In episode 2 of this season, history graduate student Larry Zieammermann joins Hollie to talk about the intersection of baldness, patent medicines, and masculinity. We’ve covered patent medicines on this podcast before. If you haven’t already, make sure to listen to season 2, episode 7 “Patent Medicines in the West” with Erin Adams, which is one of Hollie’s all time favorite episodes.
Larry’s research focues on male balding in the 19th and early 20th centuries. He includes a discussion of this advertisement for Wildroot Hair Tonic from 1924:
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Selected Bibliography:
Johnes, Martin. “Masculinity, Modernity and Male Baldness, c.1880‐1939.” Gender & History 35, no. 1 (2023): 190–211.
Wildroot Hair Tonic, Wilroot, Co., Inc. “When love is young-why worry about hair?.” Advertisement. 1924. https://archive.org/details/WildrootHairTonic1924A.
Young, James Harvey. The Toadstool Millionaires: A Social History of Patent Medicines inAmerica before Federal Regulation. Princeton University Press, 2015.
Are you interested in a history degree? We have online and on campus B.A. programs and we also have online and on campus M.A. programs in history or public history. Learn more at https://www.fhsu.edu/history/academic-program
Victor E. History 