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Barack and Michelle Obama walk down Pennsylvania Avenue together on Inauguration day, 2013. Photo by Pete Souza, courtesy of the White House

When Michelle Obama debuted her new hairstyle for the inauguration, her “bangs” stole the show. Even seasoned broadcasters spent a surprising amount of time chattering about the First Lady’s new look. In all fairness, there was also much speculation about the president’s graying hair—but that was chalked up to the rigors of office rather than a deliberate decision about style.

“Bangs” first made headlines nearly a century ago when the wildly popular ballroom dancer Irene Castle bobbed her hair. Castle and her husband Vernon were the Fred-and-Ginger of the 1910s and became famous for making “social dancing” a respectable pursuit for genteel audiences. They were embraced as society’s darlings and opened a dance school near the Ritz Hotel, teaching the upper crust how to waltz, foxtrot, and dance a one-step called “the Castle Walk.”

Irene Foote Castle by Bardon Adolph de Meyer. Photogravure, 1919. National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution

Irene Castle became a vibrant symbol of the “New Woman”—youthful, energetic, and unfettered. She was a fashion trendsetter, and when she cut off her hair in 1915, her “bob” created a fad soon mimicked by millions. Magazines ran articles asking, “To Bob or Not to Bob,” and Irene Castle herself contributed essays about the “wonderful advantages in short hair.” (Although in the Ladies Home Journal in 1921 she wondered if it would work well with gray hair, asking “will it not seem a bit kittenish and not quite dignified?”)

The “bob” suited free-spirited flappers of the 1920s: it reflected women’s changing and uncorseted role in the decade following the passage of woman’s suffrage. In 1920, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s short story, “Bernice Bobs Her Hair,” evoked this transformation by describing how a quiet young girl suddenly morphed into a vamp after her hair was bobbed.  In years before women had their own hair salons, they flocked to barber shops to be shorn: in New York, barbers reported lines snaking far outside their doors as 2,000 women a day clamored to be fashionable.

Silent film stars, America’s new cultural icons of the 1920s, helped feed the rage for chopped hair.  Three stars became particular icons of the flapper look:  Colleen Moore is credited with helping to define the look in her 1923 film Flaming Youth; by 1927 she was said to be America’s top box office attraction, making $12,500 a week. Clara Bow was another bobbed-hair screen star said to personify the Roaring Twenties: in 1927, she starred as the prototypic, uninhibited flapper in It. Louise Brooks was also credited with embodying the flapper: Her trademarks in such films as Pandora’s Box were her bobbed hair and a rebellious attitude about women’s traditional roles.

Colleen Moore by Batiste Madalena. Gouache over graphite poster, 1928. National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution

Clara Gordon Bow by Alfred Cheney Johnston. Gelatin silver print, 1927. National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution

First Ladies Lou Hoover, Eleanor Roosevelt, Bess Truman, and Mamie Eisenhower made few headlines with their hairstyles—although it is true that Mrs. Eisenhower sported bangs. But when Jacqueline Kennedy became First Lady in 1961, the media went mad over her bouffant hairstyle.

When the Kennedys attended the Washington premiere of Irving Berlin’s new musical Mr. President in September 1962 at the National Theatre, journalist Helen Thomas wrote how “First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy—a devotee of the Parisian ‘pastiche’ hair-piece—is going to see a lot of other women wearing the glamorous superstructured evening coiffures at the premiere.”  Mrs. Kennedy had adopted the bouffant look in the 1950s under the tutelage of master stylist Michel Kazan, who had an A-List salon on East 55^th Street in New York. In 1960 Kazan sent three photographs of Mrs. Kennedy en bouffant  to Vogue magazine, and the rage began. His protégé, Kenneth Battelle, was Mrs. Kennedy’s personal hair stylist during her years in the White House, and helped maintain “the Jackie look” of casual elegance.

