Figure 1.--These Canadian brothers in the 1910s wear Norfolk-style above the knees knicker suits with long dark stockings. |
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HBC has begun to collect some information on Canadian boys wear. Canada is a bicultural country with both English anf French influences. The French have, however, had only limited influences on boy's fashions. Rather the dominate influences have been the climate and America. HBC has only limited information on Canadian boy's clothing trends. At this time we have virtually no information on the 19th century. After the turn of the century knickers began to replace kneepants. In the 20th century the trend has been primarily a shift from English and French fashions to American styles. Canadian boys in the inter-war period wore varied styles, including short pants, knickers, and long pants. Reflectibng the English and French influence, short pants were worn by some boys, but not nearly as commonly as in Europe--probably due to the severe winters. After World War II, HBC has noticed little difference between Canadian and American fashions.
Canada was of course founded as a French colony in the 16th century. The original French colony was centered on the fur trade, but in the 18th century, the French and English struggled over control of North America. The French loss of Quebec in the French and Indian War (7 Years War) sealed the future of Canada and in fact North America as an English-speaking cultural area. At the time of Confederation (1867) , there were 3.25 million people settled in the provinces that comprised Canada. Over the next three decades hundreds of thousands more arrived. Few of these immigrants came from France or learned French as their new language. Most settled in Anglo-Canada. This imigration significantly diluted the French propotion of Canada's population. The Catholic share of the population, however, was not diluted because of the large number of Irish immigrants. The leadership in Canada, however, continued to be dominated by English, Protestant Canadians. The French in Canada were thus relegated a second-class role and until after World War II were generally descriminated against, in large measure explaining current Quebec demands for independence. The French in Quebec maintained their cultural and longuistic identity and this has included differences in clothing trends, French Canadians being more influenced by France than English-Canadians.
There are several important influences on Canadian boys' wear that have to be considered in any assessment of Canadian clothing styles. One HBC reader opines that Canadian styles may have initially been quite regionalized, due both to climatic and ethnic diversity. English clothing styles were very influential in Canada which of course was an English colony and refused to join the American colonists in the American Revolution (1776-83). Presumably the English influence in the 19th and even early 20th Century was the most important. There is also a destinct Scottish influence in the maritimes, especially Nova Scotia. Any anlaysis of Canadian fashions will have to address those differences. French Canadians located mostly in Quebec are Canada's primary ethnic minority. The French are mostly not recent immigrants from France, byt rather the discendents of the French population from the 18th Century when France was still a French colony. There apperas to have been little contact between French Canadians and France after the English seized Canada from France.
One factor which has to be considered in Canada is the weather. The
winters are much more severe in Canada than n England and France. While shortpants were worn in Canada, they were never as popular as in England and France. Presumably Canadian mothers, like American mothers, did not think that short pants were appropriate winter wear in severe weather conditions.
HBC has only limited information on Canadian boy's clothing trends. At this time we have virtually no information on the 19th century. After the turn of the century knickers began to replace kneepants. In the 20th century the trend has been primarily a shift from English and French fashions to American styles. Canadian boys in the inter-war period wore varied styles, including short pants, knickers, and long pants. Reflectibng the English and French influence, short pants were worn by some boys, but not nearly as commonly as in Europe--probably due to the severe winters. After World War II, HBC has noticed little difference between Canadian and American fashions. Canadian boys in the late 20th century appear to dress little different than American boys. The major difference is that warm weather summer fashions are less common in Canada than in America.
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The climate in Canada has of course affected the clothing to a substantial extent warm coats and sweaters have been worn for much of the year. Canadian boys, howvever, wore the garments worn in England and France during the 19th century. After World War I, American fashions became increasingly common. We have little information on headwear, but suspect that cold weather hats were especially important. Suit in particular were primarily Bristish styles. Knickers were very common in the 1920s and 30s, but by the 1940s long pants became inceasingly important. Boys that wore short pants commonly wore them with kneesocks or even long stockings. Modern Canadian fashions are today little different than American fashions, although the summer clothes are somewhat less common because of the climate.
As far as we can tell, Canadian boys have worn the same basic hair styles as American boys. We can detect non significan differences, however, our information is very limited. There appears to have been some French influenc among French Camdian boys, but even here the basic fashion inluence appears to be American.
Canadian boys wear summer clothes (T-shirts, shorts, sandals) are worn from June to September in Canada. Long pants, sweaters and jackets are worn the rest of the year in Canada. Rubber boots are worn in rain and mud, and almost all of the time in the Spring, and warm winter boots are worn in the snow. Two-piece snow suits are also very popular with younger boys--these come with a jacket and snow pants that go over regular pants.
There are costumes, uniforms, and other clothing associated with a variety of activities. Here we have just begun to collect information. We have some limited information on choirs, religious observation, schools, youth groups and other activities.
Canada is composed of several distinct regions. First there are the easterly maritimes, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. Second, there is Quebec, the center of French culture where many but apparently not a majority would like to leave English-dominated Canada and form there own country. Canadian reader has provided us an assessment of Quebec cultural trends. While Quebec is a majority-French speaking province, a French Canadian reader reminds us that there are English speakers in the province as well. At Port Daniel in Gaspesia lived English-speaking people. They were for the most part fishermen. Many came from the Channel Islnds (Guernesey and Jersey). Some families like the Robin spoke French even if protestants. Third there is Ontario--the tradituonal English center. Fourth there is the plains provinces, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Albeta, and the Pacific coast province of British Colombia. HBC believes that there there have been some regional diferences on these between these areas, but does not know enough yet about Canada to identify them. Since World War II, however, these regional differences have largely disappeared.
Canada like America is a nation of immigrants. Unfortunately I do not yet have much information on Canadian immigration. Many of the groups that came to America also went to Canada. There re, however, differences in the ethnic mix. We do not yet have detailed information on the Canadian pattern, but this is a topic we hope to persue.
HBC has decided to begin a new section with family images. This will help to put boy's fashions in a better context to see how the father, mother, and sisters were dressed. In some cases the photographs will even include the grandparents. It is interesting to see how the fashions of the other members of the family cahnges along with the boys.
Photography was invented in Europe and quickly made its way across the North Atlantic. Major developments also occurred in Canada. At this time we do not know if photography developed any differently in Canada than in other countries. This topic is of interest to HBC because often formats, cases, cards, and frames can hrlp date images. We have begun to work on this tgopic in the main photographic secfion of HBC, but zt this tome have very little country-specific information on Canada. e also hope to develop some information on Canadian photographers.
HBC is always looking for sources of information, especially on line sources. This will allowed HBC readers interested in certain subjects to pursue their intersts in detaila nd then hopefully rerport some of their findings back to HBC. A reader has pointed out a valuable source of information on Canada. "I found a quite interesting site of the National Canadian (Quebec) Library. It's mainly in French, but there is a English summary and numerous old pictures of the French Canadian way of life in past years.
We have begun to collect information about individual Canadian boys. Here some readers have contributed information about their experiences. We have also added some accounts we have developed from available images. Hopefully our Canadian readers will help us develop information for this section. Here the individual entries cover a cross section of social class, and ethnic background over time. Many of the entries here are historic, but we encourage readers to add their personal accounts here.
Visit HBC Canadian Pages:
[Canadian choirs]
[Canadian Scouts]
[Canadian long stockings]
[Canadian First Communions]
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