Powell's Hair being "Filed?" What's THAT about?!

[BettyO]

Found an article in the Baltimore Clipper the other day stating that Powell sported a "different appearance" in the courtroom - his hair being "filed".

I have gone through every Victorian manual and dictionary - yes including Barber's manuals, available... any suggestion as to what having one's hair "filed" involved?

About this time, Lew Powell had been given what we today call a "crew cut" - could that be what this is?

Just curious....

Anyone really know what this meant?

Thanks!

Uploaded with ImageShack.us

[RJNorton]

That's a new one on me, Betty. Never heard of that before.

[BettyO]

I have a great many old Victorian dictionaries (and one that even goes back to the Federal era dated 1811) - I can find no reference to this at all....

Just another archaic Victorian euphemism which has lost it's meaning.... I love these old period words and would love to find out what it meant. For years I wondered what a Victorian person's "traps" were and finally found out that it was their A) luggage B) personal effects!

Perhaps someone on the board will know what "hair filing" means! HA!

[Jenny]

"Hair filing?" That's an interesting one! I'd *assume* it means he was just given a much shorter haircut/that crew-cut as you originally speculated, Betty, but I'm definitely unfamiliar with it! Nice find!

[L Verge]

I am strictly guessing, but I wonder if it refers to a razor cut versus a scissors' cut? As to the slang "trap," I always thought it was a shortening of the term "trappings," which basically was what you wore. Such as, "Mary Lincoln had all the trappings of a wealthy woman."

[MaddieM]

I have a great many old Victorian dictionaries (and one that even goes back to the Federal era dated 1811) - I can find no reference to this at all....

Just another archaic Victorian euphemism which has lost it's meaning.... I love these old period words and would love to find out what it meant. For years I wondered what a Victorian person's "traps" were and finally found out that it was their A) luggage B) personal effects!

Perhaps someone on the board will know what "hair filing" means! HA!

Misprint? Or does he mean filed down, as in taken down close.

[BettyO]

I would have to agree with both Laurie and Maddie -

No - it's not a misprint because I've found one other reference to it - and it's called "filed" in both accounts.... I think it means close cut - but I'd love to know for sure....

The only thing that I can come up with would be the fact that since we know that he had his hair cut in mid June and again on July 4 (as per the Hartranft Letter Books) then it must be Victorian slang or a euphemism for what we commonly call a "crew cut" or "buzz cut" today.... but I would love to find a documented reference to it; such as how was it done? Cut short withi scissors and then razored? Or was it simply razored? That would be pretty drastic - I couldn't imagine putting a straight razor on anyone's head! OUCH!!

[Linda Anderson]

Betty, I found a reference to hair filing in a dissertation by Florence Lyons-Fontenot called "BEYOND BOUNDARIES: POLITICAL DICTATES FOUND IN MINSTRELSY"

"Minstrel performances stated that blacks 'had to have their hair filed, not cut...' (Toll 67)." p. 25.

Toll, Robert C. Blacking Up. New York: Oxford University Press, 1974.

http://etd.lsu.edu/docs/available/etd-11...ot_dis.pdf

[BettyO]

What in the world does that mean? Did it state how it was done? Thanks, Linda!! You are a marvel!

[LincolnMan]

So, what does it mean? We are dying to know!

[Linda Anderson]

So, what does it mean? We are dying to know!

I don't know how they did it but the answer is out there somewhere!

[BettyO]

I'm looking....it had to be shaved, I would guess....just why this was done is beyond me - perhaps it was the only way to get a crew cut to make it cooler -- sounds painful though!

[Jenny]

I've been searching too... and I "got nuthin'" so far. Let me ask a friend of mine who know quite a bit about Victorian vocabulary; however if you expert ladies and gents don't know what "filing hair" is, I am not sure she would either.

---

Wait! I might have found something! My friend immediately said this about "filing hair" in the Victorian era: "It's like the razor cut today. Open blade, slicing hair. It's messy but did the job."

[Linda Anderson]

I found a "snippet view" on Google of Blacking Up: The Minstrel Show in Nineteenth Century: "At times, minstrels even claimed that Negroes had to have their hair filed, not cut.."

From the dissertation "BEYOND BOUNDARIES: POLITICAL DICTATES FOUND IN MINSTRELSY:"

"Minstrel discourse routinely declared that blacks, because they had different physical characteristics than whites, were inhuman and therefore inferior. Minstrel performances stated that blacks 'had to have their hair filed, not cut...'" and so on.

So saying that African Americans needed their hair filed and not cut was part of the minstrels' racist stereotyping. No one actually had their hair "filed." It's interesting that the reporter used that term, in quotes, to describe Powell's haircut. Was it a slang term for the buzz cut or was the reporter implying that Powell had the same type of hair as African Americans?

[Joe Di Cola]

I asked someone whom I thought might know and she told me it was a lengthening of hair by a process of stretching it. Has anyone else heard this? Since I am follicly-challenged, what do I know?!