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Most but not all available images show pre-school boys wearing broad-brimmed hats as we see here (figure 1). This was a style for younger children, both boys and girls at a time where children as well as men and women commonly wore hats. The majority of imsges we have found are of pre-school boys, meaning boys to about 6 years of age. The boys here are a good example (figure 1). Generally children began school at age 6 years, but not all did. Because school begins in Septembr, some boys did not begin school until a year later. We do see school-age boys with these hats, but not nearly as many in the photgraophic record. And we think that the photographic record is a reasonable relection of popularity, especially by the 20th century and the rise of the family snapshot. Perhaps not as accurate as in America, but still a very strong indicator. Social class may be a factor here. We suspect that most of the older boys wearing these hats were boys from the more affluent families. This particular style, the broad-brimmed hat, was worn by younger boys, but an even wider age range of girls. The small boys generally wearing them often seem dwarfed by the the very large hats. For girls it was a little different. Much older girls wore these broad brimmed hats ghan was the case for boys.
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