Leila's Hair Museum

Leila's Hair Museum is a museum in Independence, Missouri that displays examples of hair art dating back to the 18th century.

Hair art

Hair art was a form of art that began in the 16th century or earlier, and flourished in the Victorian era. A collection of hair from family, friends, or a gathering such as a wedding, was made into a hair wreath by making flowers of the hair. It was then put into a shadow box frame. Wreaths were also made as memorial pieces using hair from the deceased. It was used by people wanting to keep a memento of a loved one before the invention of photography.[1] This form of art also consisted of necklaces, bracelets, rings, lockets, paintings and medallions embellished with strands of hair.[1]


Founder

Leila Cohoon is a retired cosmetology teacher living in Independence, Missouri.

Leila founded the Independence College of Cosmetology.[2] She started collecting hair in 1956 and considers it to be her life work.[3] She was always fascinated with hair as a child and believes it is one of the most unusual parts of the human body. She opened the hair museum in 1986 in a small front room in her cosmetology school.[2] She did this because she was running out of space for the collection of hair art that she had built up over the years. Later, she moved her hair museum a few blocks from the old location so as to be able to expand.[4] The new location for the museum consists of several rooms with their walls covered with the hair art from top to bottom .[2]

The collection

Leila’s museum has 600+ wreaths and over 2,000 pieces of jewelry which includes locks of hair dating from the 18th century and earlier. Her oldest exhibit is a brooch dated 1680.[5] Many framed items are over a hundred and fifty years old. These include one which is an assemblage of hair from every member of a chapter of the League of Women Voters, and two made of hair shorn from sisters that both entered a convent.[2] There are also exhibits that include the hair of famous people. Elvis Presley is represented; Michael Jackson is present as well, and the museum appeared in a Jeopardy question on December 30, 2016, reflecting this.[6] There is also hair from George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Daniel Webster, Aaron Burr, Marilyn Monroe, singer Jenny Lind and Queen Victoria.[7] Leila is not as interested in collecting the hair of famous people as she is in preserving hair art.

References

  1. 1 2 Castaneda, Erin (7 August 2009). "Hair art history unlocked". LJWorld. Retrieved 7 December 2009.
  2. 1 2 3 4 "Human Hair Ornaments" (PDF). Minnesota History. Minnesota Historical Society collections. 44/2 (Summer 1974): 70–74.
  3. ↑ Hendricks, Mike (18 February 2008). "Mike Hendricks: Go ahead, Philly, and try to top this". The Kansas City Star. pp. 1–3.
  4. ↑ Kirby, Doug; Smith, Wilkins. "Leila's Hair Museum". RoadsideAmerica. Retrieved 27 December 2009.
  5. ↑ "Leila's Hair Museum". Hairworks. Retrieved 27 December 2009.
  6. ↑ "J! Archive - Show #7205, aired 2016-01-01". www.j-archive.com. Retrieved 2017-01-19.
  7. ↑ Rombeck, Terry (9 October 2005). "Museum tangled in history of hair". LJWorld. Retrieved 27 December 2009.

39°04′34″N 94°24′48″W / 39.0760503°N 94.4134207°W / 39.0760503; -94.4134207

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