Photo Caption: New Braunfels High School 10th grade, 1928. Isabel Ludwig is sixth from the left in the second row from the bottom. Note the various “bobbed” 1920s haircuts of the girls which show many of the styles Miss Ludwig discusses in her essay.

By Keva Hoffmann Boardman —

Isabel Ludwig was a memorable woman. Born in New Braunfels on February 28, 1912, this leap-year girl graduated from New Braunfels High School in 1929. She attended Southwest Texas State Teachers College (now Texas State) during the Great Depression receiving both a bachelor of arts and master of arts degrees. Miss Ludwig came back to New Braunfels and began teaching third grade at Carl Schurz Elementary School — she taught that grade at that school for 43 years! Just imagine how many students she knew.

Isabel was dedicated to the children of New Braunfels and was a member of organizations that promoted schools and education: Carl Schurz Parent Teacher Association, Retired Teachers Association, Delta Kappa Gamma, past Matron of the Order of the Eastern Star and a member of the Veterans of Foreign Wars Ladies Auxiliary.

In cataloging some manuscript material from the A.R. Ludwig (her dad) collection, I came across an essay that Isabel wrote whilst a student at New Braunfels High School. She was a witty young 17-year-old when she graduated in her 11th grade year. That makes this sassy little essay even more special. I hope you appreciate her wonderful 1920s sense of humor and style.

Hats, Hair and Clothes

by Isabel Ludwig, 1929

Hats and hair should go together, of course, hence my combination of subjects. They were both invented to cover the head. Being such a broad subject, I will have to part the hair from the hats in the discussion.

Hats are more complex in their mechanism than a time-lock and there are as many styles as the sands of sea. They run in size from a small flowerpot to a ten-in-the-family washtub. We are, of course, discussing women’s hats as men’s hats are scarcely worth mentioning.

All the different styles originate in Paris and are wired over from there. That is the reason there is so much wire in the hats. It takes the styles sometimes three or four years to get all the way across the continent, but sooner or later every woman in America will be wearing a hat designed by some fussy milliner in Paris.

It is an egregious blunder to wear the same hat for two seasons. It is almost as much a breach of etiquette to have the old one fixed over. The words of the poet are only true, “Spare the purse and spoil the hat.”

A scientist, who really didn’t know what he was undertaking, once analyzed a genuine society hat. The result was astonishing. Reduced to its component parts, it contained: 5 miles of straw braid, 23¼ miles of wire, 60 yards of silk ribbon, 7 feet of ostrich plumes, 4 bushels of cherries, 1 basketful of leaves, 4015 spangles and a residue of lace, chiffon, etc. But time forbids a further discussion, so I close this part of my essay with the words of Bryant:

When passing by the milliners’
No woman now alive
Can stand the window-sign which reads
Once 10 reduced to 5.

I approach the subject of hair with much trepidation. Some people are sensitive about their hair, not about the hair they have, but that which they haven’t. Like the discussion of hats, all these remarks will be confined to the hirsute appendage of ladies and women for the reason that a man’s hair has no possibilities and I can’t discuss a baldheaded man’s hair because he hasn’t any.

Unlike the style in hats, the prevailing styles in hairdressing almost all originated in Central Africa, a few coming from far off Java. Of course, improvements have been made by our talented American women, but for the most part the original Marcella wave is worn.

The wild desire to be “in the swim”, hirsutely speaking, has led to many curious devices. But therein lies a secret which perhaps I should not divulge. But what’s the use? It is no fun to have a secret unless you can tell it. One of these devices is “sidetracked hair”. This is hair that has been switched of course. Price is 98¢ and up for real hair. One of the most delightful health-giving and beauty-making devices is the “knot” [rat]. These are not, of course, REAL LIVE RATS but just a vulgar name given to a very useful article, probably so applied because it resembles a rat’s nest or do rats have nests?

And “puffs”, those little curly things. They are so cheap, 15¢ and up on bargain days, and one can get so many on one’s head. You know the poet has said that “the crowning glory of woman is her hair” even if it isn’t her own and it is very hard for her to part company with it when from sheer necessity it is laid on the dresser till the next day.

But time is fleeting and I must close with these words of Tom Moore:

Just how a woman combs her hair
Is more than I can tell,
A hair pin here and then one there,
Back combs of tortoise shell,
She builds it up and out and in
With most experienced air.
The deepest of thy mysteries
O woman is thy hair.

I find that true to life, hats and hair have occupied so much space, I cannot disclose clothes’ secrets so will close. F I N I S

I didn’t go to Carl Schurz, so I didn’t know Isabel. Are there any past students or teachers from those 43 years that could share a story or two?

Addendum: 1920s hair fashions described in the essay include:

• Marcella waves — Hair styling technique developed by Francois Marcel that used hot curling tongs to create deep, soft and serpentine waves.
• Sidetracked hair — hair pulled over from a deep side part to cover the addition of extra hair.
• Knots or Rats — a roll of hair created from the hair collected from your brush which you used to add volume to your hair.
• Puffs — little groups of curls which could be pinned into your ‘bobbed” hair.

Sources: Sophienburg Museum & Archives: A.R. Ludwig collection; Barbara Ludwig Cobb.

“Around the Sophienburg” is published every other weekend in the New Braunfels Herald-Zeitung.