Hairstyles of the Rich and Infamous

Every editorial cartoonist was expected to crank out cartoons about the solar eclipse and the passing of Orenthal James Simpson this week, most of which were slight variations on the same couple of themes. If you saw one, you'd seen the rest.

Other "Yahtzees," as we call them, often happen after truly major news stories that cannot be ignored.

And then there's...

"The Great National Question" by Nelson Harding in Brooklyn Daily Eagle, April 9, 1924

For some reason, 100 Aprils ago, editorial cartoonists across the country took to their drawing boards to address the burning issue of women's bobbed haircuts.

"If They Had Worn Bobbed Hair" by John T. McCutcheon in Chicago Tribune, April 5, 1924

The bobbed hairstyle was that short women's haircut forever associated with 1920's flappers and starlets (e.g. Betty Boop, Josephine Baker, Mary Pickford). It was a marked departure from earlier generations, when the feminine ideal required lots and lots of luscious tresses piled on top of a woman's head or draped over her shoulders.

Why do you bob your hair, girls? It is an awful shame
To rob the head God gave you and bear the flapper's name.
You're taking off your cov'ring. It is an awful sin.
Don't never bob your hair, girls. Short hair belongs to men.
 —"Why Do You Bob Your Hair, Girls" by Blind Alfred Reed, 1927

"You're Just the Person I Want to See" by Ralph Barton in Judge, April 19, 1924

Creation of the bobbed hairstyle is generally credited to a popular actress, dancer, and social influencer of her day who went by the stage name Irene Castle. Hospitalized for appendicitis in 1914, she decided that to facilitate washing and combing her hair during her recuperation, she would simply have it cut short.

When she then went out for dinner with friends without covering her ’do, her picture wound up in all the papers. In a time when women's rights advocates were fighting for the right to vote, suffragette sympathizers applauded Castle's rebellion against tradition and impractical hairstyles for women.

"And So She Had Hers Bobbed" by Carey Orr in Chicago Tribune, April 21, 1924

It wasn't only the length of the hair that was disturbing to the Bert Dears of the 1920's. The new bobbed style shockingly exposed women's ... ears. Uncovered ears were as associated with masculinity as was wearing pants. Even in these cartoons about minimist hairdos, only a couple of them expose the female ear.

Liberation of the female ear did open up new opportunities for the jewelry trade. Nor was the market for combs and hairbrushes at all diminished.

"Our Next Circus Attraction" by Tom Foley in Minneapolis Daily Star, April 9, 1924

In any event, in the ten years after Irene Castle's abdominal surgery, the bobbed hairstyle took U.S. womanhood by storm. It was convenient, requiring less muss and fuss, and easier to keep styled over the course of a day.

I'm sure that our cartoonists found it easier and quicker to draw as well.

"Fancy Trade First" by Albert T. Reid for Bell Syndicate, April 1, 1924

I did find one cartoon that tied the bobbed haircut theme — more or less — to bona fide news stories of the day. Albert Reid uses the bobbing craze to complain that Congress was spending too much time investigating all those scandals left over from the Harding administration, at the expense of popular legislation languishing in committee (in this case, President Coolidge's tax cut proposal).

A likely motivation for at least some of this flurry of bobbed-hair cartoons is the case of the Bobbed-Haired Bandit.

Excerpt from "I See by the Papers" by T.E. Powers for Star Company, ca. April 1, 1924

Celia and Ed Cooney, a young couple married the previous May, started robbing Brooklyn area grocers and drug stores in January of 1924. Newspapers eager to outsell their crosstown rivals seized on crime stories to make banner headlines in those days, and the Cooneys' string of audacious armed robberies immediately attracted the hungry attention of editors from New York to Los Angeles. The New York Telegram and Evening Mail dubbed Celia, 19, "The Bobbed Haired Bandit," and the moniker stuck.

Celia reveled in her notoriety, and as the string of robberies continued, the newspapers held Brooklyn Police Commissioner Richard Enright up for ridicule.

On January 14, Commissioner Enright announced the arrest of one Helen Quigley on suspicion of being the Bobbed Haired Bandit. Celia then left a message at a Brooklyn drugstore, boasting, "You dirty fish-peddling bums, leave this innocent girl alone and get the right ones, which is nobody else but us, and we are going to give Mr. Hogan, the manager of Roulston’s, another visit, as we got two checks we couldn’t cash, and also ask Bohack’s manager did I ruin his cash register. Also I will visit him again, as I broke a perfectly good automatic on it. We defy you fellows to catch us."

"Bobbed-Haired Bandits at Home" by Elmer Bushnell for Central Press Assn., ca. April 19, 1924

And their crime spree continued into February and March.

On April 1, the pair botched an attempted robbery of the National Biscuit Company's payroll office. Cashier Nathan Mazo made a grab for Celia, who fell over a chair. Ed shot and wounded Mazo, and the couple fled without the money. They hopped a steamer to Florida, where Celia gave birth to a daughter who died after two days.

On April 15, Commissioner Enright correctly announced the identity of the elusive pair, who were arrested by New York detectives in Jacksonville in the wee hours of April 21. Hundreds thronged to Penn Station to catch a glimpse of the two. 

New York Daily News front page April 23, 1924. Celia Cooney is identified by name, Ed merely as "her husband."

After their arrest, Brooklyn Daily Eagle columnist Nunnally Johnson rhapsodized:

"What Celia Cooney deserves is a ballad, a glorious painting, or a statue, preferably in Prospect Park. ...

"Celia Cooney in a few years will be a legendary figure, a part of Brooklyn folklore, a glamorous myth in a world of girls striving to reach the present height of feminine endeavor..."

Instead, the Cooneys pleaded guilty to their crimes and were sentenced to 20 years in prison, but were  released on parole after seven. Ed died in 1936; Celia remarried in 1943. Only after her death in 1992 did her sons Patrick and Edward Jr. learn of their parents' criminal past.