This volume, based on the author's PhD thesis, traces the transformation of Luton from a market town to a manufacturing centre during the mid-nineteenth century. Its development was built on the straw hat industry. While this trade, from which the title of the book is taken, is examined in Chapter 1, the aim of the book is to elucidate the cottage economy antecedents of a modern engineering town. This involves a consideration not only of its industrial base but also the distinctive nature of the local economy, the challenges posed by unrestricted urban growth, religion, education, politics and institutions such as the Board of Health.

Above all, however, this book is about the people of Luton who created the town's transformation. Fittingly, the book concludes with biographical notes on some of the people of mid-nineteenth century Luton.