Fact or Folklore? Phrase origins
Where does “mad as a hatter” come from?
The short answer
Nobody has shown where it comes from. The phrase is in print by 1827, in a Belfast newspaper, already called a common saying (as transcribed by Word Histories). The oldest page we’ve opened ourselves is from 1829. Neither mentions hats, mercury or shaking hands.
The mercury poisoning of hat makers was real, and a Paris surgeon described it in print in 1806. But nothing we’ve found joins that poison to the phrase. It could be. We can’t show it.
The verdicts, claim by claim
- FACT
Hat makers’ mercury poisoning was real
In the video: Verdict: the poison is solid.
Tenon’s report, read in 1804 and printed in 1806.
- FOLKLORE
The story that the first report of hatters’ poisoning came in 1860
In the video: So, “first report, eighteen sixty”: myth.
Tenon’s report is in print in 1806.
- UNPROVEN
The story that mercury poisoning gave us the phrase
In the video: Verdict: the poison gave us the phrase. Plausible. Could be. Can’t show it.
The phrase is in print by 1827, and no early use mentions mercury.
- UNPROVEN
The story that Lewis Carroll’s Hatter was a poisoned hatter
In the video: Verdict: rumour. It’s not in the book, and nobody has found Carroll saying it anywhere else.
Absence of evidence, not a contradicting page, so UNPROVEN rather than FOLKLORE.
How we label. FACT: the record backs the story. FOLKLORE: a dated page we opened contradicts the story (it labels the story, never the phrase). UNPROVEN: could be true, can’t be shown. The videos use plainer words (solid, myth, false, plausible, rumour); each is shown here under one of these three labels.
The poison was real
Felt hats were made by matting fur, and the trade secret was a bright orange liquid: mercury dissolved in nitric acid, brushed onto the fur. It was called carroting, for the colour. Then came the steam, in hot, closed workshops, every day for years. The men breathed it in.
In 1806 the surgeon Jacques-René Tenon published a report on Paris hat makers: the men trembled, sweated and coughed, and hardly any lived past fifty. His report was read to the French Institute in 1804. In the passages we’ve seen, nobody is called mad. They were ill, and still working.
A New Jersey doctor’s report of 1860 is often called the first. It’s a good report, but Tenon’s is in print fifty-four years earlier.
The phrase has no paper trail to the poison
The oldest use found is in the Belfast Commercial Chronicle of 18 June 1827, as transcribed by Word Histories. Writing about a judge, Lord Norbury, the paper says: “as the vulgar say, he is as mad as a hatter.” “As the vulgar say” means it was already common talk. We haven’t seen that page ourselves; the newspaper archive is paywalled.
Two years later, in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine (June 1829, p. 792), a character called Odoherty says, “Mad as a hatter. Hand me a segar.” Again, no reason given. This is the oldest page with the phrase that we’ve checked ourselves, in the public-domain scan on Wikimedia Commons.
Then a Dublin newspaper in March 1835, also as transcribed by Word Histories: “Why hatters are said to be madder than other gentlemen, we know not.” The people using the phrase didn’t know either.
From the 1840s to the 1860s, papers also said “work like a hatter” and “go at it like a hatter”, as if the hatter were a byword for going at something flat out. That’s later than 1827, so it’s a clue, not proof.
What about Alice?
In Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865) he’s never called the Mad Hatter. He’s “the Hatter.” The Cat tells Alice “they’re both mad,” meaning the Hatter and the March Hare, and the chapter is “A Mad Tea-Party.” Nothing in the book mentions mercury.
The real story ends sadly. American hat makers kept being poisoned for about eighty years after the 1860 report. It ended in 1941, with an agreement to stop using mercury.
Sources
- Jacques-René Tenon, “Mémoire sur les causes de quelques maladies qui affectent les chapeliers” (read 20 August 1804), Mémoires de la Classe des sciences mathématiques et physiques de l’Institut de France, 1806, pp. 98–116. Page scan read. Internet Archive item mmoiresdelaclas00frangoog (Oxford University copy, digitized by Google; marked not in copyright). archive.org
- Belfast Commercial Chronicle, 18 June 1827, and Dublin Evening Post, 7 March 1835, as transcribed by Word Histories. We did not see the originals (paywalled archive). The 1849–1864 “like a hatter” uses are from the same page. Word Histories, “mad as a hatter” (2017). wordhistories.net
- Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, vol. 25, June 1829, “Noctes Ambrosianae” No. XLIV, p. 792: “Mad as a hatter. Hand me a segar.” Page scan checked. Wikimedia Commons, File:Blackwood’s_Magazine_volume_025.djvu (University of Toronto copy via Internet Archive, blackwoodsmagazi25edinuoft); public domain. commons.wikimedia.org
- J. A. Freeman, “Mercurial Disease Among Hatters,” Transactions of the Medical Society of New Jersey, 1860, as quoted by L. Dennis (N.J. State Board of Health) and Wikipedia.
- R. P. Wedeen, “Were the hatters of New Jersey ‘mad’?”, American Journal of Industrial Medicine (1989).
- TIME, “Mercury Out” (2 June 1941).
- Green’s Dictionary of Slang.
- Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865). Full text read. Project Gutenberg eBook #11. gutenberg.org
Last checked: . Corrections: none yet.
No page scans are reproduced on this site. Quotations are typed from the sources listed.