Baldness and Civilization

In late-nineteenth and early-twentieth-century America, doctors, scientists, and social commentators amplified concerns that white men were going bald at an alarming rate. Theories of baldness in the Gilded Age and Progressive Era created and relied on racial distinctions. This article examines the role of baldness and perceptions of baldness in the construction of racial categories during the turn of the twentieth century in the United States. Theories of baldness centered on racial claims-making; doctors and scientists described different racial groups as unevenly susceptible to alopecia (biological hair loss), and they referred to mechanisms of hair loss as resulting from race-specific qualities. The language of baldness, and efforts to understand the condition’s causes and cures, used racial contrasts and racial logic. In this way, baldness became part of the schema through which race was discussed and understood.