Figure 1.--Here we see two American children from Wayne, Nebraska. he portrait is undated, but was probably taken about 1900. The chilfren are unidentified. The younger boy wearing a blouse is a boy. The child in ringlets wearing a middy blouse is presumably a girl. but we are not positive. It is, however, likely because the child seems olddr than the boy with short hair.

Most American boys in the early 20th century had short hair. there was aange of styles, for boys, but shrirt hair was the standard. Bangs were a populsr style for younger boys. We note bioth banfs and hair swept across the forehead like the boy on the previous pasge (figure 1). After the turn of the 20th century, short hair became increasingly standard even for younger boys. Ringlts were, howver, still a style option fior younger biys. Some younger boys still had long hair and ringlets in the 1900s. It was much less prevalebt than than in the 1890s, but wee still see exmples. Quite a number of images show American boys wearing ringlets. Some boys wore ringlets with hairbows. We note an American brother and sister. Sometimes mothers has portraits taken before and after to record the day their son had his ringlets cut. One such boy was Oliver Ingraham. This was, however, rapidly declining in popularity. And we virtually never see longer styles worn by school-age boys unless they were educated at home. While most had short hair, it was usually long enough to comb. We see some boys with cropped hair, but this was also not very common. Quite a few boys experimented with center prts, apparentkly hust to be dufferent bnd fshionble. They were a minoity, but we see more boys with center parts than any other decade. In the 20th century, center parts were one of the best ways to identify girls in old phoyogrphs when many younger boys were wearing dresses. It was very rare for boys to have centerr parts. This was no longer as imprtant in the 20th century because the convention of younger boys wearing dresses was rapidly disappearing. Ee see some exmples in the 12900s, but not very many and mosdtly vey young boys. We have no idea why this suddenly became fashionble. We also notice more boys with perfectly combed hair and razor parts than was common in the 19th century. The children here are a perfect example. For younger boys this was a fashion coice by mother. For teenagers this would have probably been the boy's choice.

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Created: 1:07 AM 11/3/2007
Last edited: 7:16 PM 7/7/2022