Figure 1.--Here vwe see two Denver childremn, we belrve in the 1890s. They look to 4-9 years old. The children are unoidentiofied, but they are a little noy and his big sister. Yoy can tell ythis because he is wearing a floppy bow and Fauntleroy ruffled collar. They have virtually identical hairdos, bamgs withj side curls. The studio is Nast in Denver, Colorado.

The general tremd over time was that girls hair styles were more varied than boys and tended to be more elaborate. Men in the 18th century wore wigs, at least men of means. Boys amd young men except for thralthy might wears queues (pony tails). Women are pictures with sone pf the maost wlaborate hairvstyoes in gitory, but these were wealthy aristocrats in royal courts. This was not hair styles worn by very many people. And not styles we see in America. We know much more about the 19th century. And something very omprtant. American men did wear wigs, but women did nor wear the elaborate court styles. Thus can be condusing. Actaully Americans by al standadrs were better ofv than Europeans, but wse so not see the siper-wealthy like we see in Europe. Something very imprtant was happening- the industrail revolution, This was creating walth like neveer befpre and wealth where a wide cross section of society was sharing. American prosperity did not manifest itself in dashion until mid-century when the industrial revolution licked in. We see that both in clothing and hair styling. Many photogrraphs of boys in the 19th century show individuals without carefully done hair styles. Boys wore hair down to their ears or even covering tgheiev ears. Well conved hair is much more common in the CDVs that appeared in large numbers (1860s). And we see shorter cuts. That is until the Fauntleroy Craze kicked in (1885). Some of the most elaborate children hair stles were worn by boys during the Fauntleroy craze (late-19th century). Here we see a boy wearing the same hair style as his big sister (1890s). Boys' hair became more standardized in the (20th century). Most boys had various short hair cuts. Close cropped hair was never as popular as in Europoe, but we do see various extremely short syles after World War II, especially (1950s-early-60s). In sharp contrast we see long hair becoming popular (1970s). This was followed by a period in which there was considerable variety of styles worn. Girls in the 20th century generally had longer styles. Short bobbed hair became popular for girls (1920s). Shirley Temple vitrually singled handedly launched a ringlet curl crazr--this time exclusively for girls (1930s). We do not see any major shift for boys and when boys short hair styles became popular after World War II, we do not see any major shift for girls hair styles. The same is true in the 1970s when many boys wore long hair.

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Created: 6:31 PM 12/3/2019
Last edited: 6:31 PM 12/3/2019