Figure 1.--Here we see an unidentified American mother with her two children, about 2-4 years old. The boy wears a traditional sailor suit with ankle strap shoes. His hair is done in Dutch boy bangs, albeit with the sides cut above the ears. It is a studio portrit with a narrow white border. There is no identifying informtion except wjen the portrait was taken, 1919.

We have no details at this time on when Dutch boy bangs first appeared. We do not notice this hair style to any great extent until the 1890s. We do notice many images of boys with bangs, but not unil the 20th century do we begin to see a lot examples of the longer side hair which is the other element of Dutch boy bangs. In America as ringlet curls declined in popularity after the turn of the century, Dutch boy bangs became popular with many mothers. We see quite a number of boys with Dutch boy bangs in the erly 20th century. We think that Dutch boy bangs were especilly popular in the 1910s. A good example is an American boy, Floyd Van Horne, in the 1910s. Here we see a boy with Dutch boy bangs cut hortat yhe side in 1919 (figure 1). We are not sure this chrnology also holds true for other countries, but we have gun to asses trends in other countries as well. Thisisdfficult because so images are not dated. When girls began bobbing their hair in the 1920s, it became a popular girls style and as a result, boys no longer liked it. There was a revival for boy's bangs which began with Jackie Kennedy's styling ofher son's hair in bangs. And then as long hair became popular in the 1970s we begin to see boys including teenagers with wht were essentially Dutch boys bangs, although the boys did not use that term.

Created: 9:15 AM 7/17/2016
Last edited: 9:15 AM 7/17/2016