Figure 1.--This California boy was enjoying a ride in Disneyland with a friend during 1979. He has a pageboy cut which covered most of his ears. Also notice the tuft at the nape of the neck. Cuts like this as well as longer hair was common in the 1970s. He looks to be about 12 years old.

Hair styles for schoolage boys were remarkably unchanged in the first half of the 20th century. We begin to see some changes after World War II. Military buzz cuts became popular in he 50s and then longer styles in the 60s. It was in the 1970s that we see really major changes in hair styles with all kinds of new styles appearing, most longer cuts. And notably the newstyles were not just limited to boys and teenagers. We see adults adopted them, especially adults who as boys experimented with h realtively moderate new styles in the 60s. Suddenly we see an amazingly wide variety of styles from long to short. There were blow-dried and bouffant styles as well as spiked and bleached hair. One fashion site describes 'overgrown' as the most widespread description of hair styles during the decade. Some described it as a 'hairy decade'. Until the 1970s, men and boys went to barber shops. For the first time we begin to see men and boys engaged in hair styling. Many new hair priducts appered for men and boys. For fashion historians who primarily chronicled omen's hairstyling, the explosion of male hairstyling has been described as a 'joy to behold'. The influence of John-John and the Beatles only intendified in the 70s. This was in part due to the the Beatles going 'all hippy'. They went from their 1960s 'moptops' to all hippie, long sholder length shaggy hair. We see both boys and young men following suit. Many boys had cuts that covered much of the ears like the boy here in 1979 (figure 1). Other boys wore extremely long, cvering their ears or even shoulder-length hair. The 'pageboy' cut was popular in the 1970s for boys, longer hair and the mullet began to be orn by teenagers. The difference being tha parnts decided on the hairstyles for the younger boys while teenagers began to decide about their own cuts. And they wre strongly influencd by not only the Beattles, but other rock groups. And it did not end there the short Mickey Mantle cut of 1960s athlelets gave way to the long flowing locks of 1970s atheletes. Both musicians and aththelets were very influntial with boys.

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Created: 12:53 AM 5/17/2017
Last edited: 12:53 AM 5/17/2017