Photo Gallery
The B. C. Raddant Millinery at 144 S. Main Street in Shawano.
Bertha Raddant in her millinery shop.
B. C. Raddant Millinery advertisement from the early 1900’s.
The Raddant Millinery building when Hal’s Halmark called it home.
The remodeled B. C. Raddant building in 2025.
The remodeled B. C. Raddant building in 2025.
Notes
The B. C. Raddant Millinery
144 S. Main Street
Shawano, Wisconsin
In the late 1800’s, during the early days of Shawano, there were few businesses in downtown Shawano owned and operated by women. One of those was Bertha C. Raddant, owner of the B.C. Raddant Millinery at 144 S. Main St. We like to think that women today that have businesses and are owners of shops on Main Street owe a little bit to Bertha Raddant who paved the way.
We asked Jesse Borlan, our curator, about businesses owned and operated by women 120 years ago and he told us, “Bertha Raddant is really the only woman I can think of in regards to owning her own business around the turn of the century. There was also Lillian Bauerfiend who married Lawrence Anker, an early local photographer. They married in 1902 and he passed away two years later. On the 1905 census it lists her occupation as photographer. So she continued the business. She married Rudolph Wilde, who worked as her assistant in 1909.”
Bertha started her business in the late 1880’s when women’s hats and accessories were all the rage! If you were a woman living in Shawano County, the place to go for your hats was Raddant Millinery which specialized in ladies’ hats.
Bertha Raddant owned and operated the millinery shop at 144 S. Main Street from the 1880’s until her death in 1911.
Bertha was very close to her niece, Matilda Raddant, who became her apprentice in the business. Bertha and Matilda often traveled to Chicago to buy inventory for the millinery store. Matilda Raddant Fink continued to run the shop after Bertha’s death.
As the B.C. Raddant Millinery had become a successful business Bertha was an active member of the German Lutheran church and took much interest in church work. In 1907 Bertha was president of the Ladies Aide Society.
In 1905 the Upham & Russell Company started construction of a building to the north of Berth’s business. The Citizens State Bank building, now owned by Heather and Dave Pahl of Martin Jewelers, was built to the south of her business in 1910. Bertha and her brother Emil, of the Raddant Brewery, were both recorded as stockholders in the Citizen’s State Bank with 300 shares. In 1906 Emil and his wife Minnie sold their brewery business and holdings and moved from Shawano.
In the 1920’s, the demand for millinery declined and Matilda and Charles sold the building in 1924 for $10,000 to the Schultz Brothers Company. Matilda worked as a clerk in the store. The family later moved to a home located at 401 W. Green Bay Street.
The B.C. Raddant Millinery located at 144 S. Main Street is part of the Shawano Main Street Historic District and the property has received a Wisconsin Architecture and History Inventory Citation from the Wisconsin Historical Society. The store interior has been completely restored by the new owner, Rachel and Nick Bleserand we thank them for staying “true” to the original design and architecture.