FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Twyla Wright – Curator
870-793-2121
Fun with Hair Dos and Wigs at the Museum
A program “Remember Those Hair Dos and Wigs?” will be presented at Old Independence Regional Museum at 2 p.m. on Sunday, February 12. Photographs of early hair styles, including the 1920s “bobbed” hair, will be on display. An array of White River Water Carnival programs will show how styles changed from 1937 until the present.
A door prize of a “free hair styling” will be awarded by Julie Gregg, owner of the Cutter’s Corner shop in Batesville.
Gregg went to cosmetology school in Newport, Arkansas. “I also received training through individual classes that I have taken through the years in Little Rock, Dallas, and Tampa, Florida. The classes ranged from cutting techniques to coloring techniques,” Gregg said. “I feel very lucky to be doing something that I love. I’ve been a hairstylist for 32 years and hope to be one for another 32 years!” Gregg will do a demonstration of hair care at the museum on Tiffany Duke who is a new stylist at Cutters Corner.
Two other women will carry the audience back in time with their memories as hairdressers.
Bertha Wade Hughes started her career while still in high school by working Saturdays in a local beauty shop answering the phone. After finishing high school she attended 1,500 hours at Blackwood’s Beauty School in North Little Rock, then passed the state board exam and received her license. “After I returned to Batesville, I went to work for Bessie Jane Cook. With the exception of working in two other shops, I retired after spending most of forty-five years doing hair,” she reported. She will also share some funny experiences she had during that time.
Janet Gray began cosmetology school just after graduating from high school in Michigan. Then she transferred to a beauty college in Lakeland, Florida. Upon her graduation from that college she took her Florida state Board exam en-route home to Michigan, and that is how she ended up having licenses in two states. She worked for several years there before moving to Arkansas.
“My mother always wanted to be a hairdresser and when she was growing up “finger-waving” was popular. She would boil flax seed to make a setting solution and even finger-waved her sisters’ hair on her own wedding day!” Janet related. “I worked for about a year at Jane’s Hair Fashions in Batesville at the same time Bertha Hughes was there.”
Wigs were popular in the 18th century for both men and women, and resurged in popularity in the 1960s and 1970s for women. Both Hughes and Gray will show the outcome of their work on a number of the museum’s wig collection.
Twyla Wright, museum curator, invites all who would like to spend an hour of fun memories to bring a photograph or two of themselves. “Do you have a picture of yourself or a family member who was wearing a Poodle, a Beehive, an Updo with “spit curls”, a Pageboy, a curly Afro, or maybe a 1970s Shag or a later “Hamill” Wedge? “ she asked. “Of course there were also the Pixie, the Flip, a French Twist, or even a Bubble (helmet) hairdo! Boys were known to wear Flat tops, Burrs, Duck Tails, Mohawks, Bowl Cuts , and Pompadours like Elvis Presley.”
The program will be free and open to the public. Normal museum hours are: Tuesday-Saturday, 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. and from 1:30 to 4 p.m. on Sundays. Admission is $3.00 for adults, $2.00 for seniors and $1.00 for children. The museum is located at 380 South 9th street, between Boswell and Vine Streets in Batesville.
Old Independence is a regional museum serving a 12-county area: Baxter, Cleburne, Fulton, Independence, Izard, Jackson, Marion, Poinsett, Sharp, Stone, White, and Woodruff. Parts of these present-day counties comprised the original Independence County in 1820’s Arkansas territory.
