What’s in a box?

This particular bandbox, produced in the United States in the 1830s, is in fact a hat box. As top hats became popular in the 19th century, bandboxes were produced to cater to the many shapes and sizes of hats.

Hats quickly became a classifier and a reflection of social change in the 19th century. Top hats (fig. 4) were mostly for the upper and middle classes, while bowler hats (fig. 5) were for middle class and even working class men. At the same time, people would wear different hats for different situations, with top hats worn on formal occasions and bowler hats for business and informal occasions.

Thus, while they were markers of social identity, hats were so widely worn by the 1830s that men of all classes owned and wore hats. These hats were kept undamaged and dust-free by storing them in bandboxes. Based on its shape and size, this beautifully decorated and carefully crafted bandbox may have held a top hat and most likely belonged to an upper class milieu.

The popularity of hats and bandboxes thus reflects the influence of the industrial revolution on classes and society, and illustrates how a new fashion reinvented the old bandbox.