November 12, 2012 • 26 mins
What did flappers have to do with the invention of the bobby pin? Where do all those bobby pins go when they disappear? Join Caroline and Cristen as they explore the history of hair pins, as well as theories of where all those lost bobby pins end up.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to stuff Mom Never told you. From how Stuff
Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Kristen and I'm Caroline. Caroline, I don't know about you,
but I have a pretty long history with bobby pins
because I started taking ballet when I was in first grade,
(00:28):
and of course I gotta have that hair up in
the bun. And even today I wouldn't. I would go
through some phases where I wouldn't use bobby pins, but
now I'm like, bobby pin crazy. They're everywhere in my apartment,
They're in the bottoms of all of my bags. There
are actually it's a minimal bobby pin day for me
(00:49):
right now, they're only three in my hair, but they're
probably like, there's probably a trail of them. I leave
a trail. There's one outside my apartment door right now,
and I'm like, I don't know if that's really mine,
but I assume it is because it's right next to
my welcome Matt. I don't want to pick it up, though, well,
because it doesn't matter, because you can just go to
the drug store and buy another pack of three thousands,
(01:11):
rapidly lose all of them. Yeah, I'm always I'm always
mystified by by the strange places that I will I
will find them. I left one even the like a
week ago on our producer Jerry's Hey, Jerry, Jerry's desk,
just it was just there. Did it disappear? Uh No,
she gave it back to me and I probably put
(01:32):
it in my hair, the one and only bobby pin
that has ever been recovered in the history of humanity.
But not only do we both have extensive personal histories
with bobby pins. Come to find out, folks, Yes, we
are doing an entire podcast on bobby pins because the
history of these pins goes way back and there's actually
(01:54):
some pretty cool stuff in there. Tell me about ancient hairpins, Caroline,
I will wow our listeners. I actually majored in ancient
bobby pins. Yeah, so early hairpins. Let's let's go. Let's
go really early. They have been found during archaeological digs
in parts of Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Middle East.
(02:16):
And of course we are not talking about the metal
goody pins. We are talking about pieces made from wood, bone, thorns,
or stone. And the whole stone thing gives me pause
because I'm like, how do you how do you do
you have to like really finely chisel that like they
get a stone pin anyway, I tell you, a stone
hairpin that could double is a nice weapon of choice
(02:39):
right in the old eyeball. A lot of times they
were also crafted from metal, and as early as two
thousand b C. The Greeks were making decorative gold hairpins. Um.
They have also been Roman hairpins found from the third
and fourth centuries made from bronze. Um also some gold
and silver hairpins found in a fourth century tombs in
(03:02):
southern Russia. And when Archaeology magazine was reporting on these tombs,
they pointed out that one of the woman's remains had
a large bronze or silver hairpin that was found in
her left eye socket, and so the archaeologist said that
it could mean that she was either sacrificed by the eye.
I don't know, an eye sacrifice what a way to go? Oh?
(03:24):
Or yeah, oh wait I'm thinking of it. Yeah, that's
how that happens all the way back through the brain.
Or it could have just fallen into her eye as
her body decayed. Either way, which explanation do you like better? Um,
I'm gonna say sacrifice because that's just kind of hardcore
that's pretty pretty gory. It's a pretty intense historical story. Um.
(03:45):
And not only were these hairpins used to just hold
in a hairstyle, there are also hairpieces. There would be
headdresses in later times, there would also be hats that
you would hold in place. Um. And they were really
big in Asia. Yeah. Actually, the two pronged hairpin may
have emerged in Asia. Um. Some Chinese hairpins with two
(04:07):
pins date back to three hundred the youth three hundred. Uh.
They were made from bone, horn, wood, and metal. And
it turns out that nowadays China and Korea are the
top producers of commercial hairpins. So keeping it keeping it
in Asia. Yeah, they knew what they were doing. Um.
And I also found it interesting the differences the stylistic
differences among different Asian countries. For instance, ancient Chinese hairpins
(04:32):
were often produce fancy. They would have flowers, dragons and
gemstones inlaid. Japanese hairpins tended to be very simple. Uh.
Korean hairpins tended to be thicker, and there would be
wooden ones inlaid with ivory, silver and mother of pearl.
Asia knew how to do the hairpins right. But again
(04:54):
though considering the number of hairpins that I lose. What
I know, Well, that's like that's like me buying right bands,
Like it's only going to end in tragedy because I'm
just gonna lose them or sit on them or something.
So me owning like bone hairpins, I'm just gonna sit
on and break it and hurt your bottom. Um. These
were also important, not just to to fix people's hair,
(05:18):
but they were very symbolic in Chinese culture. For instance,
there was a write of passage for girls at fifteen
called the Hairpin Initiation that signified that they had become
women and they could finally start using these hairpins, and
that they were old enough to enter into marriage. And
this was the female counterpart, according to Hairpin Museum dot
(05:41):
org to a hat ceremony that eight year old Chinese
boys would have. Yeah, they have significance in marriage death
of the whole nine yards. So during the engagement, the
woman typically gives her fiance the hairpin as a pledge
instead of the more you know, like what we think
of as the man giving the woman the ring. And
(06:02):
then after the wedding, the groom puts the pin back
in his new wife's hair as a symbol of I
don't know, your hair needs to be fixed. Um. If
they were apart, often the two pin hairpin would be
split in half, and so when they were reunited they
would just be like, oh, you are my long lost husband.
