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Miss Annie Mae’s Hats

Churches serve as the foundations for African-American communities across America.  Women are the lifeblood of these churches.  When they come to church to worship, African-American women wear decorative hats and other clothing to show their pride and sense of independence.

Miss Annie Mae McClain was born and raised in Mississippi. After she came to Milwaukee with her family, she joined Tabernacle Community Baptist Church on Medford Avenue. Like many women, she became a central figure of her church by becoming involved in a variety of activities: singing in the choir, becoming a church mother and doing missionary work in the community.

Miss Annie Mae also amassed an impressive collection of church hats throughout her life.  Early on, she purchased the hats from stores from all over the city, but soon her favorite store became the Heads Up Hat Shop, with its dizzying array of multi-colored headwear.  Each hat or “crown,” served as a symbol of her independence, uniqueness and worship of the Lord.  By the end of her life, Miss Annie Mae had collected over 75 hats, each unique in color and style.

After her death, Miss McClain’s hats were willed to her son, Joe.  Uncertain what to do with his mother’s hats, Joe and his wife Carol Lobes organized a memorial tribute for Miss Annie Mae in which her headwear played a prominent part.  Folklorist Ruth Olson of the Center for the Study of Upper Midwestern Culture attended the program and suggested to the Wisconsin Academy of Science, Arts and Letters that Miss Annie Mae’s hats would make a wonderful focus for an exhibit, an idea that he embraced. Throughout 2006, the hats were on exhibition at the James Watrous Gallery of the Wisconsin Academy in Madison and at the Historical Society in Milwaukee.

The hats were then auctioned off, with the proceeds going to Women in Focus, Inc. a group that provides scholarships for minority youth to succeed in education. Women in Focus used these proceeds to create the Miss Annie Mae McClain Scholarship, which has been distributing scholarship funds since 2007. Three of the 77 hats were purchased by the Society, for inclusion in our permanent collections.
Miss Annie Mae McClain was a recognized leader, not just for her beautiful hats, but for her devotion to church and family.  Her hats symbolize an ideal of independence, pride and self-worth that African-American women carry with them when they go to church, or anywhere else!

For more information on Miss Annie Mae’s Hat’s:

Cunningham, Michael and Craig Marberry. Crowns: Portraits of Black Women in Church Hats. New York: Doubleday, 2000.

Olson, Ruth. “Miss Annie Mae’s Hats: Church Hats From the Black Community”. Wisconsin Academy Review. Winter, 2006 Volume 52, No. 1

MCHS
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