This cabinet card, photographed by Holcombe and Metzen of Detroit, Michigan; is an image of a young woman with lots of hair. I have seen other cabinet card portraits of woman with hair to spare and I am not sure how to interpret the meaning of this era’s hair fashion statement. If anyone has knowledge of this phenomenon; please leave a comment. Photographers Holcombe and Metzen are given mention in the Detroit Yearbook of 1890.
YOUNG WOMAN WITH THE LONGEST HAIR IN DETROIT
The URI to TrackBack this entry is: https://cabinetcardgallery.com/2009/06/28/young-woman-with-the-longest-hair-in-detroit/trackback/
THE CABINET CARD GALLERY 
Women’s hair was praised at length in contemporary periodicals. For example, an article bemoaning the poor quality of “woman’s chief glory” http://www.gothampatterns.com/hair.html#hairarticles (“What is the Reason?”)
In Pleasures Taken, Carol Mavor writes that “the brushing of a woman’s hair meant letting her sexuality out.” (p 109)
I don’t know anything about the long hair photos (and you’re right, it was a long-lived fad of some sort, judging by the numbers) but my guess is that if a woman had long, thick hair, she had it photographed for her own pleasure, perhaps to remember in her old age that she had once been beautiful.