Franklin Delano Roosevelt: Hair


Figure 1.--This photograph shows Franklin in 1885, the same year the photograph of him on the donkey in a dress was taken. His curls have not yet been cut.

Sarah Roosevelt cut Fraklin's curls about 1887 when he was 5 years old. HBC has images of him in 1885 still in dresses and long hair. He did not immediately get a short hair cut, but rather wore bangs. Biographers often refer to long curls, but I do not recall photographs of him in particularly curled hair. It was particularly popular in America to curl boys' hair into long ringlets worn with Little Lord Fauntleroy suits. Franklin in fact grew up in the midst of the Fauntleroy craze in America. Sarah was not apparently enthtaled with the style. Franklin did, however, have long uncurled hair. The long trsses were saved by Sarah when she finally had Franklin's hair cut and are on dispaly at Hyde Park. They were tied with blue bows. I don't know for sure if Franklin wore hairbows as a small child or if the bows were added after they were cut to secure them, but they were a pale blue. When Sarah died, Elenor disovered them securely locked away with many of Franklin's boyhood treasures. Photographs show Franlin wearing bangs with short hair in 1887. Precisely when his hair was cut or details over the event are not available at this time.

Long Hair

Biographers often refer to long curls, but I do not recall photographs of him in particularly curled hair. It was particularly popular in America to curl boys' hair into long ringlets worn with Little Lord Fauntleroy suits. Franklin in fact grew up in the midst of the Fauntleroy craze in America. Sarah was not apparently enthtaled with the style. Franklin did, however, have long uncurled hair.

Hair Cut

Sarah Roosevelt cut Fraklin's curls about 1887 when he was 5 years old. HBC has images of him in 1885 still in dresses and long hair. Photographs show Franlin wearing bangs with short hair in 1887. Precisely when his hair was cut or details over the event are not available at this time. While we do not know just when they were cit and why, we do know that Sarah did not like the idea at all. A biographer writes that, "His mother resisted as long she could." It is likely that her husband intervened. No one else could ordered her to do it. Or perhaps Franklin began pleading. Sarah many years later in 1933 wrote, "I still think to this day that he looked very sweet, his little blond curls bobbing ... as he ran as fast as he could whenever he thought I had designs on combing them." After they were finally cut "Oh, long before they shoukld have been", Sarah gathered up some of the shorn locks for save keeping.

Keepsake

The long trsses were saved by Sarah when she finally had Franklin's hair cut and are on dispaly at Hyde Park. They were tied with blue bows. I don't know for sure if Franklin wore hairbows as a small child or if the bows were added after they were cut to secure them, but they were a pale blue. When Sarah died, Elenor disovered them securely locked away with many of Franklin's boyhood treasures. Elenor found him ctying when he open his mother's belongings to find the trasure his mother so lovingly preserved.

Bangs

Franklin did not immediately get a short hair cut, but rather wore bangs. Images of Franlin in kilts with his father and mother show him with sjort hair and bangs.

Sources

Ward, Geoffrey. Before the Trumpet: Young Franklin Roosevelt, 1882-1905 (Harper and Row: New York, 1985), 390p.









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Created: April 18, 2003
Last edited: April 18, 2003