The Curious Mourning Tradition Involving Human Hair

Whether kept as memorials to the departed or as symbols of affection, jewelry and artwork made from human hair were popular from the colonial era until the beginning of the 20th century, when such trends fell out of style.

In the 18th century, hairwork was more understated; mourners might preserve small locks of hair under glass in brooches or rings. As the 19th century Romantic movement encouraged more open and dramatic displays of emotion, hairwork became more elaborate. Women wore entire necklaces or bracelets of woven hair directly against the skin as fashionable jewelry. A portrait of Madame Alcée Villeré (below) shows how stylish women of the 1850s might have worn hairwork. Dark, braided hair bands in her bracelets offer a dramatic contrast to the airy white lace on her dress bodice.

Women could order braided hairwork from a jeweler or try their hand at it themselves. Special round worktables with open centers assisted with intricate braiding or weaving. Mark Campbell’s 1867 handbook “Self-Instructor in the Art of Hair Work” offered creative women detailed diagrams and patterns for different braided and beaded hair jewelry designs, as well as for “curls, switches, and braids” to enhance an elaborate updo. Newspaper advertisements show that Campbell marketed his book to New Orleanians. The Decorative Arts of the Gulf South projectOpens in new tab recently discovered a set of grape-cluster earrings in Wilkinson County, Mississippi, that imitate designs in Campbell’s book (below).

Hair could also be used like embroidery thread to make artistic memorial images. After the American Revolution, middle- and upper-class families often sent their daughters to private girls’ schools where schoolmistresses taught basics like reading, writing, and arithmetic, along with artistic subjects like embroidery.

Ornamental needlework showcased students’ education and gentility. Training usually emphasized skill over originality, so young ladies often copied mourning scenes with stencils or tracing. George Washington’s death in 1799 ushered in a period of national mourning and proved a particularly popular subject for amateur artists.

Nineteenth-century mourning scenes used specific motifs like urns, obelisks with inscriptions, and willow trees. Such symbols harked back to classical Greek and Roman monuments, linking the young American republic with ancient traditions. Depictions often included weeping female figures leaning on the obelisks in a Romantic outpouring of grief.

These mourning tableaus were usually set in lush landscapes, hinting at the purity of nature and hope for rebirth. Using hair in artwork was another way to engage with and even control the natural world, freezing a moment of a loved one’s life in time.