Figure 1.--This is an American cabinet card portrait. We think that this was an 8th grade graduation portrait, but there are some younger children in the portrait. Perhaps it is sunday school clas, The portrait is undated, but the mount suggests it was taken in the early-20th century. The fact that the boys are wearing knee pants rather than knickers suggests the 1900s. we would guess about 1905. The girls wear white dresses and hair bows--the same size and color. The boys wear white shirt aists and detachable collars, ties. and knee pants. All the hcildren wear dark long stockings. Notice that two of the boys have center parts. The photographer was the Holladay Studio in Durham, North Carolina.

It is the early-20 century that hair bows were most common and most prominant. We do know that girls were wearing hair bows by the turn of the 20th century. Suddenly girls seem to have launched an uncontrolled arms race as to who could have the largest hair bow. Girls of all ages wore them, even older teens. They seemed to have stopped wearing them about the age of 20-21 years. We do not see married women weaing themm, even younger married women. We had thought that this style was especially popular in the 1890s with girls some times wearing very large hair bows. This seems to have been the case in America for which we have a substantial photographic archive. They were done on many colors. We see huge hair bows in America during both the 1900s and 1910s. We think the 1900s-10s were also the peak for girl's hair bows in Europe, but we continue to see them in several countries intothe inter-War era more so than in America, although this varied from country to country. We still see hair bows after World War I in he 1920s. The number of girls and their ages, however, decline as do the size of the bows. and this decline continued in each decade. There appear, however, appears to have been differences from country to country. A German reader tells us that she believes hat hair bows in Germany were especially popular with girls in the 1920s. Our German contributor writes, "I searched in my German photograph archive for girls' hairbows. In the 1910s I found hairbows, only few big and more on the head side or back. In the 1920s I note pretty large hairbows, often nearly on the top of the head." We are less sure about other countries. But are gradually expabding our coverage of this topic. A very good source of information is the material we have collected on schools which are a good indicator of popular trends.

The 1900s

It is the early-20 century that hair bows were most common and most prominant. We do know that girls were wearing hair bows by the turn of the 20th century. Suddenly girls seem to have launched an uncontrolled arms race as to who could have the largest hair bow. Girls of all ages wore them, even older teens. They seemed to have stopped wearing them about the age of 20-21 years. This we are still assessing. We do not see married women weaing themm, even younger married women. We had thought that this style was especially popular in the 1890s with many girls wearing hair bows, but we see even more in the early-20th century. This seems to have been the case in America for which we have a substantial photographic archive. White hair bows were especially popular, but they were also done in many colors. The American girls here, imcluding many teenagers, wear colored hairbows, we think in the 1900s (figure 1). Often girls wore white hairbows with white dresses. Here the girls wear colored hair bows with white dresses. We see huge hair bows in America during both the 1900s and 1910s. We are still working on European trends. we see a lot of hair bows in Europe duting the erly-1900s, but do not have the country trends ell worked out yet.

The 1910s

We continue to see large numbers of girls wearing hair bows in the 1910s. And we see really large ones, although our informationis mostly from America. We think this may be the decade in whgich hair bows were the most common and which were also the largest, at least in America. This probably reflects our very large American archive. But we suspect that the popularity of large hair bows reached their peak in America during the 1910s. We are still working on European trends. A lot of the images we have found show the girls wearing white hairbows. They seem o have been the most common, although we so see colored hair ows as well. There seems to have been seaonal trends here. white was especially popular during the spring and summer. We see both younger girld and teenagers wearing hairbows. We do not notice any significant age trends as concerns ptr-teens and teens.

The 1920s

We still see hairbows after World War I in he 1920s. The number of girls and their ages, however, decline as do the size of the bows. and this decline continued in each decade. There appear, however, appears to have been differences from country to country. A German reader tells us that she believes hat hairbows in Germany were especially popular with girls in the 1920s. Our German contributor writes, "I searched in my German photograph archive for girls' hairbows. In the 1910s I found hairbows, only few big and more on the head side or back. In the 1920s I note pretty large hairbows, often nearly on the top of the head." We are less sure about other countries. But are gradually expabding our coverage of this topic.

The 1930s

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Created: 6:21 AM 5/3/2016
Last updated: 2:23 AM 1/11/2018