***
sausage or ringlet curls United States chronology 1860s age ages prevalence
Figure 1.--This CDV portrait shows an unidentified New York boys is pictured with with his Black nanny, we think in the mid-1860s--the Civil War era. (The CDV has pointed tips.) The boy wears a velvet suit with piping. The curls are rather slim, but long. The boy looks to be about 5-years old. Black nannies were common in the South. We think that they were less common in the North. The nanny is holding a book suggesting that she is tutoring him. A book prop would not have been used with a Black nanny in the South. At the time New York City had a large Irish population and a small Black population (the two populatios most likely to be domestics.) The studio was Fernando Dessaur in New York City. Dessaur was a Dutch immigrant entering America when he was only 17 years old (1857). He had a studio at 153 Eight Avenue (indicated on the back of this CDV) from about 1863-67. This helps to date the portrait.
U.S. Boys' Ringlet Curl Chronology (1860s): Ages
Most of the boys we have found wearing ringlet curls in the 1860s tend to be primarily younger pre-school. Not all the boys but certainly most. And there were notably som in the 5-6 year old range, perhaps even a little olde. It is difficult to assess age trends in the 1860s because we have so few dsated images. And most of the boysho we have images for are not identified. We note quite a number of images, but because the CDV apeared about 1860s, there werefar more images than ever before. A good example is
an unidentified Philadelphia boy who looks to be aout 5 years in the mid-1860s. Anoyher example is Herbert Lockwood who was 4-5 years about 1867. The unidentified New Tork boy was aprobably taken at about the same time (figure 1). We see a few older boys who may have been up to about age 8 years with ringlets, but we do not see them at school with ringlets. America was developing a substabntial public education system by he 1860s, but many boys from affluent familes did not atten public schools. They might be educated at home or t privateschools. Another example is an unidentified Illinois boy. who looks to be about 5 years old. Unlike quite a number if the boys with ringlets, he wears a long pants suit. Some boys had longish hair, butnot ringlets at school in the 1860s. Short hair was clearly becoming standard, but the longer styles of the 1850s had not yet disappeared. This is a little difficult to assess because school portraits were not yet awell-established tradition. And photography was still reglegated pimarily to studios.
