Fire Hat
ca. 1848
Leather
Gift of the Veteran Volunteer Fireman’s
Association
MHS Collections
1898 004 0007
In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, fire was intimately connected to the notions of liberty and freedom in that it both threatened person and property and was kept at bay by heroic defenders. Thus, the material culture surrounding firefighting was often awash with patriotic themes. This black stovepipe hat belonged to Jonathan Wimer, President of Liberty Fire Company No. 6 in St. Louis. Liberty Fire Company No. 6 was founded in 1843. Its membership consisted of 150 volunteers between the ages of twenty-one and forty-five. This was the sixth company to join St. Louis’s volunteer department, formed in 1820.
Before 1820 bucket brigades fought the fires. By the time of the Great St. Louis Fire of 1849 the volunteer companies had become quite competitive and at times fierce. As in other urban centers, early firefighting became a game to see which company could get to the pump first or which could “throw the first water” on the blaze. Often the competition among companies took precedence over fighting the fire. As a result of this disability to fight fires, a paid municipal system replaced the volunteer companies in 1857.
Jonathan Wimer’s decorative, leather hat, which he most likely wore in street parades or during other formal occasions, features the iconic Lady Liberty as a Greek goddess. Artists often gained inspiration from famous paintings when choosing the symbolism to adorn the center of a firefighter’s dress hat or other firefighting gear. This artists depicts Liberty in a style typical for the era—in a richly-colored skirt, grasping her staff and equally red pileus (a Roman cap that traditionally symbolized freedom from enslavement) while resting upon a battle shield of stars and stripes. Given the contention between rival firefighters in the early republic, one may wonder whether the motto on the back of this hat “We Conquer to Save” refers to blaze or to members of a competing fire company—who surely used similar symbols to represent their own brigades.
Organized by the Virginia Historical
Society with additional support from the E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter
Foundation and the
Lettie Pate Whitehead Evans Changing Exhibitions Fund, American. Support
in St. Louis is provided by The Stanley and Lucy Lopata Foundation
This exhibition has been made possible in part
by the National Endowment for the Humanities: Great Ideas Brought to Life.
