WETHERSFIELD, CT. (WFSB) – While Danbury is known as the Hat City of the World, Wethersfield has its own claim to headwear fame through a woman who turned local grass into a thriving bonnet business.
Sophia Woodhouse was born in Wethersfield in 1799. She and her family lived on Main Street in town, and she would go to the meadows to pick grass. But what she did with the grass was groundbreaking.
“She went and picked the grass and discovered a method of turning it into beautiful bonnets,” said Gillie Johnson, Wethersfield Historical Society. “And in 1819 she entered the Hartford Agricultural Society’s Cattle Show and Fair and displayed a bonnet that dazzled people and what was popular at the time were Leghorn bonnets from Italy, and people said her bonnet was just as good if not better than those bonnets.”
The process of turning grass into bonnets was intricate and time-consuming.
“It was a very specific part of the grass that she had to use so there were other parts of the grass that would not be used in the bonnet and then it had to be boiled and after it was boiled it was dried, fumigated, braided, fumigated again and then pressed and then voila, you have your bonnet,” added Johnson.
Sophia Woodhouse turned her bonnet making into a business, creating a cottage industry. She is known today as one of the first female entrepreneurs of the greater Hartford area, even earning a patent for her design in 1821.
In 1822, she and two of her sisters, Harriet and Mary, opened a business called Gurdon-Wells and Co.
“So Gurdon-Wells was Sophia’s husband but the supervising of the work was to be done by her and her sisters so even though the company’s in her husband’s name she and her sisters are the ones who really directed it,” Johnson said. “And they were looking for girls 12-18 years old to help them make bonnets.”
While it wasn’t uncommon for women to braid grass and straw bonnets, Sophia achieved success because hers were high-quality.
“People were so impressed by her bonnet that a guy named Lorenzo Bull buys the bonnet and then sends it to his brother Marcus, who was living in London. And Marcus has it displayed at various places and someone from the Royal Society sees it and was like oh wow this could be great for us because we spend so much money importing bonnets from Leghorn from Italy, so wouldn’t it be great if we could figure out how this woman made this amazing bonnet and do it here so that way the money’s staying here in England rather than going to Italy so they told Sophia they’d give her medal and a cash prize if she would tell them how she made her bonnets and so she did,” continued Johnson,
Two first ladies, Dolley Madison and Louisa Adams, wore her design. President John Quincy Adams called the bonnets “an extraordinary specimen of American manufacturing.”
While Sophia did get married, she is known by her name, not her husband’s, because of her ingenuity and news coverage.
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