Figure 1.--Here Harold, Phyllis, and Elizabeth are in their bathing costumes for a swim in the pond. Elizabeth is wearing a sweater or sweatshirt over her costume, but it appears to matvch the one her big sister is wearing. The photograph was taken in July 1907. Image courtesy of the MD collection.

The Fitzroy-Carrington Children: Activities

Many of the photographs are just portraits of the children posing before the camera. There are also quite a number of photographs of the children innvolved in different activitises. The different activities depicted in the photographs provide a wonderful insight into the life style of affluent American children in the early 20th century. While there are many stiffly posed photographs of the children, there are also many images of Harold and his siblings playing with toys, pets, bikes etc some in swimming costumes. Several show the children playing their musical instruments. The children were often photogtraphed in their bathing suits, presumably swiming in the pond at Mallowfield. We do not note any ocean beach scenes, although Mamaroneck was on the coast. We also notice the children dressing up in costumes of all sorts. Most of the activity photographs are at Mallowfield where the extensive grounds provided more opportunities for play. Undoubtedly there were all kinds of activities inside the New York City brownstone, but father's indoor photography was not nearly as good as his outdoor photography. Indoor photographs in the early 20th century were much more complicated beause of the primuive flash arrangements.

Bikes


Boating

Harold apparently ventured out on "the pond" in a small sailboat. I don't know if he ever went out on the ocean. They also had a row boat and there are pictures of Harold and his father rowing.

Books

We do not note a lot of photographs of the children with books. The one exception here is Harold. There are photos of Harold reading a book

Costumes

There are several photographs of the children dressing up in costumes. Some look to be at parties. Other images show the children just dressing up at home by themselves. Some of the costumes are qite elaborate. One oarticularly elaborate ine was a Japanese copstume. Here we are not sure just why the children were in Japanese costume. Surely this was theor mother's idea. Japnaese coustume is not something like pirate or cowboy costumes that the children would have come up with on their own. It appears to have been just for a photograph. The children would have been unlikely to even know how to play in Japanese costumes. There is no indication that Harold new anything about samuris. There is ceratinly no swors involved with his costume. We wonder where mother got minature Japanese costumes in the first place. Of course Japan may well have been in the bnews since the Japamese victory over the Russians in 1905.

Dolls

We note Phyllis playing with a doll. Phhyllis in fact had quite a number of dolls. Elizabeth seems to have a stuffed toy animal rather than a doll in one photograph. There are quite a lot of indoor photographs of some of the rooms at Mallowfield (I presume) and of Phyllis with an enormous Doll House. The indoor shots are poorly exposed. Apparently father had trouble arranging the flash. They are worthwhile none the less.

Music

The Fitzroy-Carrington's appear to have been a rather musical family. Mother had all the children learning to play musical instruments. They play together on the veranda overlooking the pond at Mallowfield. Father was also misical and played the violin. Harold by October 1907 had his own small violin and a music instructor. The music instructor appears to have been a family friend as he and other musicians feature quite often in the family albums.

Parties

We note several images of the children attending parties. These images are all at Mallowfield, taken on the veranda or outside. Presumably these are birthday parties for the children. The children in the party photographs often wear white. The girls seem tio dress up more and of course big hair bows are added. The boys like Harold just seem to wear sailor suits which is rather much what they normally wore any way. The party images show just hoe relaxed Harold's mother was about fashion. Harold does not appear in any of the really fancy outfits for boys that were worn at the time, even fir parties. The clothes he wears are usually elegant, but not fancy are elaboratetly fussy. These party images also show just how pervasive the sailor suit was for boys in the early 20th century. We also note some costume parties, but we do not know what the occassion if any were. Nor do we know who the other children outside the family that attending the parties were. The images that we have noted are mostly parties at Mallowfield.

Pets

The children had a cat. We see a dog at the beach which much have been the family pooch. It apparently put up with considerable attention from the children. There was also a pet duck at Mallowfield which of course must have enjoyed the pond. There were also rabbits.

Photography

One photograph shows Harold and Elizabeth with a box camera, presumably a Brownie. At the time you would shoot the whole roll and then mail the entire camera back to Kodak. Kodak would process your film, reload the camera, and ship the whole lot back. This meant that a family would be without a camera for a few weeks while all this transpired. Our family here obviusly had two cameras. One apparently was given to the children, or at leadt they were allowed to use it. Thus some of the images in this section were taken by Harold. We do not know if Elizabeth also took some. We also do not know what kind of camera father had.

Playing

There are many nonsescript images of the children playing. Almost all are all Mallowfield. One image shows Phyllis playing with an advertising poster--in this case Old Dutch Clenser. The children also had a play horse which they liked to ride outdoors.

Sports

Harold was keen on hockey. He played on rollar skates in New Tork City. In fact Phyllis also had on her rollar skates.

Swimming

Quite a few photographs show the children in their bathing costumes. Very few images, however, show the children actually swiming. In a July 1907 Harold, Phyllis, and Elizabeth are in their bathing costumes for a swim (figure 1).Elizabeth is wearing a sweater or sweatshirt over her costume, but it appears to match the one her big sister is wearing. The girls' swiming costumnes look like sailor suits. Girls in high school at the time wore similar bloomer outfits for gym. I thought that they might take dips in the pond below the house. This does not seem to have been the case. Our HBC contributor tells us, "I don't think the children swam in the pond at Mallowfield, there are pictures of the children at the beach and at some kind of clubhouse. Note, the picture of the younger brother near a jetty, I think this was where they bathed."

Toys

We see Harold sailing his toy sailboat in the pond at Mallowfield.







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Created: April 23, 2003
Last edited: July 8, 2003