The Factory In her heyday, Hatboro roared with the stitching of brims, the gluing up of round boxes, the spiraling of red satin into cord for handles. Gloved ladies from the wealthy outskirts eventually carried their gray felt treasures (with tastefully pasted peacock feathers) home in silver boxes marked “Made in Hatboro” along the bottom edge. The comings and goings were vigorous as hats went into hat boxes and the hat boxes went into hat cartons and the hat cartons each got loaded, one by one, onto hat trucks with wooden sides and canvas covers. Some travelled as far as New York where they found their way onto the bobbed heads of would-be Vogue models arranging their nets just so for photographic sessions conducted Saturday nights in Uncle Ned’s back room.