The Pigtail Ordinance was an 1873 law intended to force prisoners in San Francisco, California to have their hair cut within an inch of the scalp. It affected Qing Chinese prisoners in particular, as it meant they would have their queue, a waist-long, braided pigtail, cut off. The proposal passed by a narrow margin through the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1873 but was vetoed by the mayor. An identical version of the law was enacted by the California State Legislature in 1876 and was subsequently struck down as unconstitutional in 1879. Origins The Pigtail Ordinance was proposed as a solution to the overcrowding of jails due to the 1870 Sanitary Ordinance, which was originally meant to prevent unsafe tenement conditions in San Francisco. When in violation of the Sanitary Ordinance, one could either pay a fine or serve a week or more in jail; for thousands of impoverished Chinese immigrants, free room and board was a welcome punishment. Ostensibly to prevent outbreaks of lice and fleas, the Supervisors began requiring that all prisoners' heads be shaved. Many equal rights advocates, however, claimed the Supervisors' true intent was to stem the tide of willing Chinese convicts. Since the beginning of the Qing dynasty in 1644, Han men in China had been required to adopt Manchu men's hairstyle by wearing the queue and shaving the forehead as a symbol of accepting the Qing dynasty. Han Chinese did not object to wearing the queue braid on the back of the head, as they traditionally wore their hair long. However, they fiercely objected to shaving the forehead. This caused the Qing government to focus on forcing people to shave their forehead rather than wear the braid. Han rebels who objected to the Qing hairstyle wore the braid but defied orders to shave the front of the head. One person was executed for refusing to shave, even though he had willingly braided the back of his hair. It was only later that Westernized revolutionaries, influenced by European hairstyles, began to advocate against the queue. During the Taiping Rebellion, the Taiping protested against the Qing by retaining their queues but not shaving the rest of their heads. The traditional style of queue with shaved head became a sign of loyalty to the Qing. The late 19th century saw a significant increase in Chinese immigration to the United States. By 1880, the Chinese population of