Figure 1.--This young American boy wearing a kiltsuit or dress has one large curl instead of bangs on his forehead.

HBC knows little about this style, in fact we are uncertain as to just what it was called in the 19th century. Some readers as pointes out the similarity with Cupie curls.

Front Curls

Some boys had a single large front curl. HBC has limited information on this hair style. It is another late 19th century boys' style. This is somewht related to the hair knot style. I was generally worn by younger boys without enough hair for a complete set of ringlet curls. Interestingly, while the boy pictured on this page appears to have little hair, he does seem to have long hair at his back, although it is difficult to see. Many mothers more carefully posed their sons so their curls could be seen.

Cupie Curls

A HBC reader reports, "I think these hair knots are Cupie curls. It was formed like a finger curl on top of the head. I believe Rose O'Neil's cupie figures made this style popular. My husand wore this style( born in 1933) as did our sons (born in the 1960's) and countless other boys in between."

The Kewpie doll from 1912 to 1914 was an absolute craze. Americans were buying Kewpie books and Kewpie rattles, Kewpie soap and Kewpie dishes, Kewpie pianos and Kewpie salt-and-pepper shakers. Women began in the 1910s plucking their eyebrows to mimic the surprised dot brows of the little porcelain cherubs. Poet/artist Rose Cecil O'Neill made $1.5 million from the munchkin dolls, which she first invented as magazine illustrations and patented in 1913.

Rose O'Neil

Rose O'Neil was born in 1874 at Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. Her parents, throughout her childhood, was encouraged in her artistic bent. At 14 she won a drawing contest sponsored by the World Herald newspaper in Omaha where her family lived at the time. Soon she began seeing her cartoons and illustrations published in mid-western newspapers and magazines. O'Neill moved to New York City in 1893 to obtain a wider audience for her art. She referred to city dwellers as "the wolves," however, and looked forward to her stays at the family's retirement estate in the Ozarks, called Bonnie Brook.

Figure 2.--This is a modern reprint of one of O'Neil's Kewpie books.

O'Neil married Gray Latham in 1896 and began signing her drawings, "Latham O'Neill." Many readers assumed Latham O'Neill was a man. By this time, Rose was selling her drawings to Puck and Life magazines--publications with sustantial readerships. Rose was rather a stroing willed young woman, she divorced Latham in 1901 and began an intense correspondence with her editor at Puck, Harry Leon Wilson, and married him in 1902. The Wilsons lived in an opulent literary whirl. Rose wrote a novel called The Loves of Edwy (Harper, 1904), and Harry wrote a best seller, The Spenders. Harry also collaborated with Booth Tarkington, the author of the Penrod stories. Wilson and Tarkington produced The Man from Home, which was a hit Broadway play.

Out of the relationship between her husband and Tarkington (albeit indirectly) the Kewpie doll was created. Tarkington presented the Wilsons with a white English bulldog, which became a beloved and rather spoiled house pet. As her first attempt at pottery, Rose made a bisque statuette of the pup, calling the piece "Kewpie Doodle Dog." Divorse was not common on early 20th century America. But Rose, already divorced once, decided to separate from her second husband.

After separating from Harry Wilson in 1907, Rose began using the cute Kewpie concept in her stories and drawings for The Ladies' Home Journal. The hair style on the Kewpies was not original. Boys wore such hair styles in the 1860s and 70s, well before she began drawing the Kewpie style. I'm not sure that she ever described in detail what the inspiration was for her drawings. She just said that they came to her in a dream. Presumably she had seen boys with just these hair styles. O'Neil's little Kewpies from Kewpieville did good deeds like keeping birds' eggs warm and recovering lost babies; they were immediate sentimental favorites of the magazine's readership. Ladies' Home Journal publisher Edward Bok suggested that Rose begin making the bique dolls of the Kewpies. She immediately agreed. The first Keswpies were manufactured in Germany. Rose gained international fame for visiting overseas factory workers and telling them to be extra careful with the tiniest dolls" because they were for the porest children."

Figure 3.--Kewpie appeared in a wide range of producys including post cards.

Typical of the products marketed by O'Neil was The Kewpie Primer. The 5 ˝ in x 7 ˝ in paperback pulp magazine-type book was copyrighted in 1980 by Merrimack Publ. Corp., 85 Fifth Ave., New York, N.Y. 10003. The illustrations were by Rose O’Neill, Text and Music by Elisabeth V. Quinn. Kewpies cavort throughout the 118 pages. Introduction by Rose O’Neill is addressed to "Dear and Respected Children". O'Neil goes on to say: "Miss Quinn has made me so happy by putting my Kewpies into this Primer for you that I am Kewpishly smiling as I write these lines. And all the Kewpies are Kewping with delight, because they say, `These darling children will dream of us when they are little and remember us when they are old.'"

World War I broke out in 1914. Although American was not at fiorst a combatent, German manufacturers were closed off by the British blockade. Manufacturers were found in Belgium and France tomproduce the porcelain and bisque Kewpie dolls after the outbreak of war. Celluloid, wood, and paper models were made in the United States. With her royalties, Rose bought a home in New York's bohemian Greenwich Village and a villa on the Italian island of Capri. She upgraded the Bonnie Brook estate in the Ozarks, calling it "a good place to unbutton." Rose considered herself a patroness of the arts, holding salons for poets and scupltors. She was rather a free thinker. She liked to appear in public wearing flowing robes and in bare feet, and she launched a second career writing romantic poetry Gothic novels.

Rose went through her entire fortune by 1936, and she returned to the Ozarks to spend her last years at Bonnie Brook with her devoted sister, Callista. Rose completed her memoirs in 1944, and she died that same year of heart failure at 70 years of age. [Ethlie Ann Vare and Greg Ptacek, Mothers of Invention, 1988, pp. 97-99.]

HBC Assessment

HBC is not sure hair knots are Cupie (or Kewpie) curls. Indeed there seems a lot more hair involved in a hair knot than a Cupie curl. Rather a Cupie curl seems closer to the front curl style. This does not seem to be a style created by O'Neil. Boys clearly wore these front curls several decades before Cupie curls were popularized by O'Neil.

Created: January 17, 2000
Last updated: March 12, 2001