Figure 1.-- This cabinet card portait shios two young children with short hair wearing dresses. The portrait is undated, but we would guess was dated in the 1870s. It is imoossible to tell if they are boys or girls. A center part usually indicates a girl. In the case of the younger child here, the part is noticably off center. In this case we kmow that they are girls because of the incription on the back -- 'Tillie Laggel & sister Carrie'. The writing for their last name is indistict. The portrait comes from the Favorite Gallery (G. Rausch, prop.) in Evansville, Indiana.

We do not know much about hair styles in the early-19th century yet, but thanks to photography we by mid-century can follow hair styling in great detail. America did invent photography, but no country took to photography like Americans. And as a result there is a massive photographic record to draw on. Generally speaking girls had long hair and boys short hair. But this was not a hard set rule. Styles varied throughout the decade. boys and men wore their hair longer in the first half of the century. And throuughout the century ewe see girls with short hair. What we see at mid-century girls with what looks light short hair as we see on the previous page. A good example is an unidentified girl in 1857. Their mothers had hair done into buns. This was less common for girls. With the 1860s we see long hair becoming increasinly common for girls. There were several different styles. We see some girls with short hair, but they were a minority. In some cases it may have bee a halth measure to combat hair lice. Girls definitly saw long hair as an element of beauty and wanted long styles even though it was time comsuming to maintain. Assessing children's hair styles is complicated in part because, many younger boy were dressed in skirted garments and had a range of long hair styles. his is especially the case in the 1880s and 90s because of the Fauntleroy craze. Suddently many boys had theur hair styled with rtinglet curls. As a result, it becomes difficult to assess gender in many 19th century portraits.

Created: 9:12 PM 10/12/2021
Last updated: 9:12 PM 10/12/2021