The 5 Best Places to See Art Made From Dead People’s Hair

Need a cheap end of summer getaway, why not visit a hair museum?

In Victorian times, human hair was woven into wreaths and other ornamental objects. Today, the practice is dead but if you want to see wonderful old hair art here are some of the best places:

New York Public Library, various collections – New York, New York

The library contains loads of relics, and quite a lot of human hair. There are locks from Frankenstein creator Mary Shelley, American poet Walt Whitman and two locks of hair from the popular English Victorian poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning, one taken in life, and one taken in death. There is also hair from novelists Charlotte Bronte, William Makepeace Thackeray and Kathleen Millay.

Other Great Reads: Interview with a Victorian death expert

University of Wisconsin, Helen Louise Allen Textile Collection – Madison, Wisconsin

The collection contains numerous hair wreaths. Some feature white horsehair, as finding white human hair was very difficult and horsehair is similarly flexible.

Tony Kendall’s Wild Hair Museum – French Lick, Indiana

The museum, located in a small resort town 105 miles southwest of Indianapolis is inside a beauty salon and serves as a shrine to the cosmetology industry. There is a collection of vintage razors, shears, combs, hairbrushes, hair tonics and permanent wave machines and also a ton of human hair, displayed in cases running the length of the salon. Prized possessions include an authenticated lock of Elvis Presley’s hair and a framed hair wreath that dates back to the Civil War.

Other Great Reads: History of the funeral industrial in America

Confederate Relic Museum – Columbia, South Carolina

In 1896, members of the Daughters of the Confederacy founded a museum in Columbia, South Carolina to protect and preserve the history of the Confederacy. Items included a dress one woman wore the day General Sherman marched into Columbia and proceeded to burn it down, some time period quilts and palmetto badges and jewelry made with human hair. Many women took locks of hair from their sons, brothers, husbands and sweethearts before they left for war, both as a memento for while they were gone and something to remember them by in case they never returned.

Leila’s Hair Museum – Independence, Missouri

This hair museum takes the cake. There are pieces containing hair from Queen Victoria, four presidents and celebrities ranging from Michael Jackson to Marilyn Monroe. There are hair Mother Mary’s, hair Jesus on the cross’s and hair Saint Anne’s (Jesus’ grandmother). There are also neck pieces with scenes painted with pulverized hair. One particularly special work depicts a weeping willow tree made from a young woman’s hair who passed away at the age of 25. Her young husband is weeping at her grave, which is beside the tree. Leila’s Hair Museum has more than 2,000 pieces of hair jewelry and more than 600 hair wreaths. The oldest piece in the museum is a hair brooch made in 1680 that came to the United States via Sweden. According to the museum’s website, owner Leila Cohoon is presently writing a book about hair wreaths.