Introduction
African American hair care and culture has evolved over the past century in spectacular ways, particularly thanks to an infusion of pop stylings from the arts and entertainment world where hair care and culture have created new looks meant to express individuality, creative energy and so on. However, going back in history one can see that African American hair care and culture was similar yet different from what it is today. White and White showed that in the 1830s Negro quarter of a plantation in the South, the men could be found shaving the women “arranging their frizzy hair, in which they take no little pride, or investigating the condition of their children’s heads” (45). In other words, it was the same then as now with respect to hair care and culture—the only things that have changed are the styles. This paper will discuss the history of African American hair care and culture and show how it has evolved over the years to become what now is today.
The Benefits of Black Hair
One of the best natural qualities about the hair of African Americans in the days of slavery was that the “frizzy, kinky hair” was a natural insulator of the head from the sun’s rays and heat (Byrd, Tharps 1). Hair styles in Africa had been used to convey status, state, age, religion and other cultural aspects. In the New World, the elaborate hair styles used in African were not maintained; the culture of the White Anglo Saxon Protestants (WASPs) was primarily impressed upon the slaves and that included how hair was to be worn. Hair care in the South before and after Emancipation in the 19th century was different from the days in Africa, as well. In the South, African Americans did not have access to the kind of combs and herbal treatments they could use in Africa so they had to make do with bacon grease, kerosene or butter as conditioner or as cleaner on the plantations, where slaves did not have regular access to salons in the way whites did (Candelario). Yet their natural hair protected their heads, so taking care of the hair rather than cutting it off was a top priority.
Following Emancipation, free blacks began to find ways to emulate the higher social classes as a way of fitting in. For that reason, changing the nature of the “frizzy, kinky” hair to more reflect the straightness of white hair became a new top priority. To help African Americans pursue that option, Thompson notes that “in the early 1900s, Madam C.J. Walker received a patent for developing the ‘hot comb’ also known as a ‘pressing comb’. This device was the first of its kind to be marketed by a black woman to other black women, and it completely changed the hair game” (Thompson 1). African American men and women both could show off straightened hair that they hoped made them more acceptable in white culture. Yet, the natural qualities of the hair being what they were, anytime their hair came into contact with moisture, it would return back to its natural state; so African Americans were still able to retain a sense of uniqueness and authenticity, which served them especially well in the early 20th century when their musical talents began to catch the notice of the music scene and the first African American leaders in the blues and swing started making waves....
Works Cited
Byrd, Ayana, and Lori Tharps. Hair story: Untangling the roots of Black hair in America. Macmillan, 2014.
Candelario, Ginetta. "Hair race-ing: Dominican beauty culture and identity production." Meridians 1.1 (2000): 128-156.
Hebdige, Dick. Subculture: The meaning of style. Routledge, 2012.
Patton, Tracey Owens. "Hey girl, am I more than my hair?: African American women and their struggles with beauty, body image, and hair." NWSA Journal (2006): 24-51.
Rooks, N. Hair Raising: Beauty, Culture, and African American Women. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1996.
Tate, S. “Black beauty: Shade, hair and antiracist aesthetics.” Ethnic and Racial Studies 30.2 (2007): 300 319.
Thompson, Cheryl. "Black women and identity: What's hair got to do with it." Michigan Feminist Studies 22.1 (2008).
White, Shane, and Graham White. "Slave hair and African American culture in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries." The Journal of Southern History 61.1 (1995): 45-76.
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