Look our pins fit back together like those those uh
those old school locket the hard locket friendship necklaces. I
(06:27):
always wanted one of those. No one ever gave me. Well,
I get fund of my friend Jessica. I think we
were like once, I don't know whatever. Well, but it
was fun. Um. But uh, it makes sense though that
there is all of the significance with the hairpins for
Chinese marriages, um and and death, because in fact, the
(06:49):
Chinese word for a married couple means the relationship between
the husband and wife is just like they tie their
hair together. They are interwoven like that. They is very important,
like a braid. I think it's kind of sweet and yeah.
And and at funerals, mourners are not allowed to wear pins,
so no fanciness. Yeah. And in addition to um signifying
(07:13):
say a girl's maturity or someone's relationship, these hairpins would
also signify your wealth. Wealthy folks would wear hairpins made
of gold, silver, and jade, whereas poorer ones you and I, Caroline,
we probably wear don't be wearing wooden or bone hairpins,
old bone hairpins, or or we might just have one
(07:35):
silver hairpin that we would keep for our entire life.
Can you imagine? Can you imagine? I mean, think of
how many how many bobby pins we've lost collectively together,
just the two of us, well a million. If we
only had access to one, you know, we'd probably we'd
probably cherish it more and and just wear very simple hairstyles. Yes,
but let's cross let's cross over from the east to
(07:59):
the west. Yeah. Starting in the mid nineteenth century, they
were mass produced in the US, these these metal pins
were and there was this great description in a thesis
we read the bobby Pin revealed by Emmy Miller. This
is from two thousand and six. There's this little segment
of a description in eighteen fifty four too, British industrialists
about how uh, these bobby pins are produced and the
(08:22):
languages is great, and they describe how it's done, and
they're they're like, oh and then it is quite finished
like how they describe it. But anyway, you know, the
wires cut, the ends are attached and they were making
one hundred and eighty per minute, which is I guess,
I guess that's good for pinmaking. Oh yeah, how about this.
By eighteen sixty three, this is also coming from that
(08:42):
that thesis, the British manufacturing of hairpins was estimated at
twenty million per day. We were going gag off or
hairpins even in the nineteenth century, and apparently there were
parliamentary restrictions that were placed on the sale of pins.
There would only be certain days when they would allow
(09:03):
these hairpins to be sold, I guess, to conserve metal.
And it's the source of the phrase pin money, in
which women would save up their cash to buy pins
when they would become available, and pin money became like
a catch all for you know, a little allowance that
wives would be given by their generous husbands to go
buy a little sweet some of themselves exactly. So around
(09:25):
about the nineteen pins bobby pins, that phrase entered the
lexicon as bob haircuts started to become more popular and
actually in England they were called grips, So there you
go that they did not pick up the bobby pin
name right away. And we've been talking about hairpins, which
are typically those U shape too prong pin. But now
(09:47):
we get to the actual invention of the bobby pin.
Those the ones that we use. They've got the wavy
side and the straight side. Um and Louis Marcus, a
San Francisco Cause Medics manufacturer, is credited with inventing the
bobby pin to hold flappers hair back in the nineteen twenties,
(10:08):
and according to his obituary in l A Times, they
originally sold two for thirty five cents, which probably kind
of pricey at the time. Um and his family and
friends encouraged him to call it the Marcus pen because
he's Lewis Marcus, but he was like, Nope, it makes
more sense to name it for Bob's hair styles. So
we've got bobby pins. Yeah, they were pretty Yeah, this
(10:31):
is I mean, people were going crazy for the Bob
haircuts at this time. So these bobby pins were pretty
all over the place, I'm sure, and I'm sure they
were on the floors all over salons and stuff back
then too. People are just losing them. Yeah, because this
is from five during some weeks, because Bob hair styles
were so so popular salons in large US cities, we're
(10:52):
giving out more than a thousand bob haircuts per day,
trying to think of some of our flappers slang right,
bob haircuts for the bee's knees kids, I love it.
Um Okay. So going forward to World War Two, they
were considered these bobby pins were considered war victims because
they needed the metal for other, you know, more important,
(11:15):
less hairstyle related things like planes. Yeah, you know, you know,
like planes, guns. But yeah, substitutes were found for bobby
pins with the idea that they will find better use
in a bomber. Yeah, there are these reports too, like,
for instance, uh, in ninety three, the New York Times
feverishly reported that a rumored ban on bobby pin production
(11:36):
was false, but it was still hard for manufacturers to
get their hands on enough steel wire. But then in
New York Times reports that manufacturers aren't able to purchase
the steel wire necessary for production and that those bobby
pin machines have been appropriated by the government to man
manufacture aircraft cotter pins. So there was a pin short.
(11:56):
Not only ladies didn't have access to their to their
silk stockings, no bobby pins. How did we keep it
together on civilized world? Yeah, and on top of all this,
bobby pins, the popularity of them gave rise to a
condition reported on in Life magazine in October ninety seven.
(12:18):
And I also saw some other like a medical journal
reporting lists yeah about something called bobby pin teeth. Please
inform us of what it's tragic. Okay. So the headline
on this Life magazine story in seven about bobby pinteeth
dentists discover the high cost of a coiffure. Oh gosh,
(12:41):
So bobby pinteeth is basically you get notches in your
upper front teeth where you would hold the bobby pin
while you're styling your hair. And these dentists are finding
them in many of their quote unquote feminine patients. Yes,
the feminine patients, not the masculine patients. But yes. The
dentist Walter cogswell Out in Colorado looked at a bobby
(13:01):
pin under a microscope because by God, he was determined
to get to the bottom of this. I saw that
they had saw tooth edges capable of scratching tooth enamel,
and proceeded to do a study of women in Colorado,
finding that in Colorado in particular, bobby pins caused the
notches in the teeth sixty of the time. Yeah, because
they would They would put them in their teeth and
(13:23):
hold them with their teeth open, open the bobby pins up.
