Log onto social media or turn on the television and one will quickly see evidence of modern society’s obsession with hair. Endorsements for hair extensions abound, as do products to thicken or regrow hair; liquids that promise to cleanse, tame frizz, or create shine; and dyes that assure consumers will gain a youthful appearance. As Elizabeth L. Block shows in Beyond Vanity: The History and Power of Hairdressing, however, this preoccupation is not unique to the twenty-first century. In fact, throughout the nineteenth century, hair was a significant aspect of mainstream beauty culture, which reflected larger social issues associated with gender, social class, race, and the economy. The study of hair, Block argues, offers important insight into women’s daily routines and how place, technology, and the marketplace were all linked to the cultural importance of hair.

Beyond Vanity is organized thematically across six chapters. Each chapter then takes a chronological approach, from approximately 1865 to 1900, to analyze a space in which hair was either cared for or commodified. Beginning with where hair was cared for—bedrooms, barbershops, and beauty parlors—Block explains that the time allotted to haircare was often linked to one’s race and social class. White standards of beauty also placed thick, curly, or wavy hair as the ideal, which pressured women of color to adhere to this convention. The advent of hairdressing parlors, the precursor to the modern salon, created luxurious spaces where men, women, and children could have their hair cared for with modern amenities such as running water.

Next, Block takes us to women showing off their hair. According to Block, this took on a performative aspect as women dyed their hair or chose just the right style to be immortalized in a portrait. However, in the case of Sissieretta Jones, among the most famous Black singers of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the rejection of a wig in favor of natural hair during performances communicated a significant element of her identity to white audiences. Jones’s rejection of wigs was unique because it was expected that she would wear a hairpiece to cover her natural hair and thereby conform to mainstream beauty norms. Head coverings were typically linked to labor status, especially for Black women, and thereby reflected power structures. In the case of Black entrepreneurs, such as Madam C. J. Walker, women challenged the cultural gatekeepers of the marketplace by developing and selling their own haircare products. By the turn of the twentieth century, the archetypes of the New Woman represented shifts in which hairstyles denoted respectability while at the same time imported human hair reflected the importance of the global hair trade.

Block’s work offers an excellent example of how the basic historical questions of who, what, where, and when can provide scholars with valuable insight into understanding the daily lives of people who did not leave a trove of written records. Based on etiquette books, published observations of urban life by authors such as James Dabney McCabe and Virginia Penny, as well as visual culture and ephemera, Block explains the dynamics of hair grooming and recreates the physical spaces that were significant to its care. Her descriptions of how spaces for haircare looked and what it might have been like to patronize such a place are particularly illuminating, because they show rather than tell how important hair was to daily routines. While some of the arguments about race, hair, and power have been analyzed in other scholarship, one of Block’s most significant contributions is the argument that hair was also linked to entrepreneurship and profitability. Our society is often focused on so-called influencers and the beauty trends that drive the market. Block’s research shows that this phenomenon is not new. Beyond Vanity is a valuable read for anyone interested in the ways that the marketplace and beauty culture were linked during the nineteenth century.