Tuesday, July 6
Noon at the Museum
Speaker: David McCalla The History of GEUS
Many people are unaware that Greenville became the first
municipally-owned electric plant in Texas when it began producing power
on March 4, 1891. The
power plant had a steam engine that powered two dynamos for one thousand
homes and forty street lights. The plant usually operated from sundown
to 10 pm unless the King Opera House had a matinee or if someone with
enough resources to pay the daytime fee planned a swanky party with
the shades drawn and the lights on.
On Tuesdays, the “Light Plant” operated
from 1pm-10pm so the ladies could iron their laundry. The city charged
a fee to fire up the plant during the day until 1909 when power began
to be generated 24 hours a day.
David McCalla, General Manager of GEUS since 2006, is
a 1980 graduate of Texas Tech University and a Texas Registered Professional
Engineer. Prior to coming to work for GEUS in 1988, McCalla worked for
West Texas Utilities and Milford Engineering. He has been married for
27 years to his wife Janet, and they have two grown sons.
If you would like to order a sandwich from Glenda's,
please call the Linda or Susan at 903-450-4502 by 10:00 on July 6. As
always, you are welcome to bring your own lunch.
Sponsors for May’s LBS are Byron Chitwood and
Noble Gilstrap
Movie Night
There is no Movie Night in June.
We will be screening movies during Audie Murphy Days.
See the schedule.
Five fun days at the Museum filled with crafts, games,
mucis and demonstratiions that hark back to the early days of Texas.
July 20 - 24: 4 - 6 year olds $30.00
July 27 - 31: 7 - 10 year olds $40.00
Current Exhibits
Chapeaux Extraordinaire!
We
just can’t keep this under our hat any longer - for the next couple
of months we will feature chapeaux (that’s “hats”
in French for you non-French speakers!) throughout the decades.
Most of the hats on display belong to the Museum and
are from the Eugenia Mehmert collection.We are pleased to have several
from Melva Hill - we think these collections are a real feather in our
cap!
Although women from an early stage were always expected
to have their heads covered by veils, kerchiefs, hoods, caps and wimples,
it was not until the end of the 16th century that women's structured
hats, based on those of male courtiers began to be seen. It was in the
late seventeenth century that women's headgear began to emerge in its
own right and not be influenced by men's hat fashions.
The word 'milliner', a maker of women's hats, was first
recorded in the 1500s when fine straw hats were made in the Duchy of
Milan. The haberdashers who imported these highly popular straws were
called 'Millaners' from which the word was eventually derived.
During the first half of the nineteenth century the
bonnet dominated women's fashion, becoming very large with many ribbons,
flowers, feathers and gauze trims giving an appearance of even greater
size.
One
of the most debated accessories used in women’s fashions was the
use of birds and bird feathers as fashion ornaments. This vast destruction
of bird life helped to bring about the National Audubon Society in 1905
which created legislation to prevent the slaughter of native birds in
the United States.
Men’s hat fashion was not limited to the beaver
hat. Coonskin caps, bowlers, der-bies, fedoras, and straw boaters all
played their part as fashion necessities throughout the years. But,
for sheer elegance, nothing topped (pun intended!) the silk top hat
which dominated the 19th century.
At the beginning of the 20th century, both men and women
changed their hats depending on their activity; for many ladies of some
social standing, it would be several times a day, and it was considered
a disgraceful act to venture out of the house without a hat or even
gloves. One record tells of a young lady venturing out to post a letter
without her hat and gloves and being severely reprimanded for not being
appropriately dressed. (The post box was situated a few yards from her
front garden gate!) In the Edwardian Age, only the beggars went bareheaded.
As the years have passed, hats have slowly lost favor.
Still a societal “must,” many women wore hats well into
the 1940s and ‘50s, but by the 1960s, the middle class had pretty
much stopped wearing them except for special events and church. This
change is credited to JFK who was the first president to appear in public,
and on television, without a hat.
Women kept their hats a bit longer because Jackie Kennedy
was never seen out without a stunning hat. Hats enjoyed a brief resurgence
of popularity in the 1980s for weddings and special occasions due to
the influence of public figures such as Diana, the late Princess of
Wales’s enthusiasm for wearing them. Today, few women wear hats
on a regular basis, except for special occasions.
Today, two of the most popular styles of hats are American
icons: the cowboy hat, invented in the mid 1860s by John Stetson, and
the baseball cap, invented in the early 1850s. Both were created by
Americans and both were designed for their functions, rather than fashion.
The Audie Murphy/American
Cotton Museum
600 Interstate 30 East Location Map
P.O. Box 347
Greenville, Texas 75403
903-450-4502
Fax: 903-454-1990
Open Tues. - Sat. 10:00-5:00
Adults: $6
Seniors (60+), Military veterans, and College students $4.00
Children 18 and under $2.00
We
just can’t keep this under our hat any longer - for the next couple
of months we will feature chapeaux (that’s “hats”
in French for you non-French speakers!) throughout the decades. 
One
of the most debated accessories used in women’s fashions was the
use of birds and bird feathers as fashion ornaments. This vast destruction
of bird life helped to bring about the National Audubon Society in 1905
which created legislation to prevent the slaughter of native birds in
the United States.