n.

A style in which hair is cut and arranged.

hairstyling hair'styl'ing n.
hairstylist hair'styl'ist n.

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Hairstyles throughout U.S. history have reflected political, social, and cultural trends as well as personal taste in grooming.

The Puritans, who were among the first European settlers in the United States, cut their hair in a way that expressed their staunch Christian beliefs and antimonarchist politics. In their native England, Puritan men were known as "Roundheads" because they cut their hair short in contrast to their monarchist enemies, the Cavaliers, who sported the courtly style of long, flowing locks. As the Puritans secured their base of power in seventeenth-century colonial Massachusetts, they passed such laws as the one in 1634 that banned long hair if it was "uncomely" or harmed "the common good."

As the colonies grew and were settled by other Europeans, the Puritan hair ethic was replaced by a hair aesthetic that to date is unique in American history. Early eighteenth-century hairstyles, rooted in European royal fashions, were distinctive for their extravagant use of wigs, hair extensions, curling, crimping, and powdering for both men and women. The 1700s was the only period in U.S. history when it was socially acceptable for men to wear long hair and wigs. Even military men styled their hair long, tied back into a pigtail, and powdered it white or gray. In the decades just prior to the Revolution, American women of the upper class mirrored the high hairstyles of their European counterparts and used cushions, pads, wigs, and wires to have their hairstyles reach new heights. Patriotic fervor felled these towers of hair, which had become synonymous with the English royalty, and women's hairstyles became more modest. By the end of the eighteenth century, men were also opting for simpler hairstyles and were abandoning their wigs, powder, and pigtails.

In the nineteenth century, more elaborate hairstyles gradually returned for women. Chignons, curls, and braids all had their moment of style, and women often used wigs or hair extensions to achieve their coifs. Between 1859 and 1860, $1 million worth of hair was imported into the United States for wig making. By the end of the century, women's hair reached another high note when hair extensions were commonly used for a top-knotted style that later became known as "the Gibson girl."

In the early 1800s, two hairstyle controversies involved men. The first occurred in 1803 when Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Butler was court-martialed for favoring the longer style of the previous century and thereby disobeying General James Wilkinson's 1801 decree that military men's hair be cropped. The second occurred in 1830, when James Palmer, who wore a beard, moved to Fitchburg, Massachusetts. Since the colonial era, beards were uncommon on men, and Palmer's beard so outraged the townspeople of Fitchburg that he was physically assaulted, refused communion in church, and eventually jailed.

Palmer was, evidently, slightly ahead of his time in the United States. At about the same time as his arrest in Massachusetts, European Romantic writers were growing beards as a sign of the Romantic movement's revolutionary character and its deep tie to nature. The American Romantic poet Walt Whitman, like his European counterparts, wore a full beard. By mid-century, however, beards became such commonplace fashion that in 1853 the War Department officially issued regulations about how military men could wear beards. Civil War general Ambrose Burnside popularized the style of side-whiskers that became known by the corrupted version of his last name, sideburns. As the 1800s drew to a close, so did the fashion of facial hairstyles for men.

During the twentieth century, hairstyles were often used as symbols of social revolution. At the beginning of the century, women began to experience unprecedented social freedom. In the 1920s newly liberated women demonstrated the cut with past social restrictions by having their hair cut into bobs. Later in the twentieth century, long hair was a symbol of the 1960s' peace and counter-culture movements. The Black Liberation Movement also expressed its revolutionary "Black Is Beautiful" stance with the full and natural hairstyle known as the Afro, which was popular in the late 1960s and early 1970s. In prior decades, fashionable black hair was "conked," or chemically treated to straighten its natural tight curl. In the 1980s and onward, black Americans expressed a renewed pride in their ancestry by wearing braided styles traditional to African countries.

Throughout the twentieth century, hairstyles were generally less formal and easier to maintain than they had been in previous centuries. The 1950s' and 1960s' bouffant and beehive styles, which required quantities of hair spray, hair extensions, and padding, were notable exceptions and recalled the high hairstyles of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In general, as the formalities and conventions of American society have relaxed over time so have Americans' hairstyles, which in the early twenty-first century have mainly required a cut and combing to be fashionable.

Bibliography

Corson, Richard. Fashions in Hair: The First Five Thousand Years. New York: Hastings House, 1965.

Simon, Diane. Hair: Public, Political, Extremely Personal. New York: St. Martin's Press, 2000.

Note: click on a word meaning below to see its connections and related words.

The noun has one meaning:

Meaning #1: someone who cuts or beautifies hair
  Synonyms: hairdresser, stylist, styler

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Dansk (Danish)
n. - frisure

Nederlands (Dutch)
haarstijl, kapsel, haardracht

Français (French)
n. - coiffure, coupe de cheveux

Deutsch (German)
n. - Frisur

Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - κόμμωση, χτενισιά

Italiano (Italian)
acconciatura

Português (Portuguese)
n. - estilo (m) de penteado, moda (f)

Русский (Russian)
прическа

Español (Spanish)
n. - peinado

Svenska (Swedish)
n. - frisyr

中文（简体） (Chinese (Simplified))
发型

中文（繁體） (Chinese (Traditional))
n. - 髮型

한국어 (Korean)
n. - 머리형, 헤어스타일

日本語 (Japanese)
n. - ヘアスタイル, 髪型

العربيه (Arabic)
‏(الاسم) تسريحه الشعر, طريقه ترتيب الشعر‏

עברית (Hebrew)
n. - ‮עיצוב שיער, תסרוקת‬

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