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

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. 

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!