Does our event sound like something that your organization would like to help with?
Hats Off to Butte is being designed to do something wonderful for our community, raise cultural awareness, provide opportunities for learning and skill building and demonstrate the power of community teamwork all in a single program. Will we solve every problem Butte faces, likely no, but we can be a powerful influence for good.
Hats Off to Butte embraces our cultural history, when the city was first settled as a successful mining community a need for supporting goods and services. Miners had families, and families needed to be dressed and fed. From Butte’s earliest days celebration planning has been a community service opportunity.
One of the first celebrations recorded in Butte’s newspapers was for our country’s Centennial celebration on the 4th of July 1876. With a planned launching of hot air balloons, a parade, festivities all day that ended in a Grand Dance in the evening. The goal of the Committee of Arrangements was to create an event that was “second to none in the Northwest”. The Harmonia Glee Club made its first public appearance in that parade having banners, flags, and appropriate dress which of course, included new hats for the occasion.
Milliners and Merchants established their trade in our Uptown business district, creating the first Dry Goods Stores which became our early department stores and wide array of smaller mom and pop / artisan establishments.
The creation and wearing of fashion has been a core part of Butte’s culture, we all love a good reason to celebrate and visit with others in the community. Whether it be a party, parade, dinner, night at the theater, or a dance, we spruce up for the occasion. Hats Off To Butte is designed to highlight the stories of the people who made our clothing, and helped to foster the growth of Butte into a beautiful part of the Wild History of the west.
Things we are doing: Exploring our pioneer families that established businesses in the retail sector, making and marketing our clothing. Sharing our learnings about our history via lectures and written documents. Discovering the millinery equipment and knowledge that remains in the city of Butte. Finding ways to re-inject millinery skills into the community via workshops and studio experiences. Presenting both a gallery show and a live millinery fashion show to demonstrate our new skills alongside of our historic preservation, and to have an opportunity to culturally express our love of community wide celebrations of the rhythms of life.
How can you help? Being a sponsor would allow us to keep the admission costs down or free. We would be able to provide materials for artisans to use to make their hats. We would be able to acquire historic millinery tools to create a milliners workshop. In the longer range, we would be able to purchase materials for community members to make hats for those that can not afford them in the winter time.
If you would like to be a sponsor of this event please contact Elizabeth Tritthart of Historic Weaving in person at the Phoenix Building weekday afternoons, or email Eliz@historicweaving.com.