Hatpins Were Weapons of Self Defense for Victorian Ladies

We’ve all been there, ladies. Walking home, keys between knuckles, hand hovering over pepper spray in purse, doing mental calculations of the distance to the nearest corner store. But what if I told you that Victorian women had a method of self-defense that might just be superior to our go-tos today? And what if I told you that solution was … hatpins?

As the San Francisco Examiner reported in August 1895: “The hatpin in the hands of a determined woman has long been known as a most formidable instrument of attack and defense.”

Now, you might be wondering how much damage can really be wrought with a pin ? Turns out, quite a bit! That’s because in the late 1800s and early 1900s, the average hat pin was 8 inches long. Some ran to as long as 12 inches. Every woman on the street used them