Description:
Woman's hair piece known as "bonnet curls," made from dark brown/black human hair consisting of a center-parted front hairline framed by curls which would have hung down either side of the wearer's face, which may have descended in the Monmouth County/Freehold areas of New Jersey, in the Hendrickson/Edwards families. The arrangement of the curls suggests a hairstyle popular during the second quarter of the 19th century, and would have been visible at the wearer's front hairline beneath the caps and bonnets then fashionable. In this rare example, brown human hair is anchored onto a leather strip covered in brown cotton. An insertion of light-colored, plain weave silk cleverly imitated human scalp at the center part. The curls themselves are anchored with metal wire wrapped with cotton thread. Worn at the hairline in front, the piece was secured with ties that fastened around the back of the head, hidden under the wearer’s real hair or a cap. For centuries, women have utilized false hair to supplement their own in the name of fashion. Additions to a wearer's real hair, known as transformations,"were available to western Massachusetts residents, as evidenced by an advertisement from the Northampton Courier on August 10, 1836: To the Ladies/Enos Parsons informs the Ladies of Northampton and its vicinity that he has just received from New York, a great variety of LADIES ARTIFICIAL HAIR, of the latest New York and French fashions - which, together with that he is constantly manufacturing, makes a most splendid assortment, and gives a better opportunity for selection than was ever before offered in this town./ To the gentlemen he would say he has on hand and is constantly manufacturing/Wigs and Top-pieces,/ of the very best kind. He will shave and cut hair to entire satisfaction, or demand no compensation..." Makers and suppliers of false hair in the 19th century were more likely to be barbers than milliners or those engaged in hair work.
Label Text:
For centuries, women have utilized false hair to supplement their own in the name of fashion. In this rare example, brown human hair is anchored onto a leather strip covered in brown cotton. An insertion of light-colored silk cleverly imitated human scalp at the center part. The curls themselves are anchored with metal wire wrapped with cotton thread. Worn at the hairline in front, the piece was secured with ties that fastened around the back of the head, hidden under the wearer’s real hair or a cap. The arrangement of the curls suggests a hairstyle popular during the second quarter of the 19th century. Frances Trollope wrote in Domestic Manners of the Americans (1832), that "They are also most unhappily partial to false hair, which they wear in surprising quantities; this is the more to be lamented, as they generally have very fine hair of their own. I suspect this fashion to arise from an indolent mode of making their toilet, and from accomplished ladies' maids not being very abundant; it is less trouble to append a bunch of waving curls here, there, and everywhere, than to keep their native tresses in perfect order."
Subjects:
Textile fabrics; Cotton; Leather; Silk Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=HD+2008.22.1 |
