Figure 1.--This scene at a geography class, we think for 6th graders (about 11) years old). Amazingkly, most of the children have unsucidual globes. We see the strandard hair cuts in the 1890s--short hair for boys and long hair for the girls. The school is the George Putnam school in Boston. The photos were taken in 1892.

Hair styling for school age children was remarkably standard in the the Western world during the 1890s. Boy had short cuts and girls has long hair. There were some variations from country to country. American and British boys for the most part wore short hair, well off the ears. This could vary, but almost all American boys wore hair long enough to comb and with distinctive parts. A few boys has close cropped hair, but not very many. On the Continent it was a little different. Many school-age boys had close-cropped hair. We are not sure why this was. It had a military look which may have been the reason. Or perhaps it was a sanitary matter and concern with hair lice. But we see a lot of boys, especially in Central and Eastern Europe with close-cropped hair. While more elaborate styles like ringlet curls continued into the 20th century for boys in America, England, and France, this was mostly for pre-school boys. Most boys wore short hair and the longer styles popular at the mid-19th century were little in evidence by the 1890s. The short hair worn by the Syder brothers is a good example of popular hair styles. They are notable for how modern they look. Girls in contrast mostly wore long hair, lengths varieds but we primarily see at least shoulder or near shoulder lengths. Of course the world is a big place, but before the 20th century, oublic schools were a uniquely Western institution. Thevonly Asian public school system we know of was founded in Japana after the Meiji Rstoration. Mssionaries founded schools in Asianand Africa, but this involved a relatively small number of children. And there were Muslim and Hindu schools, mostly for boys, and only a limited number of children attended.

Created: 7:25 AM 4/8/2024
Last updated: 7:25 AM 4/8/2024