Figure 1.--This cabinent card portrait shows two unidentified children, about 5-10 years old. The inscription on the back offers little help, "Guess who we are." The little boy has very short hair and wears a broad-brmmned straw hat and a Fauntleroy suit. His big sister wears a white dress. Her hair is done in ringlets, albeit short ringlets. If you look carefully you can see a fancy hat on the rug. The portrait is undated, but looks like the 1890s. The studio was Carlson in Wheaton, Munnesota.

The dominant hair style for boys was short hair. Hair styles varied over time, but generallyy boys had short hir. hair and girls had longer styles. There is some variation here, but this was the general pattern. And we thus see many family portraits with sisters having ringlets and other long hair styles and their bothers, including their littlevbrothers with short hair. Girls some times had short hair too, but thoughout the 19th century the general pattern was for girls to have long hair, including ringlets, and the boys to have short hair. These patterns are very clear in the photographic record. We do not know much about the early-19th century, but with the advent of photography there is a very substantial body of images clarly showing that this was the dominant pattern. But during the Fauntleroy era in particular (1885-1905) we so see quite a number of boys wearing ringlets. Other than this period it is mostly the sisters who wore ringlets and with the advent of the 20th century it was almost eclusively the sisters who wire ringlets, espcially after World War I (1914-18). Girls from an early age generally were willing to spend more time with personal grooming than boys.

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Created: 4:20 AM 10/7/2017
Last edited: 4:20 AM 10/7/2017