A Cultural History of Hair in the Age of Enlightenment

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A thick, tangled and deliciously idiosyncratic history of hair. Times Literary Supplement The Enlightenment (1650-1800) was the Golden Age of hair. Hair dominated fashion as never before or since, with more men and women than ever donning elaborate wigs and hairdos. Such unprecedentedly extravagant styling naturally increased the demand for the services of professional hairdressers, whose numbers grew apace throughout the period. They, in turn, created a new range of hair-care products and a new literature of hair-care advice, ranging from hairstyles to hygiene, thus enlarging the market and further stimulating consumption. A Cultural History of Hair in the Enlightenment offers a record of their marketing success, mindful that the ultimate product of this culture of consumption was the consumer. Literary and visual arts celebrated the ambitious ttes and coifs of the period, but they also lampooned and caricatured the most fashionable in society. By exploring paintings, prints, plays, poems, novels, treatises, and advice manuals, the contributors to this volume show how hair in this period expanded beyond the fashionable and the superstitious, and became newly understood as material, inspiring empirical research and powering applications such as in the woolen goods industry. The essays in this volumecovering Religion and Ritualized Belief, Self and Society, Fashion and Adornment, Production and Practice, Health and Hygiene, Gender and Sexuality, Race and Ethnicity, Class and Social Status, and Cultural Representationsexplore hairs many meanings and its importance during the Enlightenment period.

Reviews

A thick, tangled and deliciously idiosyncratic history of hair ... There is plenty to inform and intrigue. * Times Literary Supplement *
These learned and witty essays explore the Enlightenments obsession with the social magic of hair, from celebrity hairdressers to hairy comets, to outlaw hair to the global trade in textiles. Mediator of foundational, philosophical, social, racial, and sexual differences, hair emerges as the catalyst for vividly creative critical encounters with the material past. -- Helen Deutsch, University of California, Los Angeles, USA
This volume invites us into the lively and inventive world of hair in the 18th century, in all of its messy magic and heightened glory. Each essay reveals new ways of seeing and understanding Enlightenment hairreal, artificial, and imagined. -- Chloe Wigston-Smith, University of York, UK
Like a great new cut, A Cultural History of Hair in the Age of Enlightenment allows you to envisage the world differently. Working like master wigmakers, the editors have assembled a star roster of contributors and crafted an elegant collection that braids together the study of sociability, materiality and the body. Rarely have I read a series of essays that so powerfully argues for the centrality of its topic to 18th-century life. -- Daniel OQuinn, University of Guelph, Canada

Author Bio

Margaret K. Powell is the former W.S. Lewis Librarian and Executive Director of the Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University, USA. Joseph Roach is Sterling Professor of Theater and Professor of English Emeritus at Yale University, USA.