December 08, 2004

Nineteenth Century Images of Albinism
posted by goofyfoot 20 years ago
  • Beautiful - the people and the pictures. Twentieth Century Images of people with albinism
  • the twentieth century albinos have much nicer lipstick!
  • What is up with the big hair?
  • I'd never heard before today that albinism was associated with second sight. How bizarre. Thanks for your accompanying post, PY.
  • EEEEEEK, scary! Albinos frighten me. Unless they're albino Xenopus laevis. Those are cool.
  • Albino Dungeon
  • bratcat--yes, I noticed this, too. Why do they all have dreadful hair? Also, Un-Identified Albino Sisters will be the name of my next band.
  • That dog is crazy huge. Cute. But huge.
  • Clumber Spaniels like the picture posted above by Argh are according to the AKC "primarily a white dog. . . the body should have as few markings as possible." They look albino to me.
  • I wonder if there was a particularly famous albino in the early part of the century whose appearance established the expectation of 'big hair'? Can't find any evidence. A contemporary albino's site.
  • The big hair isn't in all of the 19th c. photos, but it features in enough of them to make me wonder too. A guess - they weren't using hair products like pomades and such to smooth it down because that would've darkened the hair and interfered with documenting the physical characteristics of albinism. Another guess - maybe they (like other people with voluminous hair) usually wore it tied back, but to the extent that the subjects were on display their hair was too and so they let it all hang out instead.
  • PY - I just posted your and my links to metafilter, on the occasion of a recent albino-themed thread.
  • Ok, cool. I remember that particular link showing up there a while back.