Bio of WINGET, Earl Tallman (b.1885), Hennepin Co., MN
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EXTRACTED FROM: History of Minneapolis, Gateway to the Northwest; 
Chicago-Minneapolis, The S J Clarke Publishing Co, 1923; Edited by: Rev. 
Marion Daniel Shutter, D.D., LL.D.; Volume I - Shutter (Historical); 
volume II - Biographical; volume III - Biographical

Vol III, pg 642-643
EARL TALLMAN WINGET
Earl Tallman Wiriget, secretary and treasurer of the Winget Kickernick Company,
Incorporated, of Minneapolis, was born in Columbus, Ohio, April 5, 1885, and is
a son of Reed F. and Emma L. (Tallman) Winget, both of whom were also natives of
the Buckeye state. The father was a manufacturer in his early days and afterward
became a promoter. He has now departed this life.
Earl T. Winget pursued his education in the public and high schools and in a
busi­ness college at Columbus and other cities. He worked his way through
school, for he needed money for his own support and earned it by doing odd jobs
that gave him necessary funds for his clothing and for his school books. From
early life he was actuated by a laudable ambition that had its root in necessity
and in a progressive spirit. When his school days were over he became manager
for the South Florida Lumber & Supply Company at Lakeland, Florida, where he
remained for a time and then returned to Columbus, Ohio, where he became a
salesman for the New York Life Insurance Company, having a special contract for
insuring nurses. Later he went to Kendallville, Indiana, being employed in the
sales department of the Flint & Walling Manufacturing Company and in 1907 he
came to Minneapolis. At this time he was entirely without capital, but he soon
secured work with the Groseth Advertising
Agency. After remaining with that establishment for a time he entered the employ
of E. E. Atkinson & Company, retail merchants, as advertising manager and was
ad­vanced to the position of manager of their St. Paul store, a position which
he occupied for three years. For an equal period he was also buyer for
Mannheimer Brothers and in March, 1919, he became associated with the Winget
Kickernick Company as one of the organizers and has since been the secretary and
treasurer.
Back of this business there is an interesting history. On the 19th of November,
1904, Mr. Winget was united in marriage to Miss Nell F. Walter, who was born at
Webster, West Virginia, on the 24th of March, 1886, a daughter of Isaac S. and
Hannah (Jenkins) Walter. Her father was a minister of the gospel and had a large
family of eight children to support. She was educated in the public schools, but
her oppor­tunities along various lines were limited. Her association with
business men, how­ever, soon made her alert to business affairs and
opportunities and it is she who is responsible for the organization of the
Winget Manufacturing Company, of which she has been president from the
beginning. This company manufactures the Priscilla bonnet, of which Mrs. Winget
is the original patentee. The story has been most inter­estingly told by her as
follows: "The idea of the bonnet came to me during a period when financial
reverses and sickness made it seem probable that I would be called upon to
support my little family. So I cast about to see what there was that I could
make in my own home-something that no one else was making, and that was at once
practical and generally useful. The result was the invention of the washable
sunbon-net. * * * I spent long hours in the garden with my flowers and
vegetables and sunbonnets. I had tried wearing one of those awkward straw
hats-found it heavy, had a habit of falling off, and, worst of all, it was most
unbecoming. I had also purchased several varieties of the old-fashioned poke
bonnet, with their hot, flappy ruffles, bedraggled appearance and suggestion of
drudgery, untidiness and poverty. Then came my first experiments with the
Priscilla bonnet, and I am frank in stating that the first I made were
ill-shaped affairs, made up in dull, uninteresting fabrics not in keeping with a
garden such as mine, nor anything like the perfect flower of a bonnet which I
finally produced-a bonnet that was inspired, I believe, by the prim and colorful
hollyhocks that grew in stately profusion in one corner of my garden close by
the fence. Now, as I said before, this bonnet was both good to look at and
practical as well. By the use of three little button-holes and two tiny buttons,
it could be opened out perfectly flat and washed and ironed and thus kept fresh
and lovely. I made several of these in delicate pinks and blues, and then I made
some more, because my friends and acquaintances found them delightful also. Then
came the demand from others-gardeners, like myself, who liked to look their best
at all times and who had the style-instinct and the love of the beautiful, even
in a workaday sunbonnet. Thus, before I knew it, I found a path right through
the center of my garden, packed hard by the feet of those who came and went in
the interests of sunbonnets, and my little cottage, which had always been so
spick and span, I found all a-clutter with colored strings and ruffles and
sunbonnets in the making. One day an old white-haired sales­man, from whom I
purchased fabrics, asked me if I had given my 'flower' bonnet a name and if I
had had it patented. 'Why of course not!' I answered. The very idea of having a
patent on a sunbonnet! But he urged me so earnestly that I promised not to delay
a day and that very evening I found a name and asked for a patent.
'Modest and simple and sweet, The very type of Priscilla.'
Of course Longfellow, who has always been my favorite poet, was thinking of
may-flowers, but in reading 'The Courtship of Miles Standish' these words gave
me the name for my bonnet, for is it not 'modest and simple and sweet'? I shall
not tell you of the long hours, of the worries, disappointments and perplexities
that always come (I am told) in the building of a business, but, rather, of the
willingness of big men to assist, and of the valuable suggestions that came
unsolicited. The most won­derful thing to me is the manner in which The
Priscilla has become nationally known almost over night, just like the crocuses
that smilingly greet you some fine spring morning. The Priscilla bonnet is now
made by the hundreds of thousands in a light, airy factory where every machine
that will make work easier and bonnets better is installed as soon as it comes
out; where girls and women work under the best of conditions. And now, as I
travel about through this great, glad land of ours, I see Priscilla bonnets worn
wherever women and children work or play in the sun-in gardens, hayfields, on
the picnic grounds, at the beach, and once (I could hardly believe my eyes) I
saw one worn with a white tub skirt on one of our most exclusive country-club
golf links."
Today the Winget Manufacturing Company has a large establishment and not only
turns out the Priscilla bonnet but also manufactures on a royalty the
"Knickernick patented bloomer," these articles having a ready sale all over the
country. The plant is light and airy and conditions are most harmonious among
the employes. For several years Mrs. Winget sold the entire output herself, but
for the past two years a large sales force has been maintained.
Mr. and Mrs. Winget are the parents of three children: Charlotte, Earl, Jr., and
Priscilla Dean. The family is today well known in Minneapolis, where the name of
Winget now figures prominently in connection with manufacturing interests, back
of which is the inventive ingenuity of Mrs. Winget and the combined business and
executive ability of husband and wife.