Figure 1.--We note some boys wearing hair styles in the 1840s looking much like 20th century styles. We see boys in very dated outfits, but rather modern hair styles (figure 1). Many boys had short hair, but not the close croped hair styles thathat became popular at the turn of the 21st century. Click on the image for a view of the complete portrait.

We have only begun to develop information on hair styles during the 1840s. We know that some younger boys wore curls, but most images show boys with medium hair, mostly short but often to ear level. We are not sure how common curls were for little boys. Most images of children with curls that we have found are girls. We see few boys with cropped hair. We have relatively few images from the 1840s. This was because photography was still relatively new and there are relatively few available images. We note quite a number of boys boys wearing hair styles in the 1840s looking much like 20th century styles. We see boys in very dated outfits, but rather modern hair styles. Many boys had short hair, but not the close croped hair styles that became popular in the late 19th century and at the turn of the 21st century. We see many boys wearing short hair like the boys here. We also seen boys wearing their hair longer, styled over their ears. One paintiing shows bots at the onset of the decade with medium cuts--the Paul Kessler-Trümpi family (We are not sure if they are German or Swiss.) Another example is an unidentified American boy about 1847. We see quite a few boys at mid-century with hair coberinbg their ears, although many are not dated. A good example is an unidentified American boy wearing an elegant suit. This was not a boyish style as many men of the era also wore their hair over the ears. We believe that the hair part was a useful indicator of gender. Boys commonly had side parts and girls center parts, although this is not a defintive indicator. It is a useful indicator tht can be used to assess gender, just as in the case of two unidentified New York children. We note an unidentified American child which we believe was photographed in the 1840s. We might have thought that the child was a boy, but the center part does suggest a girl.

Created: February 11, 2003
Last updated: 10:57 PM 11/21/2007