Panama Hat

Description:

In 1975, on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood, California, Wally Amos opened his first chocolate chip cookie bakery. For years, this agent for performers such as Marvin Gaye, Bobby Goldsboro, and Dionne Warwick had loved making cookies, using his Aunt Della's recipe. The little cookies with pecans and lots of chocolate bits were favorites among Amos's Hollywood clients and friends in the entertainment industry. They convinced him to open his own cookie business, giving birth to Famous Amos Cookies.

Within a few years over two dozen Famous Amos cookie outlets had opened across the country. Retail cookie tins featured Wally Amos wearing a trademark straw hat and cotton shirt, clothing that he donated to the Smithsonian in 1980. The hat and shirt had become symbols of grass roots entrepreneurship and a mainstream African American business.

By the mid–1980s, Famous Amos Cookies had outgrown their founder. The business went through a series of new owners before its purchase by Keebler in 1998. Years earlier Wally Amos had turned to another interest, making personal appearances as a motivational speaker and writer, using the skills he had learned in the entertainment and baking industries to inspire audiences to follow their dreams, wherever they might lead.

Date Made: ca 1980

User: Amos, Wally

Location: Currently not on view

Subject: BlacksFood CultureAfrican American

Subject:

See more items in: Work and Industry: Occupations, Advertising

Exhibition:

Exhibition Location:

Data Source: National Museum of American History

Id Number: 1980.0886.01Accession Number: 1980.0886Catalog Number: 1980.0886.01

Object Name: hatObject Type: Hats

Physical Description: straw (overall material)fabric (overall material)

Guid: http://n2t.net/ark:/65665/ng49ca746ab-93b8-704b-e053-15f76fa0b4fa

Record Id: nmah_1276322

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