Two Tales of Pointy Hats

Clothes supposedly make the man, and once upon a time, a musician's wardrobe made a particular fashion statement. An extravagant formal uniform was a visible mark of a bandsman's special occupation and a measure of his group's success and popularity. Today I present some old photos of well-dressed bandsmen who wear tall pointy hats, once considered the elite headgear for a musician. They all have a story to tell.

My first tale begins with a small ferrotype, i.e. tintype, of a piccolo player wearing a tall hat with a top spike about 4 inches long and a light color frock coat with three rows of brass buttons. As his white shirt collar is visible and contrasts with the coat's material, I think his uniform has a cream or yellow pastel color. Though the image is not very clear, his instrument appears to be a wooden piccolo, though it is also the same length as a simple fife.

The photo is unusual because it's been preserved in its original paper envelope frame. On the back is a date, Sep. 9. 1889 and a stamp of the photographer:

Quartley's 
Baltimore
Photograph
Gallery
11 E. Baltimore St.

Baltimore Sun
19 October 1889

The photographer advertised in the Baltimore Sun newspaper, but for cabinet photographs, not tintypes. The price was $1 for 6 "nice cabinet photographs" or $2 for 13 "finely finished ones." Though ferrotypes required some time for developing, they were not mounted on card stock but simply inserted into paper matte envelopes. I suspect since the quality was not as sophisticated the  photographer charged much less than for fine cabinets. Each image is unique as the ferrotype metal sheet becomes its own "positive" photo, no duplicates can be made. Usually they are a mirror image but some cameras had lens adaptors with prisms or mirrors to correct the image as a realistic view. That is the case here, as the musician holds his piccolo in the proper manner and the center button seam on his coat is oriented to the right side. 

The young man looks maybe age 18 to 24, though the hat makes him appear older. The bright emblem on his spiked hat could be the eagle with shield pattern used in the U.S.  Army and State Militias, but it is too blurred to see more than a shape. His tall hat was an American style introduced in the 1880s that borrowed its design from the British custodian hat and added a Prussian spike and helmet plate. 

Germany did not become a unified nation until 1871, but Prussian military uniforms were  admired and imitated by many countries around the world. Bands in particular chose this hat style because when plumes were attached it caught the attention of the public as the band marched. 

Though we don't know his name, the penciled date on the envelope of September 9, 1889 is the clue to the occasion that caused this musician to be in a dress uniform. It was on this day that the city of Baltimore opened the Maryland Exposition in celebration of the anniversary of the successful defense of Baltimore during America's second war with Great Britain, the War of 1812-15.

Raleigh NC News and Observer
3 September 1889

The festival lasted six days and began on September 9th with a "Baltimore Industrial and Civic Procession "of "200 floats and 50,000 uniformed men in line."  Latter on the 13th 5,000 troops of the U.S. Army and State Militias staged a reenactment of the Battle of North Point along with a mock bombardment of Fort McHenry by eight U.S. Navy warships. 500 Floating Torpedoes! 500 Bomb Shells" 3,000 Rockets! 100 Search Lights! Visitors even got to watch a ship on fire and a munitions magazine explode at the fortress! 

And amidst all the bombs and rockets there were "50 Bands of Music and a Grand Vocal Concert of 5,000 Voices" to add some musical culture to the spectacle. 

One of the tunes surely sung by that gigantic chorus was "The Star Spangled Banner." Its lyrics were written by a Maryland lawyer and amateur poet, Francis Scott Key. who witnessed the 25 hour long bombardment of Fort McHenry by Royal Navy ships during the Battle of Baltimore on 14 September 1814. But Key's words would never have become famous without the musical inspiration of his brother-in-law, Joseph H. Nicholson. After Key showed him the poem, Nicholson recognized that its metre pattern fit a melody used in "The Anacreontic Song" by English composer John Stafford Smith. This tune was composed in about 1783 for the Anacreontic Society, an 18th-century gentlemen's club of amateur musicians in London. Several versions of the "Banner" were already well-known in 19th century America, and in 1889, perhaps for this event, one was adopted as the national anthem of the U.S. Navy. In 1916 President Woodrow Wilson ordered a special committee of five eminent musicians and composers to standardize the musical arrangement, (It is notoriously difficult to sing), but "The Star Spangled Banner" did not become the official anthem of the United States until 1931.

