A fascinating thread. Only male hairdressers seem to figure so I'm not optimistic I'll hear answers to my query about hairdressers.
To be a female hairdresser, in her own business, would that be unusual in the 1890s to early 1900s?
My great Aunt wasn't described as Master Hairdresser but she did run a shop in Bradford where hairdressing seemed the main game and tobacco was also sold. She was a stay at home wife until her husband went bankrupt and disappeared in the 80s, leaving her with 3 small children.
She was a milliner before she married, her Warwickshire parents had been well off but fallen on hard times and had died when she was young, so I assume she had grit.
I have no idea if she did an apprenticeship in hairdressing; with 3 toddling infants, husband's debts to pay and running a failing tobacconist shop, it doesn't sound as if she'd have the time!
But she managed to turn things around, presumably by introducing hairdressing.
Her eldest son also became a hairdresser too. (He died too young, shortly after his mother, from depression it sounds like.)
Does anyone else have a female hairdresser working in the 1890s? And know anything of their work practice?
