Prior to 1860 Messrs. Wm. P. Cole & Son, then manufacturers and jobbers, became especially interested in the straw goods branch of their business. Being at that time manufacturers of the best class of felt hats, the straw goods sold by them were all made in the factories of the North. Machines for sewing the straw braid were not then in use, and much of the straw products of foreign countries came ready sewed in shapes that were very irregular in proportions and sizes. The looseness of the stitches in sewing rendered the use of glue a necessity in the manufacture of the hats, producing an article of headwear that gave but little comfort. Suggestions for improvements were given the manufacturers, who adopted them with advantage to themselves. The first suggestion made by the Baltimore firm was an improvement in the appearance of the hat by trimming it with wider bands. At that time the use of bands about 14 lines wide was prevalent, and the adoption of 23-line bands was looked upon as a very radical departure. The substitution of leather sweats for those of oil muslin was also first undertaken by the Baltimore firm; following which, the most important improvement ever gained in the production of straw goods was conceived and executed in this city, which was the abandonment of the heavy glue-sizing and the manufacture of the comfortable "flexible finish" straw hat, an accomplishment secured by careful attention to the proper sewing of the goods aided by hand finish. For several years Wm. P. Cole & Son and their successors had straw hats of their own designing made and finished at the North, continuing to suggest improvements which were made at their command, and the privilege of retaining which for their own trade was for the time extended to them by the manufacturers, from which they gained such advantages as would arise from having goods superior to and differing from the general class sold by others. It was in the year 1875, upon the dissolution of the firm of Cole, Brigham & Co., that Mr. W. T. Brigham and Mr. R. D. Hopkins, uniting as the firm of Brigham & Hopkins, became straw hat manufacturers. The Mackinaw straw hat had at this time gained well in popularity; the natural firmness and flexibility of the Mackinaw were merits particularly acceptable to the trade, and the new firm made a careful study of embodying as far as possible in the manufacture of all their straw hats, those essential points possessed by the Mackinaw. So successful were their efforts that, by the exercise of thorough watchfulness, they continued to improve, until they secured for their products a celebrity that gave the firm the foremost position in the trade.