The Baltimore festival/exposition had numerous events planned with many speakers including the newly-elected President of the United Sates, Benjamin Harrison, who traveled up from Washington, D. C. to review the gala parade which opened the festival. A few days before, the paper published a long list of every person and organization that would participate in the parade. 

Baltimore Sun
9 September 1889

There were six "divisions" in the parade beginning with the entry of various dignitaries and grand marshals, descendants of veterans of the War of 1812, and numerous delegations of the Grand Army of the Republic who were union army veterans of the Civil War of 1861-1865. Interspersed in this enormous parade were hundreds of floats, many depicting the battle for Baltimore in 1814. The second division followed with companies of volunteer firemen from around the region which connected to the third division of even more firemen from the city of Baltimore, all of them marching in formation with their uniforms, hooks, ladders, and water pumps. The fourth division featured dozens of secret and benevolent societies with illustrative floats and  long companies of "knights" in fancy uniforms and with ceremonial swords. In the fifth division came Baltimore's German-American community represented by German singing societies, German athletic groups, German breweries, and German-American business groups. Finally the sixth division finished the parade with sundry trade unions and workers associations who would return a few days later for another parade of Baltimore laborers.  

And since you can't have a parade without music, there were bands. Lots and lots of bands. In the newspaper's list I counted over 23 bands and 11 drum corps but I feel certain there were many more. Some were attached to "state militia" or national guard regiments. Several fraternal societies had professional quality bands and often included a drum corps just to set the march cadence. 

The premier ensemble was the Unites States Marine Band which in 1889 was led by an up-and-coming composer named John Philip Sousa. Only the year before in 1888 his famous march for the U.S. Marine Corps, "Semper Fidelis", was first introduced to the public and in 1889 two of his greatest marches, "The Thunderer" and "The Washington Post" had their first performances earlier in the year. So surely thousands of Baltimoreans and President Harrison got to hear these toe-tappers in the parade. 

To his credit the President gamely stood on the Baltimore grandstand for over four hours until the last parade unit had passed. Reportedly he returned a salute to every man, woman, and child that presented honors to him that day. Later that night Harrison returned to Washington as he probably had better things to do that week than visit industrial exhibits or watch mock battles with fireworks. I bet he fell asleep on the train dreaming of piccolos and drums. 

Baltimore Sun
6 September 1889

* * *

My second tale comes from two cabinet card portraits of two well-dressed clarinet players. They were companions purchased separately from a dealer who did not recognize that both bandsmen were wearing identical uniforms. The first man holds a little E-flat clarinet, the high treble voice of early brass and wind bands. He wears a dark color frock coat  with contrasting cuffs and frilly epaulets. On a faux studio pedestal is his tall spiked hat with a white horsehair plume. The  painted backdrop behind him depicts a Moorish garden with palm trees. There is no mark for a photographer on this photo but there is on his companion's portrait.

This bandsman stands with his clarinet at the ready, dressed in the same dark uniform, perhaps scarlet or green, with a the tall spiked hat on his head. His instrument is longer than the other clarinetist's E-flat, but I think it is shorter than a standard B-flat, which would make it a C clarinet. Based on the style of their uniforms, the two bandsmen are probably members of an Illinois National Guard band. In this era the number of regular soldiers in the United States Army was quite small. States were responsible for maintaining guard regiments which often employed professional bands to accompany the guard soldiers in parades or during their annual training duty.

The photographer was McCure of Dixon, Illinois, a small city on the Rock River about 100 miles west of Chicago. In the 1880s when this cabinet card photo was likely taken, Dixon had a population that was growing rapidly from 3,658 residents in the 1880 census to 5,161 in 1890, a 41.1% increase.  However this clarinet player ended up on the deficit side of the town's demographic statistics. Written in ink on the back of his photograph is a name and a fate.