I always just slipped my thungb in the middle, which
is why my teeth I don't have bobby pin teeth obviously,
thank god. I was researching this episode on bobby pins
while I was at home visiting my parents actually, and
I asked my mom um if she had heard of
(13:44):
bobby pin teeth. To what she said, Oh, honey, I'm
not that old, but she knew what it was. No,
she didn't know, but I was like, yeah, this is
from she was um, And I was like, I know, mom,
but maybe one of your really old friends new or something.
One point, but to solve this problem, the dentist Walter
(14:07):
Coggs will develop the bobo pin, which was a plastic device. Essentially,
it was it looks kind of like a mouthguard with
a hook on the end of it, so you can
you put it in your mouth safely, and then there's
you can open the bobby pin on the on the
hook and save her teeth. They should have just suggested
the people open it with their thumbs I just feel
(14:28):
like I feel like it's a free solution. I mean,
dentist Coggs will we wanted to try to make a book,
all right. I don't blame them, can't blame him. Yeah,
Nona's hairstyles change. You know, we go into the nineteen fifties,
but the bobby stocks here's and they're cute little ponytails.
So you know, more women were using hairpins to anchor
their pin curls or secure their hair rollers, or you know,
(14:48):
just holding back shorter strands when they wore those cute
little ponytails. And there was a pretty booming industry that
developed around bobby pins. Stay Right was the first core
operation producing bobby pins in nineteen seventeen in the US,
and their first product was a patented hairpin made of celluloid,
and then they developed a method for manufacturing hairpins from
(15:13):
wire right. And just like we mentioned earlier, during World
War Two, stay Right actually shifted their production to supply
metal for the Defense Department, so they were giving them
metal safety clips and arming wire for bombs. So even
companies had to shift gears. But these days, the all
of those bobby pins that we are using and losing
(15:33):
are probably coming from last we mentioned earlier China and Korea,
which are two of the main hubs for it UM.
But there is more then meets the I when it
comes to bobby pins, at least according to this pretty
intense thesis that we mentioned earlier from n y U
student what was her name Miller m m E M
(15:56):
E Miller um because she talks about how like the
corruxt of the thesis was examining the bobby pin in
terms of how you know it's it's so useful, and
yet the point of it is too to be hidden
from view. It holds our hair in these fancy ways,
so that we present a refined public persona, but the
(16:21):
secret of our beauty such bobby pins are not revealed.
Does that about sum it up? I think that sums
it up. I God bless you, Kristen. I could barely
make it through that study. It was. There was a lot,
there was a lot of import placed on the humble
bobby pin. But I do think that the ubiquity of
(16:42):
them and how long that we've been using them. We
long long time ago did a couple episodes UM on
the podcast about women and hair UM. But I think
the fact that they're kind of everywhere is yet another
lesson in um how much value we place on how
we look specifically like how our hair is looked looks,
(17:02):
and how precisely we try to to craft it, to
mold it into um, into these different shapes. Yeah, and
Miller does point out that the changes in hairpins kind
of correspond to what's going on in society. So, you know,
like we talked about, they start out as ornamental with
jade and mother of pearl and all that stuff. But
(17:22):
she says this tendency towards aesthetic craftsmanship changes as modernity
and industrialization are on the rise. Yeah. She says indivisibility
allows for the potential of transforming the average head of
hair into something beautiful. Ah, this is the tradition of
the bobby pin. But another tradition of the bobby pin
(17:44):
is uh that we lose all of them. Yeah, they
I don't know where they go. I don't know. But
one of the inspirations for this episode on bobby pins
came from a blog post over at the Frisky by
Winona DeMeo, editor, and she had five theories for what
happens to bobby pins, including just like an alternate universe
(18:05):
where they go. Um, and they're the dominant species. Probably
they're at the bottom of her purse. And there's because
you know every time I checked at the bottom of
a bag of mine, like they're at least like a couple.
But then that's still leaves so many unaccounted for. She
she posits that they could self destruct, they just dissolve
after one use, that they are stolen by gnomes maybe
(18:28):
who come in in the night, or that they're just
lost in her in her thick hair, they're still in there. Yeah,
that does happen to me. That's pretty regularly. Where I
take my hair down, I think it's down, I start
brushing it, and then more start flying out. Um. And
there are other uses to other aside from lock picking.
I think that's the classic alternate use of a bobby
pin is to pick a lock, which I've never successfully done.
(18:50):
I haven't either. I've tried. I have totally tried before,
I haven't been able to do it. It's easier with
a credit card, that's right, that's right. Stuff Mom never
told you. Um, yeah, this. There was a April nineteen
sixty story in The New York Times about how countless
or maybe like seventeen lives were saved when a pilot
used a flight attendants bobby pin to short circuit the
(19:11):
electrical system of the nosewheel when he discovered it was jammed.
And I probably should have asked my pilot father what
those words mean together, because I don't know. But he
saved lives. Everybody was saved, Thank you, flight attendant. Uh.
And then there was a nineteen sixty one article describing
how bobby pin can be used to construct and we're
(19:31):
if listeners out there know what this, I don't know.
I don't know how to do this. But a bobby
pin can be used to construct a sensitive mechanical timer
for determining exactly when an animal was trapped in a cage. Well,
I'm going to use that this weekend, yere um. They
can also be used to aid viewing specimens on slides. Uh.
