Unidentified Brother and Sister (United States, late-1840s)


Figure 1.-- This undated daguerreotype shows two children. We have no idea where they lived in America. As they are photographed together they most likely are brother and sister. The two children do look a bit like each other. The children are unidentified and we know nothing about the family. They look to be about 8-10 years of age. The boy wears a rather elegant suit while his sister wears a very plain dress.

This undated daguerreotype shows two children. We have no idea where they lived in America. As they are photographed together they most likely are brother and sister. The two children do look a bit like each other. The children are unidentified and we know nothing about the family. They look to be about 8-10 years of age. The boy wears a rather elegant suit while his sister wears a very plain dress. The suit style seems to us rather adult. I believe it would be called a frock coat. Note that he wears it with a vest that matches, but light colored long trousrs. We are not sure how common these suits were for boys in the 1840s or 50s. The contrast between the boy's elegant suit and the girl's very plain dress strikes us as rather unusual. We do not know much about girls clothing, but it seems to us it would be more common for a boy to be dressed more plainly. Perhaps HBC readers will have some insight here. Notice the hair styles. The boy has a side part with hair over her ears. His sister's hair is done with a center part. The portrait is a 1840s or early 50s 1/6 plate daguerreotype photo in a half brown leather case. Dating dags is still a najor problem for HBC. We tend to think it is most likely a 1840s portrait, but am early 1850s portrait is possible. We don't think it was taken in the late 50s in part because we have not seen any portraits of boys dressed this way from the early 60s. In addition, dags began to decline in popularity in the mid-50s.






HBC






Navigate the Boys' Historical Clothing Web Site Related Pages:
[Hair styles] [Parts] [Dresses] [Stocks] [Small collars] [Suits] [Vests] [Pants]
[Daguerreotypes]



Navigate the Boys' Historical Clothing Web Site:
[Return to the Main individual biography 1840s chronology page]
[Return to the Main individual biography 19th century chronology page]
[Introduction] [Activities] [Biographies] [Chronology] [Clothing styles] [Countries] [Girls] [Topics]
[Bibliographies] [Contributions] [Essays] [FAQs] [Glossaries] [Satellite sites] [Tools]
[Boys' Clothing Home]



Created: 1:33 AM 2/15/2007
Last updated: 1:33 AM 2/15/2007