Sam Legge
                           dead

Its an odd epithet to find on a photo. Sam obviously didn't write it himself but who did? A family descendant would likely add a relationship, i.e. "Uncle Sam Legge, grandma's brother" and maybe a full date of death. "Dead" seems too blunt for a family member. I think it was added by one of Sam's friends, a contemporary who was maybe another bandsman who possessed a full set of individual photos of each band member and annotated this man's name and earthly status as an aid to posterity.   

In any case, it didn't take long to find Sam Legge's name in the Dixon newspaper published on 7 January 1890.

Dixon IL Evening Telegraph
7 January 1890

               —Samuel W. Legge, died at the Keystone house in this  city last night at 9:20.  He was born twenty-four years ago in London.  He came to this city from Chicago last June  and being by trade a plumber has been employed by Appleford & Manard.  His parents, Mr. and Mrs. James Legge, have arrived from Chicago.  Death was caused by pneumonia.  Funeral to-morrow at two p.m. from St. Lukes' church.

That might have been the end of this sad tale except that this young Englishman's name appeared in several newspapers around the country that week, from Kansas to New York to Mississippi. The brief report noted that "Samuel (W.) Legge from London" died in Dixon, Illinois on 6 January 1890 of "la grippe", i.e. influenza. "This was the first fatal case in this city, although over 300 people are afflicted with the disease at present."

Samuel Legge was a victim of the 1889–1890 pandemic of a respiratory viral disease, sometimes called the "Asiatic flu" or "Russian flu" which killed about 1 million people worldwide. The pandemic was initially described in the 19th century as an influenza pathogen but more recent studies in the 21st century suggest it may have been caused by a human coronavirus. 

Rochester NY Democrat and Chronicle
9 January 1890

It supposedly began in May 1889 in the Central Asian city of Bukhara in the Russian Empire , now in modern Uzbekistan. The first case in North American was reported on 18 December 1889. Within days it quickly spread along the East Coast and westward to Chicago and Kansas. The first American death was reported on 25 December in Canton, Massachusetts. Before the end of the year cases were reported in San Francisco and other U.S. cities and from California this deadly virus spread to Mexico and South America, reaching Buenos Aires by 2 February 1890. The total death toll in the United States was around 13,000. 

St. Louis, MO Globe-Democrat
10 January 1890

Over the winter of 1889-90, newspapers reported on the surge of this virulent influenza, "la grippe" around the country and the world, regularly including the full names of individuals who succumbed to it. In the 19th century medical science did not yet understand how most diseases were transmitted, and epidemics of tropical diseases like malaria and yellow fever were common. Viruses did not begin to be identified until 1898 and wasn't until several decades later that scientists isolated them and determined their behavior in animals and humans. 

Chicago Tribune
8 January 1890

Young Sam Legge's death at age 24 was an exception, as the pandemic of 1889-90 killed a disproportionate number of elderly people. At the time there was no treatment or preventative for influenza and many doctors mistakenly believed it was caused by "bad air" rather than by an infectious contagion. It was disturbing to read in several reports on the pandemic that a number of people allegedly resorted to suicide to seek relief. Of course the standards of living, hygiene, and access to medical care in 1889-90 were very poor which increased the risk for vulnerable people.  Further outbreaks of "La grippe" occurred in March to June 1891; November 1891 to June 1892; the northern hemisphere winter of 1893–1894; and finally in early 1895.

I believe, based on Sam Legge's short obituary, that he and his fellow clarinetist had their portrait taken in 1889, coincidently the same year as the Baltimore piccolo player's ferrotype. By themselves the images of these bandsmen in their flashy uniforms and silly pointed hats seem quaint mementos. But by the addition of a date or a name these photos are transformed into remembrances of a larger cultural history of America. They connect us to an era of patriotism and a time of great suffering too that is not that different from our modern era. What will future generations think of our photos? 

This is my contribution to Sepia Saturday

where everyone knows that helmets
make a sensible fashion statement.