Countless other things, yeah, I'm sure. Um, securing your shirt
(19:56):
when your button falls off, Oh yeah, I've done that. Yeah,
they're great substitutes for paper clips. Oh man, where would
we be without bobby pins. Um. There's also a sweet
nostalgic look at bobby pins h in the Houston Chronicle.
This was written by Priscilla Marie Hubanac, and she talks
about how her mother always bought the same type of
bobby pins. Um, always from the same pharmacy until it closed.
(20:19):
And she writes, um, a new card of bobby pins
would have a whole lot of them lined up like
soldiers waiting for action. They were shiny black metal, the
universal style, with a slim straight back and the way
the extension metal at the top. Each of the metal
had an elongated rubber tip in a black that was
a shade brighter than that of the metal. The rubber
tips would eventually fall from use, and these defrocked soldiers
became candidates for other uses. And she just writes about
(20:42):
how like her mom just used them everywhere and unlike us,
were we losing the like now whatever, No, her mom
would keep track of them and hold onto them, and
and now whenever she sees the bobby pins, she thinks
of her mom. Yeah, I think it's really sweet. One
thing that we didn't mention was the fact that I
don't know about you, but I've been putting them in
(21:02):
wrong in my entire life. Oh yeah, that's a good
point because speaking of Yeah, she talks about that that
wavy the smooth side and the wavy side. How are
we supposed to put bobby pins in? Well, this blew
my mind, but apparently you're supposed to put the wavy
side down against your skin and it locks the hair
in place better. And so ever since we've been reading
this bobby pins stuff, I've been doing that and I
(21:23):
realized it does like stick in there better and it's
not sliding around. Does it feel different when you're putting
them in? Is it like you're trying to put them
in with it? Well, it's kind of always harder to
push it through, Like I always pinned my bangs back
because they're obnoxious. Um, So it was actually a little
bit harder to push it through. But it's not moving.
So well, whatever you do, just don't open that bobby
pin with your teeth. We'll get bobby pin ty. I
(21:44):
don't need another thing for my dentist to yell at
me about he's going to give you a bob open
you're uh. So, that's all we've got on bobby pins.
And I hope that you were impressed that we even
had that much bobby pins. I first suggest to this
to Caroline was like Hey, we should let's do something
on bobby pins. And I could hear you through your
email your eyebrow raising, like what bobbins? Well, it was
(22:08):
really because Kristen sent me that thesis and I was like,
I'm too tired to read this. Her wording is very
um thick to wade through. There you go, that that thesis.
I hope that that thesis writer is not listening right now, Emmy.
If you are, I hope you got an a because
it was thorough. So write us about your bobby pins.
(22:29):
Anyone else who has theories of where bobby pins go? Guys,
I would like to know this too, because you know,
men in my life have commented as well on the
trail of bobby pins that I sometimes leave behind. So
curious to know everyone's thoughts on that. Mom. Stuff at
Discovery dot com is where you can send your letters,
(22:52):
and I'll read a couple right after this quick word
from the sponsor that brought us this episode of Stuff
I've Never Told You, and that is audible dot com,
which is offering a free download of one of its
hundreds of thousands of titles for Stuff Mom Never Told
You listeners, All you have to do is go to
(23:12):
audible podcast dot com slash stuff Mom and choose a
title download it for free, one title that we think
you might enjoy. For a little bit of a literary flair.
And since we're talking about bobbed hair, flappers and such,
you can go to audible podcast dot com slash stuff
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(23:37):
one of the premier ritas of the Flapper era, him
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So you need to head on over audible podcast dot
com slash stuff Mom, try it out, get your free
audio download and enjoy. So now back to our letters. Yeah,
(24:04):
here's one from Amelia. This is funny. I like her
subject line it's asymmetrical nineties boobs, so that gives you
an idea of what she's talking about here. Uh. She
said that I quite enjoyed your podcast on asymmetrical breast
and what made me laugh the most was that in
the nineties when that men Prefer Symmetrical Boobs study came out,
I got my right nipple piers because I thought that
(24:25):
my right breast was too small, and I wanted to
make them look more even I'm not sure why I
thought that decorating one breast was going to help, but
I had it for a number of years before I
took it out. My right breast is still slightly smaller,
but now I don't really care, so thank you, Amelia.
I've got an email here from Andrew and this is
in response to our episode on sleepovers and here ies.
(24:50):
Although completely out today, I have never had the heart
to tell my dad that my sixteen year old self
had his first romance under my dad's roof with a
and from swim class who spent the night regularly at
the time. The thought just never would have occurred to him,
and I know he would have been horrified knowing that
all of his careful planning and parenting in that area
was for not My parents have now refined their opposition
(25:13):
to coed sleepovers in favor of a policy that takes
into account all factors of the situation. Two years ago,
my brother and I spent the fourth of July holiday
my parents. I brought my boyfriend and my brother brought
us girlfriend. My dad, now wise to everybody's preferences and predilections,
announced that my brother and I would be sharing a room,
and that my boyfriend and my brother's girlfriend would, in
(25:34):
a hilarious twist, be co ed bunking in the guest room.
So thank you for that story, Andrew, and thanks to
everyone else who's written in Mom's Stuff at Discovery dot
com is where you can send us your letters, and
you can head over to Facebook like us if you
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(25:55):
You dot tumbler dot com. And if all that is
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dot com. For more on this and thousands of other topics,
visit how stuff works dot com.
