Figure 1.--We are not sure where this American boy was from. The photographer haD studios in Atlantic City, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C. It is not dated, but looks to have been taken about 1905. Most American boys with hair bows wore them with ringlet curls. Notice the side positioning. Unlike girls, boys rarely wore large bows on the crown of their head.

Boys continued wearing hair bows into the 20th century. Much of our information comes from the United States. We see quite a few American boys in the 1900s still wearing ringlet curls and hair bows in the 1900s. This was largely associated with the ringlet curl hair style associated with the Fauntleroy Craze. This style was passing out of fashion after the turn-of-the cetury, but still persisted in the 1900s decade, especilly the early 1900s. Most Americans boys who wore hair bows wore them with ringlets. This can clearly be seen in the pgotographic record. A good example is an unidentified boy wearing a Fauntleroy suit with ringlet curls. Hair bows were not as common as the 1890s, but still bows were definitely a well-established fashion. Both bows and ringlets became much less common in the 1910s and were little seen by the 1920s. This time line seems similar in both Europe and America, although ringlets were much more common in America. This may mean that hair bows were as well, but we are not yet sure about this.

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Created: 7:58 PM 5/26/2008
Last updated: 1:43 PM 7/1/2017