If you look around online you can find a picture of R’ Aron Wolfssohn Halle, the Rov of Hildesheim in the early 1800s and a Yekke, with long curly (just like the Chasidim today) peyos. You can also find a picture of R Eliezer Lipman Zilberman, the editor in the late 1800s of the Maggid L’Yisroel newspaper in Berlin, and also a Yekke, with long curly peyos.
And, as is well known, the Teimanim have had long curly peyos since antiquity times. This is certainly the traditional way Yidden went.
See Gitin 58a where R’ Yehoshua ben Chanania sees a beautiful boy, with curly peyos, in prison. R’ Yehoshua ben Chanania cried out, citing Yeshaiah 42:24, “Mi noasan limshissah Yaaqov,
veyisrale’ levozezim, halo Hashem?” The [future R’] Yishmael ben Elisha completed the posek from his cell, “Zu, chatanu lo…. vayishpokh alava
cheimah apo…”
We see from this Gemera that curly peyos was considered part of a young Jewish boy’s beauty as far back as the days of the Tannaim. ( R’ Yehoshua ben Chanania died right before R’ Akiva joined bar Kochva, 131 CE.)