Description:
One of a collection of seven wig curlers (two with the initials "WA" and "WB") made of pipe clay used by wig makers for setting curls for sewing onto a wig, which is dumbbell-shaped shaped with flat ends. Wigs were common accessories for men and women throughout most of the 18th century, though more often worn by men than women; their popularity declined in the last decades except for very formal occasions. Wigs were expensive due to the expense of procuring and maintaining them and thus associated with the wealthy, although some styles were worn by all social classes. Wig curlers are frequently made of white ball or pipe clay, and are long and cylindrical and flare towards the end. Their tips are normally flat, and occasionally marked with initials which may be those of pipe manufacturers who were producing curlers as a sideline. Curlers vary greatly from the carefully polished "WB" and "IB" varieties, through almost straight rods sloppily trimmed at the ends, to 3" fragments of tobacco pipe stems ground at both breaks. The smaller curlers were used for short hair and tighter curls. The process of making and maintaining a wig is illustrated in "Encyclopedie" edited by Denis Diderot (1713-1784) and Jean le Rond d'Alembert (1717-1783), and described in contemporary English accounts such as those by Peregrine Montague and James Stewart: "Hair which does not curl or buckle naturally is brought to it by art, by first boiling and then baking it in the following manner; after having picked and sorted the hair, they roll them up and tie them tight down upon little cylindrical instruments, either of wood or earthenware, a quarter of an inch thick and hollowed a little in the middle, (they have smaller for (the very short and larger as the hair advances in length). These are called pipes, in which state they are put into a pot over the fire, there to boil for full three hours; when taken out they let them dry, and when dried they spread them on a sheet of brown paper, cover them with another, and thus send them to the pastry-cook, who making a crust or coffin around them, of common paste, sets them in an oven till the crust is about three fourths baked." The account book of David Hoyt (1722-1814), an innholder and "maker of wiggs and foretops" who lived in the "Old Indian House" on Main St. here in Deerfield, included the sale of nearly three dozen wigs between 1754 and 1756. They may have been made by his second wife, Silence King (1732-1803) of Northampton; they married in 1754 after the death of his first wife, Mercy Sheldon Hoyt (1724-1751), and had seven children. Wig curlers are ceramic made of white kaolin pipe clay as used in all clay pipes. Commonly manufactured in England, by clay pipe makers and used here in the colonies. Their purpose was for the maintenace of a gentleman's wig during the mid 1650's thru the 1700's. Wigs were cleaned with sand, combed, set with cold water and sugar, rolled with paper on heated clay curlers, and tied.
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