Leila's Hair Museum

Leila's Hair Museum was a museum in Independence, Missouri that displays examples of hairwork dating back to the 18th century. It closed in September 2025^[1].

Hair art

Hairwork is a form of art that began in the 16th century or earlier, and flourished in the Victorian era. A collection of hair from family, friends, or a gathering such as a wedding, was made into a hair wreath by making flowers of the hair. It was then put into a shadow box frame. Wreaths were also made as memorial pieces using hair from the deceased. Hairwork was used by people wanting to keep a memento of a loved one before the invention of photography.^[2] Hairwork also consisted of necklaces, bracelets, rings, lockets, paintings and medallions embellished with strands of hair.^[2]

Museum history

Leila Cohoon (1931-2024)^[3] was a retired cosmetology teacher living in Independence, Missouri, who started collecting hair in 1956 and considered it to be her life work.^[4] She had a lifelong fascination with hair, and considered it one of the most interesting parts of the human body.^[5][6] In 1990, having begun to run out of space in her home for her hairwork collection, Cohoon opened her hair museum in a small front room in the Independence School of Cosmetology (which she founded in 1960).^[6] Later, she moved her hair museum a few blocks from the old location so as to be able to expand.^[6] The new location for the museum consists of multiple rooms with walls covered from top to bottom with hairworks.^[7] The museum closed down during the COVID-19 pandemic,^[8] and reopened in autumn 2023 with the caveat that visitors must schedule an appointment via email.^[9] Struggling after its reopening and Cohoon’s death, the museum closed permanently in September 2025.^[10] Lindsay Evans, Cohoon's granddaughter, is working to place the collection in other museums across the U.S.^[11]

The collection

Leila’s Hair Museum has more than 700 wreaths and over 2,000 pieces of jewelry, many of which date back to before the year 1900.^[4] Among her artifacts are a framed assemblage of hair from every member of a chapter of the League of Women Voters, and two frames with hair shorn from sisters who both entered a convent.^[5] Her oldest exhibit is a brooch dated 1680.^[2]

Collecting the hair of famous people is secondary to Cohoon's goal of preserving hair art; that being said, there are also exhibits that include the hair of famous people.^[4] Hair from Michael Jackson is in the museum, which garnered the museum a mention in a Jeopardy! question on December 30, 2016.^[12] The museum also has hair from Elvis Presley, George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Daniel Webster, Aaron Burr, Marilyn Monroe, singer Jenny Lind, and abolitionist John Brown.^[4]

References

External links

• MikeRowe.com
• Mike Rowe's Somebody's Got To Do It from CNN, episode 1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qQp2Ff3cKk

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