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*Migration Histories > Caribbean > Working Lives
* Good Grooming and Reconstruction 
 
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Statement of Black identification with modernity
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It could be also be said that the restructuring of Black hair in order to create fashionable hairstyles such as the Eton Crop, a version of which was famously worn by the African-American performer Josephine Baker during the 1920s, was a forceful statement of Black identification with modernity.
* Moving Here catalogue reference (BCA) MH01
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The portraits of three Caribbean women, photographed at the Earnest Dyche Studios in Birmingham during the 1950s
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The portraits of three Caribbean women, photographed at the Earnest Dyche Studios in Birmingham during the 1950s, illustrate the pursuit of good grooming practice for over a hundred years by different members of the African diaspora. Creating and maintaining good hairstyles became part of the psychological armour for Caribbeans settling in Britain. (Image originally supplied by Birmingham City Archives)
* Moving Here catalogue reference (BCA) DC02
Despite this example of the styling possibilities for natural hair, the dominant practice amongst women and men from the 1830s onwards was the straightening of Black hair, with the aim to produce manageable hair for fashionable hairstyles.

This was achieved through the use of creams (a process generally described as 'relaxing' the hair) or, from the late nineteenth century with a heated metal comb known as a 'pressing comb' (commonly known as 'straightening' or 'pressing' the hair). Applying one of these processes to the hair was advocated by such hairstyling specialists as the African-American, Madam C.J. Walker (1867-1919), who established her company, Madam C.J. Walker Manufacturing Company, in 1906. She has been credited with popularising the use of the pressing comb alongside her own product 'Madame C.J. Walker's Wonderful Hair Grower' or 'Vegetable Shampoo', as being part of good grooming practice.

In 1952 Mrs. Beryl Gittens was advised by her uncle to 'walk with your pressing comb' as she planned her journey to Britain from Guyana. There was a severe lack of public hairdressing facilities for Black women and men during this period. Mrs Gittens, who trained as a hairdresser in Guyana from 1947 to 1950, remembers the difficulties this situation caused: 'there was no where you could have gone into to have your hair done in a white salon ... they could not even comb our hair. And they were so scared of it, they said "we can't do your hair" and often they never tried, and so I had people who used to come, you see the girls now cutting their hair off, that's just what they resorted to, just cut'.

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A Black haircare shop in Oxford, 2003.
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A Black haircare shop in Oxford, 2003.
To address such issues, and answer the pressing need, the Trinidadian pianist, Winifred Atwell established a salon in Brixton in the late 1950s to train English women how to style Black hair.

But a more general solution was seen in the rise in the cottage industry of home Black hairstyling across the country, often by untrained individuals. From the late 1950s, hairdressing salons and courses specialising in Black hair began to be established, and flourished throughout the 1960s. In 1962, Mrs Gittens opened the first Black hairdressers on Streatham High Street, one of the first in London, Beryl's Hairdressing Salon whilst regularly attending refresher courses held by Black hair care professionals such as Roy Lando.

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Creators: Carol Tulloch

 
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