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After the turn of the 20th century, long hair declined in popularity. Especially after World War I (1914-18), most boys wore short hair. Some boys, such as the boys in orphanages, might have their heads shaved. Some boys from affluent families might have long hair, especially before they began school or if they were being schooled at home. Some younger boys might begin school with curls. We note personal accounts indicating that some younger boys did wear long hair to school. The general pattern appears to be quite short hair. We believe that these boys usually had them cut within a year if beginning school. We note many school photographs from the early 20 century in which all the boys, including the very young ones had clossed cropped, sometimes shaved heads. To some extent this was a sanitation measure because of the problem of head lice.
After the turn of the 20th century, long hair declined in popularity. Especially after World War I (1914-18), most boys wore short hair. We do note some boys in the early 20th century with long hair. They appear to be primarily boys from affluent families. This was orobably mostly children before they began school or boys being schooled at home. Most of these children appear to have long, but generally uncurled hair. We do not note many boys with ringlets, but this appears to have been more common with girls.
Some boys, such as the boys in orphanages, might have their heads shaved. We also notice that boys in school mostly have short hair--often cropped quite close. Some boys from affluent families might have long hair, especially before they began school or if they were being schooled at home. Some younger boys might begin school with curls. We note personal accounts indicating that some younger boys did wear long hair to school. The general pattern appears to be quite short hair. We believe that these boys usually had them cut within a year if beginning school. A French reader tells us that many of the school pictures showing boys with short hair were taken in rural areas. He reports, "It is correct that it is a bit rare to find photographs of early 20th century French schoolboys with long hair. This is because a major part of the population at that time was still rural
and a consequence poor."
We are not sure to what extent that the short hair for boys at school was a fashion or a sanitation measure. We note many school photographs from the early 20 century in which all the boys, including the very young ones had clossed cropped, sometimes shaved heads. To some extent this was a sanitation measure because of the problem of head lice. A French reader reports, "In the school it was compulsery to fight lice which because of limited sanitation facilities at home was a serious problem at the time. the probleme was simplified by cuting the hair. So in the institutions, such as orphages and the sanatorium preventorium all the boys had the very short hair around 1900. This was also common at schools."
The short hair one sees in early 20th century photographs do not specialy reflect popular fashion or how mother's wanted to style their boys' hair. As explained above, it was more of a sanitation measure. French boys in this period, in fact, could have all sorts of different hair styles, including long hair. One can see this fact on the postcard above (figure 1). This was especially true for boys from affluent families. In the city where one found more affluent families, it was very common for boys to wear their hair long utill 5-6 years old and sometimes even longer. Some of these children did attend public schools and probably had their hair especially treated for lice. A good example is a French boy named Paul who described his early school experiences in the 1890s which were probably not too different to the 1900s. His mother sent him to school with long hair, although she did not add the hairbows that he sometimes wore at home. Another French boy with long hair that we have some information on was André. As a young boy he wore a kind of choupette hair style. We do not know, however, what kinf of school André attended.
Most French mothers in the early 20th century let their sons' hair grow long. At the
age of 4-5 years, many boys had their hair cut shorter. At this time, little boys worn dress alike the girl till about 3 years old. Thse dresses called "robe anglaise" which did not have waist belts. (HBC generally refers to these as "tunics".) Thus it is not always easy to identify the gender of younger children in older photographs. Gradually belt's became more common and were generally placed lower than the styles for girls. Boys from affluent families might not have their hair cut short at 4-5 years and might wear it long for a few more years. This varied from family tp family. the more common hair style was short hair. It was not that uncommon, however, to see boys with long hair.
French children's hair styles were significantly affected by World War I. Thus there are differences within this period.
As noted above, most French boys in the pre-War period had short hair, often closed crop for sanitatary reasons. Boys in more affluent families, especially in the large cities, had more diverse styles--in some cases long, but often uncurled hair.
After 1914 when World War I began, it became much less common for boys to wear long hair. This corespionded to trends in clothing as well which became more utilitarian. Boys going to the primary school had their long hair cut. Some boys wore bangs. After the War the normal hair fashion for boys over age 4 was short hair. The closed cropped and shaved hair styles of the pre-war period also become less common after the War.
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