Collection shows flare for hair care
By Pamela Appea
The Ann Arbor News
Pittsfield Township—For Mary Bachman, there’s nothing better than a fine-tooted comb.
“Fine” as in “antique,” that is.
And the longtime Pittsfield Township resident scours antique shows with a fine-toothed comb, much like the ones she’s trying to find.
Over the past several years, Bachman has collected more than 450 antique, decorative and functional combs and hairpins from England, Japan, Ghana and every region of the United States.
“I wanted to collect something that was colorful and decorative,” Bachman said about her passion for the hair care tools.
Set up in several display cases and mounted on the wall in her home, Bachman’s combs show unique colors and designs, including a crocodile comb, a fertility doll comb and Chinese combs with pagodas carefully etched into the design on the upper part of the comb.
Her comb collecting came by accident. After her husband, Lee, retired from teaching, she accompanied him to antique shows. In 1986, at a Saline-area antique show, she spotted her first prize—a celluloid comb that she bought for about $30.
“I guess that’s how I caught the bug,” she said. Bachman’s self-described comb “obsession” just took off.
She has since collected dozens more celluloid combs, several ivory combs with “French jet” black glass and wooden combs. Bachman even wrote the book on comb collecting last year, “The Collectors Guide to Hair Combs: Identification and Values.”
Her passion for comb collecting shows in her knowledge of the hair tool’s rich history, something Bachman said most people don’t know.
In prehistoric times, people used their hands to groom their hair. Then came what she called “crude” combs made from animal bones. Over time, people began to carve detailed and distinctive designs and patterns in their combs.
Some unique materials people used to make combs included tortoise shells, steer horns and bamboo shoots.
She explained that around the turn of the century, comb makers boiled steer horns to soften them and fashion them into combs. They would often dye the horn to make it look like amber or tortoise shell, both of which were popular but harder to get.
“It was really a nasty, smelly process and … I can’t imagine how they came up with the idea,” she said.
From the mid-19th century, celluloid combs were popular and easy to produce in different colors and sizes, Bachman explained.
However, celluloid decorative combs, which many women used for fancy upswept chignon hairstyles such as the French twist, became less popular until comb makers stopped making them entirely. One reason, Bachman theorized, was “probably” because women began bobbing their hair, a fashion trend of the1920s.
Celluloid combs also posed somewhat of a safety hazard, because they were highly flammable, thus comb makers began looking for other materials to work with.
Bachman, 76, an artist, had previously collected various antique items, but nothing had held her interest for too long. Antique combs, however, were easy to get and to keep, “since they didn’t take up too much room,” she said.
A second-term president of The Antique Comb Collectors Club, an organization that boasts several international members, Bachman believes the fun in comb collecting comes in stages.
“Fifty percent of the enjoying is getting the combs—the pursuit—then 25 percent is from researching the comb and figuring out if you got a good deal—and 25 percent , a good deal of my enjoyment—for all of my comb collection—is sharing with other people,” she said.
Bachman recently found her oldest and most valuable comb, a small French comb from the 10th century A.D. The 2-to3-inch ivory comb is a simple design and fairly sturdy. Ivory combs were made most often from elephant tusks.
She said ivory combs are “quite difficult” for antique comb collectors to come by because of the undesirability of using elephant tusks.
Bachman says she has made a “significant investment” in her entire comb collection.
Still when a “plain” Martha Washington comb was on sale earlier this year for $4,000 dollars, Bachman probably wouldn’t have purchased it has she about it.
“I do have my limited,” she said with a laugh.
Originally Published Sunday, September 19, 1999
Photo Caption: Mary Bachman has a collection of 450 combs, including two from Ghana below. Photographer Leisa Thompson-The Ann Arbor News
Sunday, September 19, 1999
Thursday, September 02, 1999
Students fill books with scraps of history
Students fill books with scraps of history
The Ann Arbor News
By Pamela Appea
Homer Dennis Strong, class of 1925, had much in common with many undergraduates at the University of Michigan today.
From Detroit, Strong was an athlete and an avid U-M sports fan. He pledged a fraternity. And judging from his social calendar, Strong went to Michigan Union with several dates those first heady few weeks.
Like other U-M students of the World War I and World War II eras, Strong kept comprehensive scrapbooks that serve as a window to the past. The scrapbooks include photos, letters, fraternity party announcements, dance cards for Michigan Union events, and of course, commencement announcement after four (or five) long years. These students kept it all.
The students’ penchant for scrapbooking is not surprising, said Marianne Behler, an Ann Arbor-based consultant for Creative Memories, a company dedicated to helping people preserve photos and scrapbooks.
“I could imagine that their sort of experiences, like joining a fraternity, and going to a football game were important to them because it was the first time anyone in their family had done it,” Behler said.
“Everybody has a story to tell. Everybody has something important to say. Some people (especially students) were driven to preserve their memories,” she said.
Bentley Historical Library has at least 100 of these scrapbooks in its collection. During that era, students pre-ordered “memory books” from the Chicago-based College Memory Book Company. Students paid anywhere between $1.50 to $6.50 for the scrapbook depending on whether they wanted extras, like a fancy leather cover or their name embossed on the scrapbook. The scrapbooks ranged in color from blue to black to dark green, and some, depending on the students’ preference had special pages for athletic scores, a friends’ sign in page and social activities.