Welcome to stuff Mom Never told you. From how Stuff
Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Kristen and I'm Caroline. Caroline, I don't know about you,
but I have a pretty long history with bobby pins
because I started taking ballet when I was in first grade,
(00:28):
and of course I gotta have that hair up in
the bun. And even today I wouldn't. I would go
through some phases where I wouldn't use bobby pins, but
now I'm like, bobby pin crazy. They're everywhere in my apartment,
They're in the bottoms of all of my bags. There
are actually it's a minimal bobby pin day for me
(00:49):
right now, they're only three in my hair, but they're
probably like, there's probably a trail of them. I leave
a trail. There's one outside my apartment door right now,
and I'm like, I don't know if that's really mine,
but I assume it is because it's right next to
my welcome Matt. I don't want to pick it up, though, well,
because it doesn't matter, because you can just go to
the drug store and buy another pack of three thousands,
(01:11):
rapidly lose all of them. Yeah, I'm always I'm always
mystified by by the strange places that I will I
will find them. I left one even the like a
week ago on our producer Jerry's Hey, Jerry, Jerry's desk,
just it was just there. Did it disappear? Uh No,
she gave it back to me and I probably put
(01:32):
it in my hair, the one and only bobby pin
that has ever been recovered in the history of humanity.
But not only do we both have extensive personal histories
with bobby pins. Come to find out, folks, Yes, we
are doing an entire podcast on bobby pins because the
history of these pins goes way back and there's actually
(01:54):
some pretty cool stuff in there. Tell me about ancient hairpins, Caroline,
I will wow our listeners. I actually majored in ancient
bobby pins. Yeah, so early hairpins. Let's let's go. Let's
go really early. They have been found during archaeological digs
in parts of Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Middle East.
(02:16):
And of course we are not talking about the metal
goody pins. We are talking about pieces made from wood, bone, thorns,
or stone. And the whole stone thing gives me pause
because I'm like, how do you how do you do
you have to like really finely chisel that like they
get a stone pin anyway, I tell you, a stone
hairpin that could double is a nice weapon of choice
(02:39):
right in the old eyeball. A lot of times they
were also crafted from metal, and as early as two
thousand b C. The Greeks were making decorative gold hairpins. Um.
They have also been Roman hairpins found from the third
and fourth centuries made from bronze. Um also some gold
and silver hairpins found in a fourth century tombs in
(03:02):
southern Russia. And when Archaeology magazine was reporting on these tombs,
they pointed out that one of the woman's remains had
a large bronze or silver hairpin that was found in
her left eye socket, and so the archaeologist said that
it could mean that she was either sacrificed by the eye.
I don't know, an eye sacrifice what a way to go? Oh?
(03:24):
Or yeah, oh wait I'm thinking of it. Yeah, that's
how that happens all the way back through the brain.
Or it could have just fallen into her eye as
her body decayed. Either way, which explanation do you like better? Um,
I'm gonna say sacrifice because that's just kind of hardcore
that's pretty pretty gory. It's a pretty intense historical story. Um.
(03:45):
And not only were these hairpins used to just hold
in a hairstyle, there are also hairpieces. There would be
headdresses in later times, there would also be hats that
you would hold in place. Um. And they were really
big in Asia. Yeah. Actually, the two pronged hairpin may
have emerged in Asia. Um. Some Chinese hairpins with two
(04:07):
pins date back to three hundred the youth three hundred. Uh.
They were made from bone, horn, wood, and metal. And
it turns out that nowadays China and Korea are the
top producers of commercial hairpins. So keeping it keeping it
in Asia. Yeah, they knew what they were doing. Um.
And I also found it interesting the differences the stylistic
differences among different Asian countries. For instance, ancient Chinese hairpins
(04:32):
were often produce fancy. They would have flowers, dragons and
gemstones inlaid. Japanese hairpins tended to be very simple. Uh.
Korean hairpins tended to be thicker, and there would be
wooden ones inlaid with ivory, silver and mother of pearl.
Asia knew how to do the hairpins right. But again
(04:54):
though considering the number of hairpins that I lose. What
I know, Well, that's like that's like me buying right bands,
Like it's only going to end in tragedy because I'm
just gonna lose them or sit on them or something.
So me owning like bone hairpins, I'm just gonna sit
on and break it and hurt your bottom. Um. These
were also important, not just to to fix people's hair,
(05:18):
but they were very symbolic in Chinese culture. For instance,
there was a write of passage for girls at fifteen
called the Hairpin Initiation that signified that they had become
women and they could finally start using these hairpins, and
that they were old enough to enter into marriage. And
this was the female counterpart, according to Hairpin Museum dot
(05:41):
org to a hat ceremony that eight year old Chinese
boys would have. Yeah, they have significance in marriage death
of the whole nine yards. So during the engagement, the
woman typically gives her fiance the hairpin as a pledge
instead of the more you know, like what we think
of as the man giving the woman the ring. And
(06:02):
then after the wedding, the groom puts the pin back
in his new wife's hair as a symbol of I
don't know, your hair needs to be fixed. Um. If
they were apart, often the two pin hairpin would be
split in half, and so when they were reunited they
would just be like, oh, you are my long lost husband.
Look our pins fit back together like those those uh
those old school locket the hard locket friendship necklaces. I
(06:27):
always wanted one of those. No one ever gave me. Well,
I get fund of my friend Jessica. I think we
were like once, I don't know whatever. Well, but it
was fun. Um. But uh, it makes sense though that
there is all of the significance with the hairpins for
Chinese marriages, um and and death, because in fact, the
(06:49):
Chinese word for a married couple means the relationship between
the husband and wife is just like they tie their
hair together. They are interwoven like that. They is very important,
like a braid. I think it's kind of sweet and yeah.
