There is so much to see and research in every photograph, every document, and every story. It’s no wonder I always feel that I have not exhausted a topic. One of those topics is the hat that Jennie Zuidweg (wife of Johannes and mother of Lucas who died on the anchor) wore in her photos. She wore it when she was younger and, no doubt, living in the Netherlands–specifically Goes, Zeeland.
And she wore it when she was old and living in Kalamazoo, Michigan.
And then I saw another Dutch relative wearing the hat.
I put all this in the back of my mind, and then on a Dutch Facebook group somebody mentioned a type of hat, and it clicked in my head that I needed to research this hat.
What I found is that this type of hat seems to be called a Kapothoed. According to Google translation, this means hood hat or bonnet. So I did a Google search of Kapothoed. Although all that comes up are not the same, there are several that are.
and from Pinterest.
What this shows me is that what I assumed to be an old-fashioned country bonnet was really an actual style that existed in the Netherlands. Some of the bonnets or kapothoed that I found by searching Dutch museum collections online are closer to the head, but there are some that are high like these.
Here is a high one from Europeana Collections, an online digital collection of artifacts.
Now that I have seen more kapothoed designs, I can see that the hats Jennie wore when she was younger and when she was elderly are two different hats, two different styles of bonnets.
These bonnets are very different from the traditional Dutch caps which look like the variations in these photos from Wikipedia.
Actually, the caps that women in Goes, Zeeland, wore were the most dramatic, along with the hair combed back at the forehead and the large jewelry worn at the temples.
I spent a lot of time trying to find an image online that I am allowed to download and put into this post, but I couldn’t find the right image of the Goes costume. Instead, I did a Google search of the “traditional costume of Goes, Zeeland” and created a screen shot to show you.
These are oorijzers or ear irons. Various styles had different names. The block or cube style were boeken (books). A spiral metal style were called krullen (curls). This next photo is a woman from Spijkenisse in 1900. I am including it to show you the krullen style ear irons.
Krullen
Here is what Wikipedia has to say about oorijzer. I am quoting them because it’s the best information I found online:
The ear iron is part of the costume for women, especially in the northern provinces of the Netherlands and Zeeland . It originally formed part of the civic power, which was taken over in the regional councils.
Initially the ear iron was a metal bracket to keep the caps in place. It was worn over a cap and a luxurious top hat was put on it. In the course of time the ear iron grew into a showpiece. Decorative gold plates or curls stuck out at the front of the ear irons . . . .
Only in the 19th century did various forms of the ear-iron form a specific part of Dutch regional dress. In Images of dress, morals and customs from 1803-1807 there is no question of ear iron in women from Friesland. In the French era, when the so-called independent regions of the Republic of the United Netherlands come under a single administration, the need for maintaining their own identity arises in the regions. In the Netherlands, the ear iron force is cultivated and has its own development. The prosperity is great, as a result of which the ear iron is getting bigger and bigger. In the course of the century, the narrow band is becoming wider, the buds become larger and flatter and take the form of a flower pot.
Different Ear Irons in the Zuiderzee Museum
A slang term for them might be kissers. A tradition (not universally shared) has it that the kissers were meant to keep boys away from the girls. I’m amazed how the hair looks so plain and yet the cap and oorijzers are so extravagant looking. Coral bead necklaces are part of the traditional costume. You could tell if a woman was Protestant or Catholic by her cap.
If you would like to read more about the oorijzers, here is a blog post by a graduate student in fashion. The Oorijzer
As you know, I am no expert on traditional Dutch costumes. I found this information online. But I think knowing that my ancestors wore outfits like this is eye-opening.
One last thing I’d like to point out is that although I have a couple of traditional costume antique photographs, they are not from Goes, unfortunately. I wish I had a photo of my ancestor dressed this way. Instead, what I do have from late 19th century Netherlands is not traditional attire, but more “modern” European clothing.
P.S. The unidentified lady (called “Mother’s aunt” and written about here) was photographed in Groningen. For fun I thought I’d share a link about Albarta ten Oever (1772–1854), an artist from Groningen who happened to be a woman. Check it out.
by Albarta ten Oever
Koetsreizigers in Schipborg (1806)
landscape of “coach travelers” in Schipborg, a village in Drenthe
And then here’s another article of interest to this blog, Calvinism in the Netherlands. When I was a history grad student (never finished that particular degree) my specialty was religious history, particularly the history of the Reformation (where Protestantism, often in the form of Calvinism, replaced Catholicism for masses of Europeans). So the full history of what has happened with Calvinism in the Netherlands is of particular interest to me. My own family background from the Netherlands was Dutch Reformed (Calvinism), but before my mother was raised, the family had moved away from a strict form of Protestantism.
The Family Kalamazoo 
Luann, Thank you for all the details! Isn’t it exciting to do the research behind our ancestors to bring their generation to life?
