Figure 1.--Here we have two siblings who had their portrait taken in the late 1860s by Moore, a Boston photographer. Unfortunately the children are unidentified. The sister has long ringlet curls. Her little brother has short hair. Put your cursor on the image to see the portrair of her brother.

We note children wearing ringlet curls throughout the 19th century. Our information on the early 19th century is fairly limited, but thanks to the development of photography, we know much more about the mid-19th century. We see many boys wearing ringlet curls in the late 19th century, but most of the images we have archived show boys wearing short hair. We note quite a number of girls with ringlet curls during the mid-19th century, but we have so far found reltively few boys with ringlet curls during the mid-19th century. This is not to say it was unknown. It is to say that it was relatively rate, especially in comparison to the much larger number of portraits we have found showing boys wearing ringlet curls in the late 19th century. We have many example of brother and sister portraits with the girl wearing ringlets and the boy with short hair. A good example is an unidentified pair in 1843. Another example is the girl here in the lte 1860s (figure 1). Her brothr had short hasir.

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Created: 7:39 PM 10/22/2006
Last edited: 7:39 PM 10/22/2006