Jacqueline Kennedy, 1961. Photo by Mark Shaw, courtesy of Wikimedia

In the 50 years since Mrs. Kennedy left the White House, First Lady coifs have rarely been subjected to much hoopla, so the advent of Michelle Obama’s bangs unleashed decades of pent-up excitement.  In a January 17th New York Times article on “Memorable Clips,” Marisa Meltzer wrote that “Sometimes the right haircut at the right moment has the power to change lives and careers.” The Daily Herald reported that obsessive media attention was sparked only after the president himself called his wife’s bangs “the most significant event of this weekend.”  One celebrity hairstylist was quoted as saying, “Bangs have always been there, but they are clearly having a moment right now,” adding that “Mrs. Obama is really being modern and fashion-forward. We haven’t had a fashion-forward first lady like this since Jackie Kennedy.”

Fashion-forward is a concept I find fascinating, both because “fashion and identity” is a topic that intrigues me as a cultural historian, and also because it entails one of my favorite sports—shopping.  And when it comes to the corollary topic “bobbed hair and bangs,” I feel totally in-the-moment:  last summer, I asked my hairstylist to give me a “duck-tail bob.”  He is Turkish, and I had a difficult time translating that for him until his partner explained that the word in Turkish that came closest was “chicken-butt.” His face lighted up, and he gave me a wonderful haircut.  I told him I would make a great sign for his window –“Home of the World Famous Chicken-Butt Haircut.”

Curator Amy Henderson of the National Portrait Gallery

A regular contributor to Around the Mall, Amy Henderson covers the best of pop culture from her view at the National Portrait Gallery. She recently wrote about Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Ball and Downton Abbey.

Martin Robinson Delany worked to recruit soldiers for black Union regiments and met with Lincoln to allow these units to be led by black officers. He approved the plan and Delany became the first black major to receive a field command. Hand-colored lithograph, 1865. Courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery

Black soldiers could not officially join the Union army until the Emancipation Proclamation was issued on January 1, 1863. But, on the ground, they had been fighting and dying from the beginning.

When three escaped slaves arrived at Fort Monroe in Hampton, Virginia, in May, 1861, Union General Benjamin Butler had to make a choice. Under the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act, he was compelled to return the men into the hands of the slaveowner. But Virginia had just signed the ordinances of secession. Butler determined that he was now operating in a foreign territory and declared the men “contraband of war.”

When more enslaved men, women and children arrived at the fort, Butler wrote to Washington for advice. In these early days of the Civil War, Lincoln avoided the issue of emancipation entirely. A member of his cabinet suggested Butler simply keep the people he found useful and return the rest. Butler replied, “So should I keep the mother and send back the child?” Washington left it up to him, and he decided to keep all of the 500 enslaved individuals who found their way to his fort.

“This was the beginning of an informal arrangement that enabled the union to protect fugitive slaves but without addressing the issue of emancipation,” says Ann Shumard, senior curator of photographs at the National Portrait and the curator behind the new exhibit opening February 1, “Bound For Freedom’s Light: African Americans and the Civil War.”

An abolitionist and former slave, Sojourner Truth also helped recruit soldiers in Michigan. Mathew Brady Studio, albumen silver print, circa 1864. Courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery

Though many know of the actions and names of people like Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman and Sojourner Truth, hundreds of names have been more or less lost to history. Individuals like those who made the dangerous journey to Fort Monroe tell a very different story of the Civil War than usually rehearsed.

“They were very much active agents of their own emancipation in many instances and strong advocates for the right to participate in military operations,” says Shumard, who gathered 20 carte de visite portraits, newspaper illustrations, recruitment posters and more to tell this story.

Amid the stories of bravery both inside and outside of the military, though, rests a foreboding uncertainty. There are reminders throughout the exhibit that freedom was not necessarily what waited on the other side of the Union lines.

“There were no guarantees that permanent liberty would be the outcome,” says Shumard. Even grand gestures like the Emancipation Proclamation often fell flat in the daily lives of blacks in the South. “It didn’t really free anybody,” says Shumard. The Confederates, of course, did not recognize its legitimacy. All it truly ensured was that blacks could now fight in a war in which they were already inextricably involved.

