The historical society in the town where I grew up fired the long-time museum curator (man) and hired what I am guessing is a woman to run the program because the nature of the programs being offered has changed. They used to have lectures about the local cigar industry in the early 1900s, farming, and other topics relevant to the history in that area. Now the programs are more about fashion and clothing, for example next week is a workshop on how to make an Edwardian Hat.



Looking at the size of those hats, I would say the $40 fee is very reasonable. It's not something I would sign up for, but it has gotten me thinking about what my small town would have been like in that time period - 1900 to 1910 is when King Edward ruled, but one article I read says that the Edwardian Society in England was from the mid-1890s to when WWI broke out in 1914.

Here are the topics on that website, which I think provides an outline of what was going on and helps to place it in our minds.

Link:Edwardian Fashion

Dating the Edwardian Era
Influence Of King Edward VII on Edwardian High Society
The Marlborough Set
Edwardian High Living Above Real Means
The Lost Golden Age - The Edwardians
Nothing Succeeds Like Excess
Edwardian Social Codes for Taking Lovers
Edwardian Cutting
Unmarried Edwardian Girls
Projecting Body Image - Putting up the Hair
Coming Out into Edwardian High Society
The Edwardian London Summer Season
Being Presented at Court - Debutantes Coming Out
Entertaining King Edward VII
Edwardian Society Menus
The Edwardian Shooting Party

So my grandmother, who was born in Ballston Spa, New York and moved with the family to Colorado when she was 3 years old, grew up in that small town where the hat workshop is going to be held, and graduated from the University of Colorado in 1916 was a lovely young lady of the Edwardian era, such as it was in the midwestern United States. It is hard to picture her wearing one of those hats, but I'm sure she must have.

Now that I am thinking about her young life, I am wondering if she was pregnant when they got married. One time my dad was showing me old family photographs, there was one of his mother in her wedding dress, and he said she was pregnant when that was taken. At the time I thought she was modeling it for the photograph some time after the wedding, but I guess it could have been at the time of the wedding. Maybe some day I'll research it. Doesn't matter now, it's just interesting considering that her snooty upstate New York brothers, who were quite a bit older, thought she'd married beneath her and never let her husband forget it. He drank to forget his sorrows, and drank himself to death around age 50.