I sidestepped my 2x great-father’s hat last week, but after reading your post, I wish I had dug deeper.
Oh yes, you have to back and research his hat! It takes me so long to check out some of these details though. There are so many trails to scurry down, aren’t there?! I love imaging them in their outfits in their homes and shops!
Kapothoed, ear irons, kissers…I’ll be paying more attention to headdress from now on. Very interesting. I wonder if it was easy to put on the ear irons with the lace. They might have needed more than one pair of hands.
Can you imagine wearing those? It kind of blows my mind to think of my ancestors wearing those!
Fascinating—love those hats! Sometimes I wish we all still wore hats (and I don’t mean baseball caps and ski caps). There was something so elegant about them, but I bet they mostly hid their dirty hair. 🙂
I rarely think about the clothes people wore back then, maybe because fashion has never been my thing. But you are right—being able to visualize them means thinking about what they wore. I need to pay more attention to that.
The thought of greasy hair turns my stomach, but no doubt you are correct! I do wear hats out of necessity (a type of migraine caused by light), but Though I love real hats the way I dress usually calls for a baseball cap. 😏 I do think imagining our ancestors clothing and accessories is important. It says a lot about lifestyle.
I am also a baseball cap wearer when in the sun. (I think you and I must have similar “styles” although the dress you wore to your son’s wedding was far more stylish than anything I’ve ever worn—it was gorgeous!)
What an amazing post and history lesson. I imagine ‘our’ millinery shoppes of old carried these kapotheod styles but can you image what a women might think finding oorijizers – holy hooted hatten what a contraption! Love the lace scarves, thats what I think of. Great post Luanne
I cracked up! “Holy hooted hatten what a contraption!” hahaha I know. I can’t even get my mind around the idea of wearing a set of ear irons! Some of the ones in the museums are METAL HELMETS. I am not kidding. I don’t know what they were thinking of. If the dykes didn’t hold, I’m pretty sure all that metal wouldn’t let the ladies float in the floods!
You made me laugh too
Like Amy, I haven’t given much thought to what ancestors wore, but then I don’t have that many photos so perhaps that’s why. Fascinating headwear; if slightly scary. Even the name “ear irons” conjures up a form of torture.
Yes, they do sound scary. And they look scary to me. I am the one who doesn’t like to wear anything binding ;). Yoga pants, not jeans, for me. I think it is cool to think of what they wore because it is all part of who they were and what their lives were like and maybe even entered into how they made decisions in their lives, etc. I wish you had more photos, but maybe someday you will find some online somehow!
I’m with you on the “nothing binding”.
And on the photo front, I just heard from my mum that a cousin has a stash of family photos “inherited” from my grandmother. I’m hoping she’ll let Mum get them scanned for me. They’re in the UK, so it’s a bit far for me to go and do it myself.
That is some headgear! I agree with Su, the term “ear irons” sounds dreadful. The lady in that colour photo doesn’t look very happy.
Do you have any idea what the theory was behind those various caps? Some of them look positively Hansiatic. They certainly can’t have been very practical. Washing windows with that on your head would have been problematic.
Yes, it does sound frightening. I would look very miserable if I had to wear those things!
I don’t know. It seems very hard to get serious and detailed information. Do you mean that they look very old-fashioned, like pre-Renaissance? I was super surprised to learn that the oorijzers had evolved in more recent times (1800s). How crazy is that?!
A huge part of this that I don’t understand is how many people and who wore regional dress and how many wore more general European attire. I get that in Zeeland there was more regional, whereas Amsterdam would be more cosmopolitan, but I can’t imagine what the general population would be dressed like in various places in the Netherlands in, say, 1800, then 1850, then 1900. Or even 1700!
And what you say about washing windows. I have to believe these headresses were for dressup or at least “going out,” not for housework. I imagine more simple caps were worn for that. Don’t you think so?
Thanks for researching this. I enjoyed learning about the kapothoed. It’s such an intriguing hat. .
It’s certainly a stunner (but not necessarily in the way that word is usually used)! These hats and bonnets and caps are all so different that it’s hard to imagine them. It seems funny to me that in American pop culture there is ONE Dutch cap for women. When I go into antique malls where you can see an accumulation of salt and pepper shakers, knick-knacks, old calendars, etc., the “little Dutch girl” always wears that same cap with the wings–and really it’s much more modified than the real things which are more dramatic!
This is fascinating. I’m often looking at hats in vintage and antique photos but haven’t seen anything like this jewellery with them.
They are certainly extreme versions, aren’t they?! The other thing that is hard for me to wrap my mind around is that these caps and jewelry were almost like uniforms–so much so that what they wore would show their religion, for instance. I can’t imagine having a specific outfit to wear, almost like a school uniform.
Yes, that is a strange thing.