Figure 1.--Boys' haie bows were generally narrow ribbons, but there were larger ones as well. The portrait is unidentified and undated. This is an American child photographed about 1905, certainly pre World War I. While the child is unidentified, HBC believes that it is a boy. Click on the image for more information on identification and the unusual garment the child is wearing. |
The vast majority of the boys' hair bow are the single side bows. Girls also wore side bows, but not nearly as commonly as the boys. Girls were much more likely to wear top or back bows than the boys. Very few boys haf the back bows and only a few the top bows. The bows for boys were mostly the side ones. HBC is unsure why this was. Probably a top bow was just to girlish for even fashion conscious mothers. Thus more modestly sized smaller bows emerged as the primary style for bows.
The hairbows positioned on the side might be positioned anywhere from the boys' ears upwards. While positioning on the top of the hair was relatively rare, the most common position appears to be on the side, but well above the ears. A common psition was about half way between the ears and the crown of the head. There does not appear, however, to have been any widely accepted convention on the placement of the bows. It was left to mother's individual fashion sence. This includes wether it was on the left ior right side.
Side bows were worn with both side parts and center, or near center parts. I am not sure yet, however, just how common the two styles were with side positioned hair bows. Notably many of the available images of boys in hair bows show the hair parted on the left and held out of their faces with a small bow on the side near the back of the head. The left part probably is due to the fact that mothers (mostly right handed) found it easier to comb a left part.
The hair styles associated with single side bows varied from country to country. In most instances boys with hairbows had long shoulder or near shoulder length hair. American boys commonly wore ringlet curls with hair bows, but not always. French boys were much less likely to wear ringlets with side hair bows.
Most boys' hair bows wether position on the side, top, or back were usually slender ribbins. We have noted, however, some boys with rather large bows. This was a distinct minority.
We nore that mothers who added hair bows to all the children's hair styles often differentiated the hair bows of the boys and girls. One way of doing this was to use smaller hair bows for the boys. While this was common for the boys alone, we note that when pictured with their sisters, a varied positioning of the bow was more common. Girls might have their hair bows on top their hair or at the back. Boys more commonly had their hair bows at the side. A goof example here is a Minnesota family.
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