Our March Treasure of the Month features pieces from the library’s collection of Victorian hair jewelry. These pieces range in date from 1800 to 1880 and show a variety of techniques and styles of hair work.
Today, we might find the idea of wearing someone’s hair as jewelry to be unpleasant, but hair is a universal symbol of life and was associated with the preservation of love after death in many cultures. The art of creating hair jewelry can be traced back to Swedish craftswomen in the 1800s. These craftswomen, often the wives of farmers, had to find ways to gain additional income to support their families, and developed crafts such as hair jewelry to sell throughout Europe.
Hair jewelry quickly gained popularity after bracelets, necklaces, and an entire tea set of hair were displayed at the 1853 Crystal Palace Exposition in New York, and after Queen Victoria presented a bracelet made from her own hair to Empress Eugenie, the wife of Napoleon III. From then on, hair jewelry was an important commodity and even a status symbol, as most jewelry required long pieces of hair, often twenty to twenty-four inches long.
In the United States, hair jewelry became prominent at the beginning of the Civil War. Soldiers would often leave a lock of hair with their families to be kept safe in a locket or brooch which was added to mourning jewelry upon the soldier’s death. These pieces often held a picture or memento of the deceased along with the styled lock of hair and were worn for several months during the mourning process.
Hair jewelry was popular not only for its sentimental meaning, but also because it was relatively easy to make. While one could commission a hair artist or jeweler to make a piece, leading women’s magazines also included instruction patterns for making brooches, cuff links, and bracelets at home. Many bracelets, necklaces, and other jewelry items were made with a technique called table work, which required a special circular table with a hole in the middle. Hair was first boiled in soda water, dried, and grouped into strands. Those strands were then weighed down with bobbins on the table and woven into three dimensional coils or elaborate braids.
One pair of bracelets in our collection, dated to 1800, comes with a story from the donor’s mother – “These bracelets belonged to my great aunt Winifred Carey, for whom I was named…She was very handsome and accomplished. Her husband was consul to France during the Revolution. They often awoke in the morning to see [the] heads of their friends at their window. One evening they were returning from some official affair; they were seized by [a] mob, and were on the way to the guillotine, when they were rescued by friendly officials and sent to their apartment. The bracelets were dropped in the trouble, recovered afterwards and returned to Aunt Winifred who gave them to my grandmother.”
Victorian hair jewelry slowly became undesirable at the turn of the twentieth century after the death of Queen Victoria, the onset of World War I and the women’s rights movement, and the increasing popularity of the “short bob” hairstyle. However, hair jewelry still fascinates viewers and collectors, and there are still Swedish craftswomen passing on their techniques and keeping the art of hair jewelry alive for over 200 years.
The Treasure of the Month is located on the library’s historic second floor near the East Entrance. It can be viewed during regular library hours, 9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. Monday through Saturday. For museum questions, call 409.763.8854 Ext. 125 or email museum@rosenberg-library.org. For press inquiries, contact the Communications Coordinator.
