UMBRELLAS USED BY ANCIENTS.

Woodville Examiner, Volume XXXVI, Issue 5516, 24 October 1919, Page 4 (Supplement)

UMBRELLAS USED BY ANCIENTS.

Umbrellas are by no means a modern contrivance. They are found sculptured on the monuments of Egypt and in the ruins of Nineveh, and their use in China and in India is very ancient. In Greece they had a part in certain religious ceremonies, and there is no doubt from the paintings on ancient Greek vases that umbrellas were known centuries before the Christian era. They were also used among the Romans, but only by women. An English dictionary published in 1708 defines an umbrella as a "screen commonly used by women to keep off the rain.” Umbrellas were Introduced in America in the early part of the Eighteenth Century, but their use at first was confined exclusively to women, as it was considered effeminate to carry one. Jonas Hanaway is said to be the first man who walked the streets of London with an open umbrella over his head to keep off the rain. He is said to have used it for thirty years before it came into general use for this purpose.