Both men and women kept scrapbooks. As for Strong, his scrapbook indicates that sometime in late September 1921, he began going steady with a certain U-M student and Plato fan from Ypsilanti—Helen N. Starr. In his scrapbook, under “social calendar,” Strong’s carefully handwritten H.N.S. takes up the rest of the page—he didn’t bother to fill in the details of their social life.
Ford Archer Hinchman, Jr., class of 1924, clipped political news articles for his scrapbook. Hinchman (aided by his brother during World War I) documented his time from high school to his first year at the U-M, to World War I and back again through articles, letters and pictures.
One of the Sixteenth Engineers based “somewhere in France” Hinchman enlisted in the military, May 4, 1917, and came back to the U.S., a year and a half later.
Hinchman chaged under military censorship rules. In a letter home, dated Sept. 3, 1917, Hinchman wrote, “I wrote mother and explained about the censoring of the mail …. It makes me feel pretty sore as I am bursting with information.”
Hinchman wrote many letters to his family detailing his frustration with the aspects of military life and “German successes.” He ultimately returned triumphantly home in January 1919. Hinchman resumed his studies at the U-M as a member of the Delta Kappa Upsilon fraternity.
Josephine Violet Lang, class of 1921, loved to hear classical music recitals, especially violin music. A straight B student in her four years at U-M, Lang was part of the first generation of women to exercise the right to vote. Her activism on that issue was deemed unseemly by one nameless male suitor.
He wrote, “My Little Suffragette: You can’t put any of your masculine airs over me … Cupid might send you a diamond ring if you learn how to boil water. I want a housekeeper, not a militant suffragette.”
It’s unclear what happened to this suitor. But Lang went on to earn her master’s degree at the U-M in 1923.
Originally published Thursday, September 2, 1999
The Ann Arbor News
By Pamela Appea
Homer Dennis Strong, class of 1925, had much in common with many undergraduates at the University of Michigan today.
From Detroit, Strong was an athlete and an avid U-M sports fan. He pledged a fraternity. And judging from his social calendar, Strong went to Michigan Union with several dates those first heady few weeks.
Like other U-M students of the World War I and World War II eras, Strong kept comprehensive scrapbooks that serve as a window to the past. The scrapbooks include photos, letters, fraternity party announcements, dance cards for Michigan Union events, and of course, commencement announcement after four (or five) long years. These students kept it all.
The students’ penchant for scrapbooking is not surprising, said Marianne Behler, an Ann Arbor-based consultant for Creative Memories, a company dedicated to helping people preserve photos and scrapbooks.
“I could imagine that their sort of experiences, like joining a fraternity, and going to a football game were important to them because it was the first time anyone in their family had done it,” Behler said.
“Everybody has a story to tell. Everybody has something important to say. Some people (especially students) were driven to preserve their memories,” she said.
Bentley Historical Library has at least 100 of these scrapbooks in its collection. During that era, students pre-ordered “memory books” from the Chicago-based College Memory Book Company. Students paid anywhere between $1.50 to $6.50 for the scrapbook depending on whether they wanted extras, like a fancy leather cover or their name embossed on the scrapbook. The scrapbooks ranged in color from blue to black to dark green, and some, depending on the students’ preference had special pages for athletic scores, a friends’ sign in page and social activities.
Both men and women kept scrapbooks. As for Strong, his scrapbook indicates that sometime in late September 1921, he began going steady with a certain U-M student and Plato fan from Ypsilanti—Helen N. Starr. In his scrapbook, under “social calendar,” Strong’s carefully handwritten H.N.S. takes up the rest of the page—he didn’t bother to fill in the details of their social life.
Ford Archer Hinchman, Jr., class of 1924, clipped political news articles for his scrapbook. Hinchman (aided by his brother during World War I) documented his time from high school to his first year at the U-M, to World War I and back again through articles, letters and pictures.
One of the Sixteenth Engineers based “somewhere in France” Hinchman enlisted in the military, May 4, 1917, and came back to the U.S., a year and a half later.
Hinchman chaged under military censorship rules. In a letter home, dated Sept. 3, 1917, Hinchman wrote, “I wrote mother and explained about the censoring of the mail …. It makes me feel pretty sore as I am bursting with information.”
Hinchman wrote many letters to his family detailing his frustration with the aspects of military life and “German successes.” He ultimately returned triumphantly home in January 1919. Hinchman resumed his studies at the U-M as a member of the Delta Kappa Upsilon fraternity.
Josephine Violet Lang, class of 1921, loved to hear classical music recitals, especially violin music. A straight B student in her four years at U-M, Lang was part of the first generation of women to exercise the right to vote. Her activism on that issue was deemed unseemly by one nameless male suitor.
He wrote, “My Little Suffragette: You can’t put any of your masculine airs over me … Cupid might send you a diamond ring if you learn how to boil water. I want a housekeeper, not a militant suffragette.”
It’s unclear what happened to this suitor. But Lang went on to earn her master’s degree at the U-M in 1923.
Originally published Thursday, September 2, 1999
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