Hair Bows Worn by American Boys: Individuals

As we began working on HBC, we were somewhat surprised to find boys wearing hairbows. One reader tells me that he thinks that the hypothesis that American and British mothers rarely used hairbows is esentially correct. There are, however, many exceptions. And given the large numbers of portraits taken in the 19th century, we do see numerous boys with hair bows. We in fact note quite a number of boys photographed with hairbows. They are of course a relatively small percentage of the overall number of images taken. We have archived quite a number on HBC. Most zre unidentified, but we have information on some of the boys.

Joseph Breckinridge (1870s)

One American boy from a prominent Kentucky family including a Vice President wore ringlet curls and hairbows as a boy in the 1870s. Unfortunalely we have no details. It does appear that Joseph was not to happy about his hairbow. His mother while declinning to cut his curls, allowed him to be breeched when he was still only 4 years old.


Figure 5.--This photograph of Joseph Cabell Breckinridge, Jr. was taken in 1876. He wears a hair bow with his ringlet curls. It looks like it may have been a colored one. Did some mothers match the hairbow with the bows or bowties worn by the boys.

Harold Lee Ganner (18??)

A reference without scanned photographs is of Harold Lee Ganner, the youngest son of the photographer. This photography collections has several examples of his sons in various play activities wearing long curls. I haven't seen any of these photos so I don't know if they are the standard Flaunteroy curls or not. Anyway, several describe Harold Lee in a sailor suit with long curls and a hair bow.

Unidentified American boy

Here we have a pair of portraits which we believe is a depiction of a first hair cut. Unfortunately there is no accompanying information about the boy. All we now for sure is that he is an American boy. The portrait is undated. We think it was taken in the 1890s, buy the late 1880s is possible. In the before picture he is wearing pants and a fancy fauntleroy blouse with a large floppy bow. Notice the copious amounts of eylet lace on the blouse. Even the breast pocket is set off in eyelet lace. The boy only wears this blouse in the ringlet portrait here. We have seen, however, many boys wearing these fancy blouses after they had their curls cut as well. The bow is in a plaid material. He has short ringlets tied with ribbons. Notice the hair done with a center part. Often this center part was more common for girls, but here we see that there was no definitive convention on this. The ribbons could be white, but they may be a pastel shade--perhaps blue. The relatively narrow ribbons were popular for boys. Less common were the much wide ribbons tied in massive bows that were worn by girls.

Kenneth Flanagan (1900s)

I am also attaching a scan of a photograph from the biography of Hallie Flanagan. The title of the book is Hallie Flanagan; A Life in the American Theater, Alfred Knopf, New York, 1988. The children in the photograph (left to right) are Kenneth (b. 1899), Hallie (b. 1889), and Gladys (b. 1895). The photograph was taken in 1903. Kenneth (4 years old) is not only wearing a girls' dress but has long curled hair that is partially braided, and pinned to the top of his head and held in place by a small hair bow. Not your typical boy's hairdo! The biography has, however, ery little information on Kenneth so there's no way to tell how long he wore dresses.

Unidentified boy (1900s)

We note one American boy wearing hair bows with tunic suits. The portraits were undated, but it looks like he was photographed at the turn of the 20th century. He looks to have been about 2-3 and 4-5 years old when the portraits were taken. In both portraits it looked like white hair ribbons were used.







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Created: 8:39 PM 4/20/2009
Last updated: 8:39 PM 4/20/2009