While today everyone pretty much buys everything on Amazon.com or some other online retailer back not all that long ago catalogs provided a way for people to browse products from the comfort of their homes. This interwar catalog from Ellwood Hats Ltd. successors to J. Ellwood & Sons of London shows how sun/pith helmets were marketed.
What is especially unique about this catalog is that it actually broke out “pith helmets” by a variety of models, but also had different sections for “Helmets on Felt Bodies” as well as “Helmets on Cork and India-Rubber.”
The catalog’s offering of “Pith Helmet” included an “Ellwood Bombay Bowler,” “Pith Tent Club” and even a “Pith Polo” helmet.
The page for “Helmets on Felt Bodies” shows a variety of helmets that have the shape of what have become iconic with “safaris.” Helmets such as these were widely marketed around the world, and the American pressed fiber helmet is likely based on one of these patterns.
Many of the “Helmets on Cork and India-Rubber” were also made with felt bodies as noted by the previous page. This may suggest that manufacturers were already looking for affordable alternatives to cork. Note too that there appears an “Officer’s Wolseley” as well as a “Private’s Wolseley,” so what did that mean for NCOs?
Many of the helmets offered by Ellwood Hats Ltd. featured only minor differences, and today even with the catalog it could be difficult to tell some of these apart. What is notable is that there were clearly helmets marketed for “Lady’s” – yet period photos not to mention movies suggested the women of the era often favored the standard “men’s” helmets.
It would be interesting to see how other well-known hatters were marketing their wares during this era.