Hair

TheProvidence Public Library’s 2018 spring exhibition, HairBrained, focuses on hairstyles throughout history—braids, curls, facial hair, wigs—and the ways in which hair defines and reflects culture, self-identity, agency, and politics. Many of the resources listed in this guide were helpful to the curators as they developed the exhibition.

Books

• Bristol, Douglas Walter. Knights of the Razor: Black Barbers in Slavery and Freedom. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2015.
• Byrd, Ayana D, and Lori L. Tharps. Hair Story: Untangling the Roots of Black Hair in America. New York: St. Martin’s Griffin, 2014.
• Corson, Richard. Fashions in Hair: The First Five Thousand Years. London: Peter Owen, 1965.
  An extensive and illustrated chronological survey of hair styles.
• Edwards, Audrey. Essence: 25 Years Celebrating Black Women. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1995.
• Mills, Quincy T. Cutting Along the Color Line: Black Barbers and Barber Shops in America. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013.
• Paterek, Josephine. Encyclopedia of American Indian Costume. (Denver, CO: ABC-CLIO, 1994)
• Pointon, Marcia R. Hanging the Head: Portraiture and Social Formation in Eighteenth-Century England. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1993.
  See particularly, section IV: “Dangerous Excrescences: Wigs, Hair and Masculinity.”
• Schiebinger, Londa. Nature’s Body: Gender in the Modern Science. Boston: Beacon Press, 1993.
  See particularly the “That Majestic Beard” section, page 120 and following.
• Scott, Georgia. Headwraps: A Global Journey. (New York: Public Affairs, 2003).

Articles and Online Resources

• Blais-Billie, Braudie. “Beyond Braids: The True Story of Indigenous Hair.” i-D (June 23, 2017).
• Godley, Michael R. “The End of the Queue: Hair as Symbol in Chinese History.” China Heritage Quarterly no. 27 (September 2011).
• Gonzales, Michael. “Natural Fact: The Nina Simone Story.” WaxPoetics (June 25, 2015).
• Griebel, Helen Bradley. “The African American Woman’s Headwrap: Unwinding the Symbols.”
• Hedges, Chris. “Fez Journal; Last Refuge of the Tall Tasseled Ottoman Hat.” The New York Times (March 22, 1995).
• Joukhadar, Jennifer Zeynab. “The Night in My Hair: Henna, Syria, and the Muslim Ban.” The Paris Review (February 21, 2018).
• Kochhar, Nazuk. “Why Gucci’s Recent Use of Turbans as an Accessory is Not OK.” Fader (February 22, 2018).
• Lee, Jonathan H.X. “Queue Ordinance (1876).” In Chinese Americans: The History and Culture of a People. (Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2015): 102-104.
• Miles, Tiya. “Black Hair’s Blockbuster Moment.” New York Times Sunday Review (February 23, 2018).
• Powell, Margaret K. and Joseph Roach. “Big Hair.” Eighteenth-Century Studies vol. 38, no. 1 (2004): 79-99.
• “Queue” from the Illustrating Chinese Exclusion website. The site is an extensive resource devoted to Thomas Nast’s illustrations for Harper’s Weekly.
• Rives, Danielle. “Taking the Veil: Clothing and the Transformation of Identity.” Journal of the Western Society for French History vol. 33 (2005).
• Richardson, Connor H. “The Coverings of an Empire: An Examination of Ottoman Headgear from 1500 to 1829.” Research Paper, Gettysburg College (Fall 2012).
• Rosenthal, Angela. “Raising Hair.” Eighteenth-Century Studies vol. 38, no. 1 (2004): 1-16.
• Ruddick, Nicholas. “‘Not So Very Blue, after All’: Resisting the Temptation to Correct Charles Perrault’s ‘Bluebeard.’” Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts, vol. 15, no. 4 (2004): 346–357.
• Walfred, Michelle. “Queue.” In Illustrating Chinese Exclusion (April 1, 2014).
• Yildirim, Seval. “Global Tangles: Laws, Headcoverings and Religious Identity.” Santa Clara Journal of International Law vol. 10, no. 1 (2012).
• Sharp, Sarah Rose. “A History of Head Wraps and Wrought-Iron Windows in an Artist’s Travels.” Hyperallergic (February 23, 2018).
• Synnott, Anthony. “Shame and Glory: A Sociology of Hair.” The British Journal of Sociology, 38, no. 3 (Sep., 1987): 381-413.