Figure 1.--This American boy in an undated photograph (circa 1885) wears his curls just at shoulder level. Notice the bangs and slightly off center part. Also notice the huge white bow.
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Figure 1.--This American boy in an undated photograph (circa 1885) wears his curls just at shoulder level. Notice the bangs and slightly off center part. Also notice the huge white bow. |
HBC notices boys wearing ringlet curls in several different lengths. A few boys wore extremely long ringlets and some boys short ringlets well above the soulders. The most common lengh, however, was ringlets worn at shoulder or slightly over the shoulders. It is interesting to study old photographs. In so many of them, mothers have carefully laid a boy's ringlets so they would be clearly visible in the photographs. Clearly the length of these curls
were very important to mothers of the era. It must have been a matter discussed by these adoring mothers with friends and female family. Hopefully we can evetually discover letters from the era which contain such references. We do not fully understand whether the length of the curls was a style and that the hair was cut to achieve that style. The length for some boys may have been detrmined by the length to which his hair grew.
Most of the boys with ringlets above shoulder level appear to be younger boys whose hair was not yet ready for shoulder length curls. This seems to have been the primar reason for shorter curls rather than a preference for them. Mothers appeared to have preffered longer curls, but some boys just didn't have long enough hair for curls to reach the shoulder.
Some boys' ringlets seem to fall pefectly just at shoulder level.
This could have been accidental. Perhaps the boys hair just wasn't long enough to reach the shoulder. It is also possible, however, that
mother preferred this look and kept the curls carefully cropped at this
length.
Figure 2.--This American boy in an elegant Little Fauntleroy suit sports a full head of ringlet curls. His copious curls varied somewhat in length. Some were worn right at shoulder length, but the curls in back fell below shoulder length. |
Almost all available images of righlet curls show the boys with at least shoulder-length ringlets. Some boys had ringlets which just touched the shoulders. Presumably in some cases this meant a boys hair was not curled until it was long enough to be at least near shoulder length. In other cases it seems to be the style the mother intentionally sought. We have archived many portraits showing boys with shoulder-length curls. This length seems more common after the turn of the 20th century. Earlier ringlet curls were often quite long. A good example is an American boy, William Dougherty, about 1905.
Ringlet curls most commonly were long, extending below the shoulders. Mothers loved to carefully lay the curls on the boys choulder so theyy would show on the photograph to maximum affect. Hair this length would generally have to be on boys at least
5 or 6 years of age. Toddler hair doesn't grow this long. A good example of long curls below the the shoulder is Martin Allister Wambold, an American boy in 1886. Another example is
Robert Mason Hamilton who was a Chicago boy about 6 years old in 1897. Some boys with long curls would have been 12 years of age or older. This probably is the upper limit of the number of curls rolled. Perhaps some boys might have had been 13, but I doubt if boys any older would have worn them.
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