Figure 1.--This Canadian boy, Master L.D. Ross was photographed at the Notman studio about March-June 1865.

We note Canadian boys wearing ringletv curls in the 1860s. This may have been a popular style earlier, but we do not have eralier portraits in our archives to assess this. The styles of ringlets appeat to have been very simnilar to those worn by American boys. We are not sure how common they were. We notice boys wearing them with both dresses, kilts, and kneepants. We do not know if French and English-soeaking families differed as to how popular this style was. We note that in Europe it was more popular in England than in France. In fact the French called ringlets English curls. The McCord Museum in Montreal has a photograph taken of "Mrs. Taylors Boys" It is from their Notman archive of photographs. Notman was an important Canadian photographer. The portrait was taken in Montreal, I think in 1882. It looks to be two brothers close in age dressed in matching Highland kilt outfits. Strangely one boy has ringlet curls and the other straight hair of about the same length. We are not sure why they are dressed alike and their hair done so differently.

Created: October 9, 2003
Last edited: October 9, 2003