Events like the July, 1863 draft riot in New York City, represented in the exhibit with a page of illustrations published in Harper’s Weekly, served as a reminder that, “New York was by no means a bastion of Northern support.” According to Shumard, “There was a strong amount of sympathy for the Confederacy.” Though the five-day riot began in protest against the unequal draft lottery policies that would allow wealthy people to simply pay their way out of service, anger quickly turned against the city’s freed black population. “No one was safe,” says Shumard. Shown in the illustrations, one black man was dragged into the street, beaten senseless and then hanged from a tree and burned before the crowd.

After escaping slavery on a Louisiana plantation, Gordon reached Union lines in Baton Rouge where doctors examined the horrific scarring on his back left from the whipping of his former overseer. Photographs of his back were published in Harper’s Weekly and served to refute the myth that slavery was a benign institution. Mathew Brady Studio albumen silver print, 1863. Courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery

Joining the Union cause was also an uncertain prospect. Before the emancipation proclamation, it was unclear what might happen to escaped slaves at the end of the war. One suggestion, according to Shumard, was to sell them back to Southern slaveowners to pay for the war.

“There were times when one might have thought that the outcome of a battle or something else would have discouraged enlistment when in fact it actually only made individuals more eager to fight,” Shumard says.

Meanwhile, black soldiers had to find their place in a white army. Officers from an early Louisiana guard of black troops organized by Butler, for instance, were demoted because white officers “objected to having to salute or otherwise recognize black peers.”

Frederick Douglass encouraged service nonetheless, calling on individuals “to claim their rightful place as citizens of the United States.”

Many did, and many, in fact, had already.

After his time in the Union army, Smalls went on to serve in South Carolina politics during Reconstruction. Wearn & Hix Studio albumen silver print, 1868. Courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery

A celebrated tale at the time, the story of deckhand Robert Smalls’ escape from the Confederates inspired the North. Smalls had been sent away as a young child in South Carolina to earn wages to send back to his slave master. By 1861, he was working on a Confederate ship. With his shipmates, he plotted to commandeer the vessel while the white crew was ashore. Before the sun rose one morning in May, 1862, the group set to work, navigating their way toward Union lines. Disguised with the captain’s straw hat and comfortable moving around the fortifications and submerged mines, Smalls made his way to safety and went on to pilot the same boat for the Union army. Shumard says, “There was great rejoicing in the North at this daring escape because he had not only escaped with his shipmates, but they had also picked up members of their families on the way out.”

But often these stories were treated with derision by the popular press, as in the instance of a man known simply as Abraham who was said to have been literally “blown to freedom.” As a slave working for the Confederate army, Abraham was reportedly blasted across enemy lines when Union soldiers detonated explosives beneath the Confederate’s earthen fortifications.

“The Harper’s Weekly article that was published after this happened tended to treat the whole episode as a humorous moment,” says Shumard. “You find that often in the mainstream coverage of incidents with African American troops, that it can sometimes devolve almost into minstrelsy. They asked him how far he had traveled and he was quoted as saying, about three miles.”

Abraham stayed with the Union troops as a cook for General McPherson.

“By the end of the Civil War, roughly 179,000 black men (10 percent of the Union Army) served as soldiers in the U.S. Army and another 19,000 served in the Navy,” according to the National Archives. “Nearly 40,000 black soldiers died over the course of the war—30,000 of infection or disease.”

Posed near the final print of the exhibit showing a triumphant Lincoln striding through crowds of adoring supporters in Richmond, Virginia, in 1865, are portraits of two unidentified black soldiers, a private and a corporal. The images are commonplace mementos from the war. Soldiers white and black would fill photography studios to get their pictures taken in order to have something to give to family left behind. The loved ones, “could only wait and hope for their soldier’s safe return.”

The now anonymous pair look brave, exchanging a steady gaze with the viewer. But they were not simply contemplating an uncertain fate of life or death, a soldier’s safe return. Instead, they stared down the uncertainty of life as it had been and life as it might be.

 ”Bound For Freedom’s Light: African Americans and The Civil War” is on view through March 2, 2014 at the National Portrait Gallery.

