Figure 1.--This American boy was from Freehold, New Jersey. The portrait is undated, but we would estimate that it was probably taken about 1895. This boy looks to be about 8-9 years old. Curiously his hair at the forehead, depite the very defined ringlets, seems almost casual. His jacket has nautical touches including double breasted styling and an eagle on his sleeve. He may be wearing an Eton collar although it is largely covered by a large plaid floppy bow. Click on the image for more information on this boy and his cloting. Image courtesy of the RG collection.

Ringlet Curls: Older Boys

With the popularity of ringlets during the Fauntleroy craze, some boys might wear ringlets longer, to 7 or 8 years. While most boys would have their curls cut by this age, it was not unknown for boys of 10 or 11 to still wear curls, in a few cases even to older ages. But this was much less common than the pre-school boys between age 3-6 years of ages. Here the variations in family attitudes was the major factor. There were not in the 19th century the same strong conventions concerning hair styles and clothing that exist today. In the days before modern media, mothers had much more lattitude concerning both hair styles and clothing. Even so, we believe that many of the older boys that wore ringlet curls were schooled at home. Except for nursery school children, there are virtually no images showing boys wearing ringlet curls to school. We believe that most of these older boys are from wealthy families that are being schooled at home. It was less complicated to keep yunger boys in ringlets. One they reached school age it wa more complicated. While aonventions on hair styling wereless set, at least for adults, this was not the case for boys. School age boys would virtually disdain a oy in ringlets. Thus almost all of the boys 7 years old and older would be booys that were being schooled at home. Away from the influence of other boys, mothers could better dictate both clothig and hair styling. And here many Americans had made substantial amounts of money in the industrial expansion of the country after the Civil War (1861-65). Many of the novea-rich families were anxious to show off their newly acquired wealth and social positioins. The ways they outfitted their children was one way of doing this. Whike younger boys could be kept in ringlets at no great cost, this was not the case for older boys. Home schooling in the 19th century often involved hiring tutors. As ringlet curls were more common in America than European countries and HBC has better access to America images, much of our assessment pertains to America. We are less sure about European trends.







Christopher Wagner







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Created: January 13, 2003
Last edited: January 13, 20003