

He also knew his father had moved to Danbury and its booming hat industry as a means of lifting the family out of poverty. True, they were better off than in Scotland, but at what price? His father died when he wasn’t even 50—his mother, who worked long hours in the binding room, a few years later. His older brother swore off hatting and moved to West Virginia to mine coal. His younger brother joined the railroad. He knew that life was hard.

But more than anything, he knew he loved his Kodak Brownie. It freed him from drudgery. He especially liked taking pictures of fires, floods, and wrecks. Disasters. Documenting the events that changed people’s lives. Maybe now that the factory burned down, he could spend more time doing what he loved. Film was cheap, but where would he get money to pay for his keep at the boarding house? Already, he lived a sparse life.

“Boggin,” he muttered wiping his hands on his jacket. The situation was a dilemma. Brownie jumped when a young woman’s husky voice disrupted his thoughts.

“Scuse me, Mista?”

He swung around to see a dark-skinned woman with neatly coiffed hair framing a handsome oval face and clear ebony eyes.

“Sorry, Mista. Didn’t mean ta scare ya.”

“No. No. That’s okay.” Wrapping his left hand around his right to quell the tremors, he looked at his hands. Then at his camera. Then at the rubble. Anything to avoid making eye contact. Was he shaking because his job had gone up in smoke? Or because of the Shakes? Or because a young woman had spoken to him? He wasn’t accustomed to anyone taking an interest in him, especially a woman, especially a Negro woman. When he dared to glance, he noticed she wore a simple blue frock.

“Is that a camera?” She asked.

“Aye. It is. I’m, eh, yeah, taking a picture.”

“I never seen a camera up close before.” She carefully placed her packages on the sidewalk and dipped her chin in a polite curtsy. “Pardon my manners. I’m Katherine Butler. Live up on Clapboard Ridge. Nelson Butler’s my daddy. I just come into town for provisions.”

“Please…pleased to, eh, meet you,” Brownie stammered. His hands jerked between the camera and his pockets while his eyes darted everywhere except on the young woman standing there. He knew of the Butlers. Mr. Butler was a free man of color from New York who owned a few acres up on the ridge. Married a former slave. Had a dozen kids. But he’d never had reason to talk to any of them. “I’m, eh, Brownie… well that’s what everyone calls me. Everyone thinks it’s because of this.”

He picked his box camera from its platform and cradled it. It had cost him a dollar, which included film and processing. A hundred years later, that would be $31—a bargain at any price for the freedom it gave him. He took snapshots—that’s what George Eastman called the cheap, popular pictures.

“My mother nicknamed me Brownie on account of my red hair and darker skin.” He paused to notice how pale it was in comparison to Miss Butler’s. “Brownies are like leprechauns,” he quickly added. “Except they’re Scottish.”

“Pleased to meet you, Mister Brownie.”

“Sorry. No. I mean, actually it’s Martin,” he continued before drifting off too far. “Martin MacDonald. My family’s from up on Brushy Hill.”

“If I’m not too presumptuous, Mister Brownie MacDonald, can you show me how your…camera… makes pictures? I just graduated from the Danbury Normal School,” Miss Butler paused and stood a little straighter. Confident, Brownie noted, proud and strong. But not too proud and strong. “I excelled in the art of teaching and drawing, making pictures.”

Though flustered, Brownie was relieved to talk about the love of his life. He went through the mechanics of his leatherette-covered card box with a wooden film carrier and detachable film-winding key. “It’s a simple camera with a very dependable shutter.” He demonstrated by taking another picture of the wreckage of his life. “When I bring the film in to be processed, they print me 2¼-inch square pictures for 40 cents each. And then I get another roll of film for 15 cents.”

Miss Butler examined the camera, as if memorizing its intricate workings. After a few minutes, she straightened her short frame and nodded.

“Thank you for your kindness, Mister Brownie.” As the young woman hoisted her parcels into her arms, a ray of sunshine broke through the clouds. She raised her jaw, imperceptibly smiled, and spoke softly as if quoting a biblical verse. “O blest with temper whose unclouded ray can make to-morrow cheerful as today.” With that, she continued on her journey.

Tomorrow cheerful? He stood straighter and vowed in that unclouded ray to never return to hat making. He got himself a Mallory fedora, though, and earned a meager living as a deliveryman for the Danbury Evening News. In time, his temper was blessed, his shakes calmed, and a few of his pictures appeared in print to document the local disasters that changed his—and  his neighbors’—lives.

***

This is a work of fiction, but the history of hatting in Danbury, the Danbury Shakes, the Kodak Brownie, and Katherine Butler are real.

The Hat City

Picture postcard of a hat factory in Danbury (postmarked 1911)

The process of “sizing” or shrinking the hats from the article “Danbury Leads the World in Hatting” by J. Moss Ives

Kodak Brownie

According to the Brownie Camera Page, Kodak named its camera the Brownie to appeal to children and the then-popular cartoon of the Brownies.  The device was the mass-marketing genius of film manufacturer George Eastman. He correctly predicted that an inexpensive camera in every home meant lots and lots of film would be sold and processed. He pretty much created the snapshot.

Katherine Butler

In 1903, John Perkins established the Danbury Normal School, which is what teacher colleges were originally called because they taught “norms.” It evolved into Western Connecticut State University, my alma mater. Among the first class of students in 1906 was the 19 year old Katherine Butler.

According to the WestConn archives, Butler’s racial background and application was no different from other students in the class. 

Diplomas were awarded to “A student who had maintained a standard of conduct befitting a teacher, attained the required standard of scholarship in every prescribed subject, exhibited a fair degree of skill in teaching and governing children, passed the state examination and secured at least an elementary certificate.” 

According to the archives, “In Butler’s two years at the Normal School, Butler excelled in drawing and ‘the art of teaching.’”

These pictures are from the yearbook.