World-famous poet and civil rights activist Maya Angelou talks about her life at the American Indian Museum on Friday. Photo by Dwight Carter Adria Richards, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Friday, February 1: A Discussion with Poet Maya Angelou

“If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude. Don’t complain,” once wrote poet Maya Angelou, one of the country’s most celebrated civil rights activists and intellectuals. Best known for her 1970 novel I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Angelou has written more than 30 best-selling works of fiction, nonfiction and poetry, as well as appeared in and written scripts for films and television and garnered more than 30 honorary degrees. Johnnetta Betsch Cole, the director of the National Museum of African Art, sits down with Angelou this evening to talk about the poet’s life and influence. Free. 6:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. American Indian Museum.

Saturday, February 2: Black History Month Family Day

After you’ve been inspired by Maya Angelou, kickoff Black History Month today with a daylong celebration of African American culture. Marking the 150 anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation and the 50th anniversary of the start of the Civil Rights Movement, the event features live performances and hands-on activities, including music by the Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Quartet and reenactments of Civil War military drills. Make your own protest slogan button and honor the Americans who dedicated themselves to the nation’s promise of equality for all. Free. 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. American History Museum.

Sunday, February 3: DC Youth Poetry Slam Team 2013 Semifinals

The city’s most promising teenage poets take the stage this evening in a poetry slam to duke it out in verse. Armed with steady rhythm and clever rhyme, they are competing for a spot on the 2013 DC Youth Slam Team, a poetry group that attends regional and international competitions, as well as organizes poetry events around Washington, DC to encourage teens to speak about social justice issues. Members of the slam’s audience judge the young poets, all of whom will perform original works. Pay attention to the faces of these young wordsmiths, because you might see them again in the next “Poetic Likeness” exhibit. Free. 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. National Portrait Gallery.

Also check out our specially created Visitors Guide App. Get the most out of your trip to Washington, D.C. and the National Mall with this selection of custom-built tours, based on your available time and passions. From the editors of Smithsonian magazine, the app is also packed with handy navigational tools, maps, museum floor plans and museum information including ‘Greatest Hits’ for each Smithsonian museum.

For a complete listing of Smithsonian events and exhibitions visit the goSmithsonian Visitors Guide. Additional reporting by Michelle Strange.

If you can name these dashing gentlemen, you’re off to a good start for Thursday’s rock-and-roll trivia night at the National Portrait Gallery. Photo by Michael Conen, courtesy of Flickr Creative Commons.

Tuesday, January 29: One Man’s Search for Ancient China: The Paul Singer Collection

Some collectors have mansions or basements to store their collections. Paul Singer had a two bedroom apartment in New Jersey. The psychiatrist-by-day, collector of ancient Chinese artifacts-by-night accumulated around 5,000 objects by his death in 1997, and once displayed all of them in his modest home. Smithsonian gives 63 of the objects a bit more room in this exhibit to reflect the vast range of things produced by various ancient Chinese cultures—from artistic masterworks to ceramics to weaponry—as well as the breadth of Singer’s collection. Free. Open until July 7. Sackler Gallery.

Wednesday, January 30: Verdi and Wagner at 200: A Double Celebration of Genius

Italian Giuseppe Verdi and German Richard Wagner rocked the world’s opera stages so hard in the 19th-century that the genre has not been the same since. The two genius composers, born just months apart, embodied disparate national cultures and styles, but were united in developing the techniques that ushered opera into modern times. Music historian Saul Lilienstein begins a course this evening that uses recorded performances of the masters’ most iconic pieces to explore their lives and influence. $200 for six monthly sessions (members discounted; tickets here). 6:45 p.m. to 9 p.m. on selected Wednesdays from January 30 to June 19. Ripley Center.

Thursday, January 31: Rock and Roll is Here to Stay!

Can’t brush your teeth without reciting every line to “Blue Suede Shoes“? Do you actually have moves like Jagger because you spend your free time watching clips of the Stones? Well, here’s a chance to impress rather than annoy your co-workers with your encyclopedic knowledge, rock nerds: rock-and-roll trivia happy hour. Prizes for the winners, good music for all. Free. 6:30 p.m. National Portrait Gallery.