And and at funerals, mourners are not allowed to wear pins,
so no fanciness. Yeah. And in addition to um signifying
(07:13):
say a girl's maturity or someone's relationship, these hairpins would
also signify your wealth. Wealthy folks would wear hairpins made
of gold, silver, and jade, whereas poorer ones you and I, Caroline,
we probably wear don't be wearing wooden or bone hairpins,
old bone hairpins, or or we might just have one
(07:35):
silver hairpin that we would keep for our entire life.
Can you imagine? Can you imagine? I mean, think of
how many how many bobby pins we've lost collectively together,
just the two of us, well a million. If we
only had access to one, you know, we'd probably we'd
probably cherish it more and and just wear very simple hairstyles. Yes,
but let's cross let's cross over from the east to
(07:59):
the west. Yeah. Starting in the mid nineteenth century, they
were mass produced in the US, these these metal pins
were and there was this great description in a thesis
we read the bobby Pin revealed by Emmy Miller. This
is from two thousand and six. There's this little segment
of a description in eighteen fifty four too, British industrialists
about how uh, these bobby pins are produced and the
(08:22):
languages is great, and they describe how it's done, and
they're they're like, oh and then it is quite finished
like how they describe it. But anyway, you know, the
wires cut, the ends are attached and they were making
one hundred and eighty per minute, which is I guess,
I guess that's good for pinmaking. Oh yeah, how about this.
By eighteen sixty three, this is also coming from that
(08:42):
that thesis, the British manufacturing of hairpins was estimated at
twenty million per day. We were going gag off or
hairpins even in the nineteenth century, and apparently there were
parliamentary restrictions that were placed on the sale of pins.
There would only be certain days when they would allow
(09:03):
these hairpins to be sold, I guess, to conserve metal.
And it's the source of the phrase pin money, in
which women would save up their cash to buy pins
when they would become available, and pin money became like
a catch all for you know, a little allowance that
wives would be given by their generous husbands to go
buy a little sweet some of themselves exactly. So around
(09:25):
about the nineteen pins bobby pins, that phrase entered the
lexicon as bob haircuts started to become more popular and
actually in England they were called grips, So there you
go that they did not pick up the bobby pin
name right away. And we've been talking about hairpins, which
are typically those U shape too prong pin. But now
(09:47):
we get to the actual invention of the bobby pin.
Those the ones that we use. They've got the wavy
side and the straight side. Um and Louis Marcus, a
San Francisco Cause Medics manufacturer, is credited with inventing the
bobby pin to hold flappers hair back in the nineteen twenties,
(10:08):
and according to his obituary in l A Times, they
originally sold two for thirty five cents, which probably kind
of pricey at the time. Um and his family and
friends encouraged him to call it the Marcus pen because
he's Lewis Marcus, but he was like, Nope, it makes
more sense to name it for Bob's hair styles. So
we've got bobby pins. Yeah, they were pretty Yeah, this
(10:31):
is I mean, people were going crazy for the Bob
haircuts at this time. So these bobby pins were pretty
all over the place, I'm sure, and I'm sure they
were on the floors all over salons and stuff back
then too. People are just losing them. Yeah, because this
is from five during some weeks, because Bob hair styles
were so so popular salons in large US cities, we're
(10:52):
giving out more than a thousand bob haircuts per day,
trying to think of some of our flappers slang right,
bob haircuts for the bee's knees kids, I love it.
Um Okay. So going forward to World War Two, they
were considered these bobby pins were considered war victims because
they needed the metal for other, you know, more important,
(11:15):
less hairstyle related things like planes. Yeah, you know, you know,
like planes, guns. But yeah, substitutes were found for bobby
pins with the idea that they will find better use
in a bomber. Yeah, there are these reports too, like,
for instance, uh, in ninety three, the New York Times
feverishly reported that a rumored ban on bobby pin production
(11:36):
was false, but it was still hard for manufacturers to
get their hands on enough steel wire. But then in
New York Times reports that manufacturers aren't able to purchase
the steel wire necessary for production and that those bobby
pin machines have been appropriated by the government to man
manufacture aircraft cotter pins. So there was a pin short.
(11:56):
Not only ladies didn't have access to their to their
silk stockings, no bobby pins. How did we keep it
together on civilized world? Yeah, and on top of all this,
bobby pins, the popularity of them gave rise to a
condition reported on in Life magazine in October ninety seven.
(12:18):
And I also saw some other like a medical journal
reporting lists yeah about something called bobby pin teeth. Please
inform us of what it's tragic. Okay. So the headline
on this Life magazine story in seven about bobby pinteeth
dentists discover the high cost of a coiffure. Oh gosh,
(12:41):
So bobby pinteeth is basically you get notches in your
upper front teeth where you would hold the bobby pin
while you're styling your hair. And these dentists are finding
them in many of their quote unquote feminine patients. Yes,
the feminine patients, not the masculine patients. But yes. The
dentist Walter cogswell Out in Colorado looked at a bobby
(13:01):
pin under a microscope because by God, he was determined
to get to the bottom of this. I saw that
they had saw tooth edges capable of scratching tooth enamel,
and proceeded to do a study of women in Colorado,
finding that in Colorado in particular, bobby pins caused the
notches in the teeth sixty of the time. Yeah, because
they would They would put them in their teeth and
(13:23):
hold them with their teeth open, open the bobby pins up.
