Lilly Library

Locks of the Lilly: Examples of hair in the Lilly Library

Curatorial and Outreach Assistant Jake Gentry showcases some the Lilly Library’s famous and lesser-known hairy materials!

Raising awareness for men’s health issues through the uninterrupted growth of facial hair– the philanthropic goal of annual events like Movember and no-shave November– results in plenty of valiant mustaches, beards, and the like. However, after a month of laborious hair growing, December brings with it a chance to cut loose from last month’s hairy shenanigans and shave into a new day. In fact, at least one shaving company has capitalized on this by christening December 1st as “National Shave Day.” In honor of all of the recently discarded hair, let us showcase some of the more organic realia (three-dimensional, non-book objects) found in the Lilly Library’s collections. While hair, human or otherwise, is probably not your immediate thought of what goes into a special collections library, it is far more common than one would expect and appears in collections for a plethora of reasons.

Locks of Love: Hair as expressions of affection

Handwritten letter with lock of hair attached to it.
Handwritten correspondence from Luise Rainer to Clifford Odets, dated November 26, 1937 (LMC 2938, Box 1).

Few acts get more intimate than giving another person a literal piece of your body– thus gifting hair as an outward expression of endearment was once a common dating tradition among young lovers. This tradition was popular enough in the Georgian era to appear twice in Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility (1811). Thus, hair is not an uncommon element of vintage love letters. One such love letter is a correspondence from November 26, 1937, sent to Clifford Odets from the Academy Award-winning actress Luise Rainer. Loise sent her love through multiple mediums; as not only does she include a lock of her hair, but also a lipstick print, fingerprints, tracing of her finger, a piece of her nightgown, photographs of herself and Clifford, and a spritz of her perfume (which can sadly no longer be smelled). Although Luise would eventually file for divorce, this love letter is an apt example of how love can be expressed not just in words. 

Manes and the Mournful: Mourning Jewelry and Mementos

As stated previously, hair is an extremely personal thing to not only give but receive. Thus, pieces of hair have often been collected from the deceased by loved ones as a memento, as hair does not decay nor lose its color once cut. The Victorian era gave rise to mourning jewelry, which are wearable tokens of remembrance that commonly contained pieces of hair from a lost loved one. Pictured below is a mourning brooch owned by Annie Richmond, which contains a lock of Edgar Allan Poe’s hair. Annie Richmond, who Edgar Allan Poe became infatuated with and wrote the 1849 poem “For Annie,” about, was sent the brooch by Maria Poe Clemm, Poe’s aunt and maternal figure.

Mourning brooch with lock of hair encased in the jewel.
Mourning brooch with a lock of Edgar Allan Poe’s hair enclosed within (LMC 2446, Box 1).
Envelope and lock of hair displayed on manila folder.
Lock of Henry Hope Shakespear’s hair, as well as the original envelope used to house it (LMC 1876, Box 2).

Poe is not the only author we have deathly hair from– as Henry “Hope” Shakespear (Ezra Pound’s father-in-law) requested some of his hair be cut at the time of his death and preserved. While the custom of mourners cutting their hair to signify grief is common across multiple cultures, the act of the deceased requesting their own hair be cut during the time of their death is a bit unorthodox. Nevertheless, Shakespear’s final wish was indeed granted, and when he was dying in July 1923, his wife, Olivia Shakespear, cut a lock of his hair, as seen below.

Braided and Bound: Hair in Books

Hair can also pop up in (or, on) books as well. One such book– William T. Vollmann’s The Grave of Lost Stories: Being a True Narrative of the Last Days of Mr. Poe, As Disclosed to William T. Vollmann Through the Miraculous Agency of Mesmerism– is a one-of-the-kind artist book, made with “the most poisonous dry pigments available.” The cover of the artist book not only features embellishments of animal jawbones and teeth, but also a green-faced, papier-mâché woman with claws and tufts of genuine, black human hair. Unfortunately (or fortunately) the person whose hair now adorns this artist book is unknown.

Green-faced, papier-mâché woman with claws and tufts of black human hair.
Cover of William T. Vollmann’s The Grave of Lost Stories, featuring a green, papier-mâché woman with animal teeth, claws, and black human hair (PS3572.O395 G73 1990).
Page of album featuring handwritten entries and a lock of hair stitched onto the page.
Page of Harriet Thayer’s album, which features two locks of Adolphe Thiébault’s hair stitched into the book (LMC 2416, Book 22).

Not as outwardly stirring as Vollmann’s The Grave of Lost Stories, but just as striking in its own way, Harriet Thayer’s album is a multi-generational album-scrapbook begun in 1815. The album contains notes, poems, illustrations, songs, riddles, wedding announcements, newspaper clippings, and– you guessed it– hair. Among the grangerized pages are two locks of Adolphe Thiébault’s hair, cut when he was sixteen months old and at some point given to Thayer by Adolphe’s mother. Thayer took great care to preserve her husband’s hair– securing Adolphe’s locks of hair into the book by stitching them onto the pages of the album.

Hairlooms: Heirlooms and Family Keepsakes

In like manner to the mourning jewelry and mementos, hair can also be collected from loved ones– both people and animals– antemortem to be made into keepsakes for the future. Hair is a versatile material and can be preserved in a myriad of ways- such as stowed away in envelopes, set into jewelry, or encased in frames. An amalgam of the jewelry and framing methods can be seen here, with two portraits from the Scribner Family collection. Not only do the portraits depict two members of the Scribner family but also preserve locks of their hair behind round glass panels. The larger of the portraits, featuring a young girl, has a bail at its top, furthering that at least one of the portraits was meant to be worn.

Two round portraits, one featuring a man and the other a lock of hair encased in glass.
Two round, ornamental portraits of members of the Scribner family, with locks of their hair encased in glass (LMC 2201, Box 4).
Black hairs in a white envelope.
Three hairs from the tail of Araby the horse (LMC 2345, Box 29).

Furthermore, loved ones also include our loyal animal companions, whose hair may also be preserved for sentimental reasons. Among the Lilly Library’s archival materials include some cat hair and a whisker from an unnamed feline family member of Max Eastman. Additionally, some larger animals are also immortalized in the collection. Araby, a horse owned by the Gilder family, has three of its tail hairs stored in a small envelope within the Gilder collection, alongside some pressed botanical specimens. 

Some honorary mentions that did not make the cut (har har) but are available to see in the Lilly Library’s reading room upon appointment include locks of Sylvia Plath’s hair from her baby book and childhood, a lock of William Wordsworth’s hair, wig hair from the Scammon collection, and Box 54 of the Sieveking collection– which contains little envelopes of hair from over nine individuals!

Envelope and a small white whisker resting on a green pillow.
Whisker and envelope of unidentified cat hair (LMC 2427, Box 44).

About the authorJake H. Gentry is a 25-year-old gay writer, artist, and graduate student. He received his Master of Library Science with a specialization in Rare Books and Manuscripts at Indiana University Bloomington, where he is now also pursuing his MA in Curatorship. He is a curatorial and teaching/outreach assistant at the Lilly Library. He lives in Bloomington, Indiana with his partner and his two cats, Poe and Jiji.

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