Figure 1.--This new style American cabinet card is undated, but looks to have een taken around 1910. It shows the children in a family aged about 2-13 years of age. The oldest girl has ringlet curls and a small hair bow. At the time the Fauntleoy Craze was over, but still had lingering effects. The boys here wear knee pants sailor suits with short cropped hair. A few years earlier and they might have had ringlets. Note the sharp diffrece between the boys and older girl. We are not sure if the younger child is a boy are girl. The matted cabinet card was 5 7/8 x 7 7/8 inches. The photographer was the Elite Studio in Spokane, Washington.

Ringlet curls were a popular style spanning centuries. They were primarily for girls, but younger boys also wore them which once photography was invented, we can follow in some detail. Not only did some boys have ringlets, but this affected the girls hair styles as well. This was because when boys had their hair done in ringlets, the tendency was not to do the girls' hair in ringlets. This was because as the boys got older they did not want their hair sone like their sisters' hair. This was not always the case, but it was very common. Thus during the era that boys had their hair done in ringlets, we see fewer girls wih ringlets, at least within a given family. We do not know much aout the early-19th century, but at mid-century with the appearance of photography, we know much more. We see boys with ringlets in early photographs (1840s-50s), but they were more common for girls. And with the appernce of the CDV, we have really large numbers of photographic images and a photogrphic record to follow in detail (1860s). The really large number of images of boys with ringlets appear with the publication of Mrs. Burnett's book and the Fauntleroy Craze. After the turn of the 20th cenntury with the end of the Fauntleroy craze. We see fewer boys with ringlets, we begin to see more girls with ringlet curls. This of coue mushroomed in the 1930s with the appearance of child film star Shirley Temple and her trade-mark curls, alwayas done as ringlets. A veritable horde of litte American curls appeared with ringlet curls.

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Created: 4:05 AM 4/16/2015
Last edited: 4:05 AM 4/16/2015