Monday, December 6, 2010

Notebook 1: A note on Flappers & short hair...



April 2nd 1925

Sir:
I should like to make a few comments on the letter "Flappers at 60" in this mornings paper. Why should women mind making the change which circumstances have already forced upon men.  
Until well into the eighteenth century gentlemen wore long hair. I say say gentlemen advisedly for poor men had already had to dispense with it. 
Long hair unless exquisitely tended is the ugliest thing in creation. Is not the charwoman style of curtains and a little twisted knob good for a laugh in any Pantomine. Where as the Prince in the Pantomine has always short hair not quite to the shoulders delicious curling all round the neck. 
The almost impossible task of doing long hair attractively before hurrying out to the day's work forced men to discontinue it. 
So now that daughters of most households work in offices or other places instead of lolling gracefully on sofas. They too have learnt the value of time. They have incidentally become most all more attractive and Mothers seeing their daughters charms with short hair like to look pretty too. 

L.D.S. 

This is the first letter we read that shares Lucy's strong opinions on the need for women to have short hair. One of her most well known (and published) letters to the Baltimore Sun contains a letter she sent to the King of England about his resistance to women cutting their hair. Today's letter contains wonderful language, I love that she mentions a "charwoman" - which is an older English term for a maid or cleaning woman. It is interesting to me how Lucy uses such generalizations about women such as... they don't have time to be lolling on sofas anymore... that long hair is only seen on maids or cleaning women (or therefore women of a lower class). The last sentence is rather telling as well. I wonder if Lucy initially cut her own hair when it became the style for her daughter to do so in the 20's. To see a picture of Lucy read the About page.   - Carrie

2 comments:

  1. Oh, I like this one.

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  2. Me too Wendy! I just smiled when I was typing it out the other day. I just love her audacity for a lady in the 20's!!

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