The Kardashians Of The 1800s: Meet The Sutherland Sisters

The Kardashian and Jenner sisters are famous from their reality shows, presence on social media, and brands ranging from beauty to fashion and alcohol. All of the sisters are fabulously wealthy and famous, but they’re not the first group of sisters to garner this type of fame.

Before television and social media, the Sutherland Sisters became a well-known singing act in the late 1800s, but their super long hair is what made them truly famous. The sisters made a fortune selling beauty products before it dried up when long hair went out of style. This is their story.

Who Are the Sutherland Sisters?

Fletcher and Mary Sutherland had seven daughters: Sarah (1845-1919), Victoria (1849-1902), Isabelle (1852-1914), Grace (1854-1946), Naomi (1858-1893), Dora (1860-1926), and Mary (1862-1939). The sisters were raised on a turkey farm in Cambria, New York (near Niagra Falls), and though they weren’t wealthy, they were all trained musicians. The sisters performed at their local church, but audiences were much more interested in their hair than in their music.

The sisters were taught never to cut their hair from a young age, as super long hair was the beauty standard of the Victorian era. According to Collector's Weekly, “Victorian women pined to have such transfixing hair. At a time when disease and bad medicine caused men and women’s hair to fall out, extremely long and thick hair became the ultimate symbol of femininity, thought to almost have magical powers. According to mythology and the literary greats of the time like Browning, Dickens, Thackeray, and Yeats, floor-length locks could mask nudity, rope in a male suitor, give him a cozy shelter, or smother him in bed.”

The Sutherland sisters took this beauty standard to the next level – their mother made sure they never cut their hair and it’s estimated that the sisters shared 37 feet of hair collectively. It’s believed that Sarah had the shortest with three feet, and Victoria had the longest with seven feet of hair.

Fortunes turned for the sisters when their mother died in 1867, and their father started booking them to perform at county fairs and local theatres. Similar to their audience at their church, their hairstyles gained much more attention than their music. The sisters expanded to make their Broadway debut in 1880, which was shortly followed by a tour of the Southern states and a contract with Barnum & Bailey Circus in 1882.  

They Were Beauty Icons and Profited from It

From jeans to tequila, we know that all five Kardashian-Jenner sisters are successful businesswomen, but they make the most money in the beauty industry (Kim and Kylie, who both own beauty brands, are the wealthiest of the sisters). It appears that they took a page out of the Sutherland sisters' playbook, for all seven sisters got rich off their status as beauty icons.

In the early 1880s, their father decided to take advantage of his daughters’ fame and beauty. Shortly after their Broadway debut, he began selling the “The Seven Sutherland Sisters Hair Grower” tonic, which was made of “bay rum, witch hazel, salt, magnesia, and hydrochloric acid.” After he died in 1888, the sisters took over the business, became beauty moguls, and started to get their fair share of the profits.

1900 advertisement for hair demonstration by Sutherland Sisters, via Wikimedia Commons.

Their company expanded to sell other beauty products like scalp cleaner (which is on display at the Smithsonian, alongside the hair tonic), combs, face creams, and other cosmetic products. This helped the sisters make three million dollars, which would equal over a hundred million today.

Unfortunately, money didn’t buy happiness for the Sutherland sisters, leading their odd and eccentric personalities to come out as they made more money.

They Were Incredibly Eccentric

We all know that the Kardashian and Jenner sisters are a little unconventional, but that’s what makes them and their reality shows so entertaining. However, the Sutherland sisters were another level of eccentric.

According to New England Living, “The money, which also flowed in like water, seemed to amplify the family’s eccentricities. Pets were treated like royalty, with winter and summer wardrobes, and grand funerals and obituaries in the local newspapers. The carriage horses were shod in gold. The sisters sponsored many a gala social for the neighbors, often including fireworks.”

Misfortunes like the suicide of Isabella’s first husband and the death of Naomi in 1893 (she was only 35) “unhinged the remaining women,” leading some of them to develop problems with alcohol and drugs. It was also rumored that they "practiced witchcraft" and participated in orgies.

Sarah, Grace, Dora, and Mary never married to maintain control over their financial assets, but some of the sisters who did marry had preferences for younger men. Isabella married a 30-year-old man when she was 46, and Victoria married a 19-year-old when she was 50. Victoria’s marriage led to a rift between their sisters over their finances, which only grew when their popularity began to dwindle.

The Later Years of the Sutherland Sisters

Though the sisters continued to perform together after Naomi’s untimely death in 1893, the deaths of Victoria in 1902 and Isabelle in 1914 slowed their act down. It didn’t help that beauty trends began to change in the late 1910s and the 1920s when long hair went out of style and the flapper look and short bobs became trendy. The sisters weren’t keen on saving money and preferred to spend lavishly, leading them to lose the majority of their earnings by the time Sarah died in 1919.

This left Grace, Dora, and Mary to try to scrap for money in their later years. They moved to Los Angeles to try to continue their careers, but unfortunately, it didn’t work out. Dora died in a car accident in 1926. Both Mary and Grace died poor – Mary died in an asylum in 1939, and Grace was buried in an unmarked grave after her death in 1946.

Closing Thoughts

With their multi million-dollar beauty brand, massive wealth, and scandalous reputations, it’s safe to say that the Sutherland sisters were the Kardashians of the 1800s. It proves that beautiful sisters becoming famous is a repeatable phenomenon, so who will be the next group of mega-famous sisters to dominate pop-culture?

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