I always just slipped my thungb in the middle, which
is why my teeth I don't have bobby pin teeth obviously,
thank god. I was researching this episode on bobby pins
while I was at home visiting my parents actually, and
I asked my mom um if she had heard of
(13:44):
bobby pin teeth. To what she said, Oh, honey, I'm
not that old, but she knew what it was. No,
she didn't know, but I was like, yeah, this is
from she was um, And I was like, I know, mom,
but maybe one of your really old friends new or something.
One point, but to solve this problem, the dentist Walter
(14:07):
Coggs will develop the bobo pin, which was a plastic device. Essentially,
it was it looks kind of like a mouthguard with
a hook on the end of it, so you can
you put it in your mouth safely, and then there's
you can open the bobby pin on the on the
hook and save her teeth. They should have just suggested
the people open it with their thumbs I just feel
(14:28):
like I feel like it's a free solution. I mean,
dentist Coggs will we wanted to try to make a book,
all right. I don't blame them, can't blame him. Yeah,
Nona's hairstyles change. You know, we go into the nineteen fifties,
but the bobby stocks here's and they're cute little ponytails.
So you know, more women were using hairpins to anchor
their pin curls or secure their hair rollers, or you know,
(14:48):
just holding back shorter strands when they wore those cute
little ponytails. And there was a pretty booming industry that
developed around bobby pins. Stay Right was the first core
operation producing bobby pins in nineteen seventeen in the US,
and their first product was a patented hairpin made of celluloid,
and then they developed a method for manufacturing hairpins from
(15:13):
wire right. And just like we mentioned earlier, during World
War Two, stay Right actually shifted their production to supply
metal for the Defense Department, so they were giving them
metal safety clips and arming wire for bombs. So even
companies had to shift gears. But these days, the all
of those bobby pins that we are using and losing
(15:33):
are probably coming from last we mentioned earlier China and Korea,
which are two of the main hubs for it UM.
But there is more then meets the I when it
comes to bobby pins, at least according to this pretty
intense thesis that we mentioned earlier from n y U
student what was her name Miller m m E M
(15:56):
E Miller um because she talks about how like the
corruxt of the thesis was examining the bobby pin in
terms of how you know it's it's so useful, and
yet the point of it is too to be hidden
from view. It holds our hair in these fancy ways,
so that we present a refined public persona, but the
(16:21):
secret of our beauty such bobby pins are not revealed.
Does that about sum it up? I think that sums
it up. I God bless you, Kristen. I could barely
make it through that study. It was. There was a lot,
there was a lot of import placed on the humble
bobby pin. But I do think that the ubiquity of
(16:42):
them and how long that we've been using them. We
long long time ago did a couple episodes UM on
the podcast about women and hair UM. But I think
the fact that they're kind of everywhere is yet another
lesson in um how much value we place on how
we look specifically like how our hair is looked looks,
(17:02):
and how precisely we try to to craft it, to
mold it into um, into these different shapes. Yeah, and
Miller does point out that the changes in hairpins kind
of correspond to what's going on in society. So, you know,
like we talked about, they start out as ornamental with
jade and mother of pearl and all that stuff. But
(17:22):
she says this tendency towards aesthetic craftsmanship changes as modernity
and industrialization are on the rise. Yeah. She says indivisibility
allows for the potential of transforming the average head of
hair into something beautiful. Ah, this is the tradition of
the bobby pin. But another tradition of the bobby pin
(17:44):
is uh that we lose all of them. Yeah, they
I don't know where they go. I don't know. But
one of the inspirations for this episode on bobby pins
came from a blog post over at the Frisky by
Winona DeMeo, editor, and she had five theories for what
happens to bobby pins, including just like an alternate universe
(18:05):
where they go. Um, and they're the dominant species. Probably
they're at the bottom of her purse. And there's because
you know every time I checked at the bottom of
a bag of mine, like they're at least like a couple.
But then that's still leaves so many unaccounted for. She
she posits that they could self destruct, they just dissolve
after one use, that they are stolen by gnomes maybe
(18:28):
who come in in the night, or that they're just
lost in her in her thick hair, they're still in there. Yeah,
that does happen to me. That's pretty regularly. Where I
take my hair down, I think it's down, I start
brushing it, and then more start flying out. Um. And
there are other uses to other aside from lock picking.
I think that's the classic alternate use of a bobby
pin is to pick a lock, which I've never successfully done.
(18:50):
I haven't either. I've tried. I have totally tried before,
I haven't been able to do it. It's easier with
a credit card, that's right, that's right. Stuff Mom never
told you. Um, yeah, this. There was a April nineteen
sixty story in The New York Times about how countless
or maybe like seventeen lives were saved when a pilot
used a flight attendants bobby pin to short circuit the
(19:11):
electrical system of the nosewheel when he discovered it was jammed.
And I probably should have asked my pilot father what
those words mean together, because I don't know. But he
saved lives. Everybody was saved, Thank you, flight attendant. Uh.
And then there was a nineteen sixty one article describing
how bobby pin can be used to construct and we're
(19:31):
if listeners out there know what this, I don't know.
I don't know how to do this. But a bobby
pin can be used to construct a sensitive mechanical timer
for determining exactly when an animal was trapped in a cage. Well,
I'm going to use that this weekend, yere um. They
can also be used to aid viewing specimens on slides. Uh.
Countless other things, yeah, I'm sure. Um, securing your shirt
(19:56):
when your button falls off, Oh yeah, I've done that. Yeah,
they're great substitutes for paper clips. Oh man, where would
we be without bobby pins. Um. There's also a sweet
nostalgic look at bobby pins h in the Houston Chronicle.
