Beauty Culture and Change

Another question that I seek to answer is that of how beauty culture—fashion, hair, and cosmetics—can be a vehicle, or at least a reflection of, change. It seems clear to me that I have answered this for myself on a personal level. As previously stated, I’ve used my visual identity to define and reflect an identity that is powerful, creative, and informed. I’m more interested in how this has worked collectively and individually for women throughout American history, particularly in the 20^th century.

I’m not a historian, though clearly I have an interest in history. Though my job requires me to teach literature, as any English teacher will tell you, that requires one to teach some history as well, no matter how strong the history curriculum is in a community. Given that I’m always interested in knowing and teaching what literature reflects about its context and the context of the readers, I would probably teach it even if it didn’t seem to be required for student success though.

A little problem with this though is that I’m not someone who cares to sit down and read a conventional chronological book of history most likely periodized by wars and presidential administrations. I strongly prefer to pick up my general political history by learning about other things, areas of interest preferably. For instance, in high school, thanks to a habit of being somewhat distracted and sleepy in the history class that followed my early morning cosmetology class, I might not have learned anything at all about World War II, if it hadn’t been for my growing, almost obsessive interest in air-cooled Volkswagens. I have often noted how I compartmentalize and evaluate history based my knowledge of 20^th century hair and fashion history. As a simple example, a picture of a bob hairstyle encapsulates modernity, increasing industrialization, so-called moral decay, and greater independence for women, and a bold colored mid-sixties A- line represents the dwindling of American innocence that follows Kennedy assassination and escalation in the Vietnam Conflict. At some point, not too far in the past surprisingly, I realized that there’s no reason that I can’t teach history as needed using the very items that I know and love so well, and that are icons of the American history (uneven though it may be) in my head. I mean, really, what on earth is the point in having a Miss Lady as a teacher if you can’t learn about the significance of the shift from the corset to the girdle, or the symbolism of Eames era furniture or the super ultra glamourous atomic earrings she wears to cocktail parties in her other life?

In my readings throughout the NEH Varieties of American Feminism seminar, it has occurred to me that both the condition of women and the struggle for women’s rights can be read through the story of beauty culture.  I will attempt to capture this in the series of entries titled “Beauty Culture and Change.” While this won’t be utterly comprehensive of all American women’s experiences, and will, as always with Miss Lady, include more depth when discussing my beloved 20^th century, the links between beauty culture and change for women should be clear and various “entry points” for teaching this history will be provided.