January 15th is National Hat Day! Make sure to don your favorite cap, bonnet, fedora, derby, tuque, or whatever you like to wear on your head. Hats in history have served a variety of purposes such as sun protection, warmth, social status, to hide a bad hair day, and for fashion. For today, Jared letterpress printed an image from a very thin lead electrotype from the Lewis Winter Collection. Lewis Winter, who had a wood and photo engraving office on 627 J Street in Sacramento from 1888 to 1910, designed a lot of cuts of clothing items for local newspapers and magazines. This cut, which was never mounted on a block of wood to make it type high and likely hasn’t been printed until now, depicts a man (almost Napoleonic in appearance) wearing a giant bicorn felt hat. This was printed with purple rubber base ink using our Washington hand press.
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