This was written by Priscilla Marie Hubanac, and she talks
about how her mother always bought the same type of
bobby pins. Um, always from the same pharmacy until it closed.
(20:19):
And she writes, um, a new card of bobby pins
would have a whole lot of them lined up like
soldiers waiting for action. They were shiny black metal, the
universal style, with a slim straight back and the way
the extension metal at the top. Each of the metal
had an elongated rubber tip in a black that was
a shade brighter than that of the metal. The rubber
tips would eventually fall from use, and these defrocked soldiers
became candidates for other uses. And she just writes about
(20:42):
how like her mom just used them everywhere and unlike us,
were we losing the like now whatever, No, her mom
would keep track of them and hold onto them, and
and now whenever she sees the bobby pins, she thinks
of her mom. Yeah, I think it's really sweet. One
thing that we didn't mention was the fact that I
don't know about you, but I've been putting them in
(21:02):
wrong in my entire life. Oh yeah, that's a good
point because speaking of Yeah, she talks about that that
wavy the smooth side and the wavy side. How are
we supposed to put bobby pins in? Well, this blew
my mind, but apparently you're supposed to put the wavy
side down against your skin and it locks the hair
in place better. And so ever since we've been reading
this bobby pins stuff, I've been doing that and I
(21:23):
realized it does like stick in there better and it's
not sliding around. Does it feel different when you're putting
them in? Is it like you're trying to put them
in with it? Well, it's kind of always harder to
push it through, Like I always pinned my bangs back
because they're obnoxious. Um, So it was actually a little
bit harder to push it through. But it's not moving.
So well, whatever you do, just don't open that bobby
pin with your teeth. We'll get bobby pin ty. I
(21:44):
don't need another thing for my dentist to yell at
me about he's going to give you a bob open
you're uh. So, that's all we've got on bobby pins.
And I hope that you were impressed that we even
had that much bobby pins. I first suggest to this
to Caroline was like Hey, we should let's do something
on bobby pins. And I could hear you through your
email your eyebrow raising, like what bobbins? Well, it was
(22:08):
really because Kristen sent me that thesis and I was like,
I'm too tired to read this. Her wording is very
um thick to wade through. There you go, that that thesis.
I hope that that thesis writer is not listening right now, Emmy.
If you are, I hope you got an a because
it was thorough. So write us about your bobby pins.
(22:29):
Anyone else who has theories of where bobby pins go? Guys,
I would like to know this too, because you know,
men in my life have commented as well on the
trail of bobby pins that I sometimes leave behind. So
curious to know everyone's thoughts on that. Mom. Stuff at
Discovery dot com is where you can send your letters,
(22:52):
and I'll read a couple right after this quick word
from the sponsor that brought us this episode of Stuff
I've Never Told You, and that is audible dot com,
which is offering a free download of one of its
hundreds of thousands of titles for Stuff Mom Never Told
You listeners, All you have to do is go to
(23:12):
audible podcast dot com slash stuff Mom and choose a
title download it for free, one title that we think
you might enjoy. For a little bit of a literary flair.
And since we're talking about bobbed hair, flappers and such,
you can go to audible podcast dot com slash stuff
Mom and download Flappers and Philosophers by f Scott Fitzgerald,
(23:37):
one of the premier ritas of the Flapper era, him
and his wife Stylla Fitzgerald. Oho, I love I'm sure
she had all sorts of body pass Yeah. Oh yeah,
So you need to head on over audible podcast dot
com slash stuff Mom, try it out, get your free
audio download and enjoy. So now back to our letters. Yeah,
(24:04):
here's one from Amelia. This is funny. I like her
subject line it's asymmetrical nineties boobs, so that gives you
an idea of what she's talking about here. Uh. She
said that I quite enjoyed your podcast on asymmetrical breast
and what made me laugh the most was that in
the nineties when that men Prefer Symmetrical Boobs study came out,
I got my right nipple piers because I thought that
(24:25):
my right breast was too small, and I wanted to
make them look more even I'm not sure why I
thought that decorating one breast was going to help, but
I had it for a number of years before I
took it out. My right breast is still slightly smaller,
but now I don't really care, so thank you, Amelia.
I've got an email here from Andrew and this is
in response to our episode on sleepovers and here ies.
(24:50):
Although completely out today, I have never had the heart
to tell my dad that my sixteen year old self
had his first romance under my dad's roof with a
and from swim class who spent the night regularly at
the time. The thought just never would have occurred to him,
and I know he would have been horrified knowing that
all of his careful planning and parenting in that area
was for not My parents have now refined their opposition
(25:13):
to coed sleepovers in favor of a policy that takes
into account all factors of the situation. Two years ago,
my brother and I spent the fourth of July holiday
my parents. I brought my boyfriend and my brother brought
us girlfriend. My dad, now wise to everybody's preferences and predilections,
announced that my brother and I would be sharing a room,
and that my boyfriend and my brother's girlfriend would, in
(25:34):
a hilarious twist, be co ed bunking in the guest room.
So thank you for that story, Andrew, and thanks to
everyone else who's written in Mom's Stuff at Discovery dot
com is where you can send us your letters, and
you can head over to Facebook like us if you
will leave us a comments, send us a message todair,
or tweet us at Mom's Stuff podcasts, and you can
also follow us on Tumbler as stuff Mom Never told
(25:55):
You dot tumbler dot com. And if all that is
not enough for you, you can get a little smarter
by heading over to our website, it's how stuff works
dot com. For more on this and thousands of other topics,
visit how stuff works dot com.
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