Figure 1.--Both boys and girls wire ringlet curls in the 19th century, but it was in the 1880s and 90s that they were most common for boys.

Chronology of Ringlet Curls: Gender Trends

There seem to be substantial differences between the chronological trends for boys' and girls' ringlet curls. We have limited information on the early-19th century, but with the invention of phoptography we do have a great deal of information beginning in the mid-19th century. There are notable differences in styles and popularity of ringlets for both genders. Both boys and girls wore ringlet curls in the the late-19th century, but they seem especially common for boys in the late-19th century. Ad as ringlets for boys become common, they seem to become less common for a time with girls. We note this especially among families which had boys whose hair was done in ringlets. We have begun to build a chrinological archive to study trends in greater detail.

Boys

Boys wearing ringlet curls appears to have become very fashionable in the 1880s and this continued through the early 1900s. We have noted boys wearing ringlet curls earlier, but not as commonly as in the 1880s-1900s. We note that mothers during this period might do their sons' hair in ringlets. They do not, however, appear to have done their son's and daughters' in matching ringlet styles. At least we have never noted this before. The tendency to use ringlet curls as a younger boys fashion changed rapidly after World War I (1914-18). Boys were still seen with ringlets, generally short ones, during the early 1920s, but ringlets became increasingly a girls fashion, except for very young boys.

Girls

Girls appear to have worn ringlets in the 18th century, although we have only limited information on this. We know more about the early and mid-19th century. We have noted girls commonly wearing ringlets thoughg the Civil War era of the 1860os. We have less informatin about the late 19th century. A HBC reader reports, "I have looked at a lot of images of girls the last few days and I will be darned if I can find a single image of a girl with ringlets. I am beginning to believe that ringlet hairdos in the 1880s-1900s were probably worn by boys. Girls seem to have a wide variety of hair styles, e. g., long loose curls with hair bows, hair pulled back behind their heads and tied with a large ribbons, hair pulled back close to the head so they almost look like they have short hair, and finally very long straight or naturally curly hair." By the late 1920s and early 1930s with the appearance of Shirley Temple--ringlets had become an entirely girls' fashion.








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Created: 4:25 AM 2/24/2011
Last edited: 4:25 AM 2/24/2011