Also check out our specially created Visitors Guide App. Get the most out of your trip to Washington, D.C. and the National Mall with this selection of custom-built tours, based on your available time and passions. From the editors of Smithsonian magazine, the app is also packed with handy navigational tools, maps, museum floor plans and museum information including ‘Greatest Hits’ for each Smithsonian museum.

For a complete listing of Smithsonian events and exhibitions visit the goSmithsonian Visitors Guide. Additional reporting by Michelle Strange.

Today, President Barack Obama will take the oath of office for his second term. Courtesy of the White House, 2009

Inauguration day, it’s finally here, along with millions of visitors looking to take in some uniquely D.C.-culture. While our special presidents tour from our visitors guide app will keep you exploring in your spare-time, this post is all about the when, where and how of January 21. Plus, a few select events happening around the Smithsonian, you know, in between the whole inauguration thing.

Hours

On Inauguration Day, January 21, Smithsonian museums on the National Mall are open 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. A few museums will open early—the Castle opens at 7:30 a.m., Sackler Gallery, Freer Gallery, Hirshhorn and African Art open at 8 a.m. Mall entrances on the south side will be closed. Visitors will be asked to use the Independence Ave. entrances.

The American Indian Museum and the Renwick Gallery are closed January 21.

The Smithsonian American Art Museum and the National Portrait Gallery are open from 11:30 a.m. to 7 p.m.

The Luce Center at the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the Lunder Conservation Center will be closed Sunday, January 20.

Street Closings

Most streets around the National Mall—including Independence and Constitution avenues and Jefferson and Madison drives—will be closed Monday, January 21.

Metro

The Archives, Smithsonian and Mt. Vernon Square stations will be closed Sunday, January 20 to Monday, January 21, midnight to 5:30 p.m. All other stations will open Monday, January 21 at 4 a.m.

Parking

No Parking on the National Mall after 6 p.m. on Sunday, January 20.

Restrooms

All museums, open to the public during designated hours, have accessible restrooms

Read more.

You know how it goes: Now that you’ve been sworn in, what are you going to do? I’m going to the Smithsonian! Courtesy of Wikimedia

Select Events

Live broadcast of the swearing-in ceremony in Flag Hall in American History Museum, beginning at 11:30 a.m. A live broadcast will also begin at 11:30 a.m. at the African Art Museum.

Inaugural theme walk-in tours, Monday, January 21, 12:30 p.m. and 2 p.m. at the American Art Museum.

For “Super Sonic Weekend: Sounds and Songs of the American Presidency” (all day Monday), Smithsonian Folkways Recordings is streaming audio recordings related to the American presidency, from a 1757 campaign song used by George Washington in his first race for the Virginia House of Burgesses, to presidential speeches and much more.

Tour America’s Presidents at the National Portrait Gallery at 1:00 p.m. and 3:30 p.m.

Select Exhibits

At the National Portrait Gallery: ”Portrait of President Barack Obama” The original artwork, a hand-finished collage by artist Shepard Fairey, from President Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign is on view January 19 – 22. The work is joined by two larger-than-life tapestry portraits of the president by artist Chuck Close.

At the American Indian Museum: ”A Century Ago: They Came as Sovereign Leaders” This photo exhibition focuses on President Theodore Roosevelt’s 1905 inaugural parade and the six great chiefs who participated in the parade arriving with their own purposes in mind and representing the needs of their people.

At the National Museum of African American History and Culture Gallery in the American History Museum: Changing America: The Emancipation Proclamation, 1863, and the March on Washington, 1963″ In 2013 the country will commemorate two events that changed the course of the nation-the 1863 Emancipation Proclamation and the 1963 March on Washington. Standing as milestone moments in the grand sweep of American history, these achievements were the culmination of decades of struggles by individuals – both famous and unknown – who believed in the American promise that this nation was dedicated to the proposition that “all men are created equal.”

For a step-by-step guide to the greatest presidential hits in the collections, download the FREE app for your smartphone.