Figure 1.--This German portrait was dated 1887. I'm not sure where in Germany the portrait was made. The little boy looks to be a slightly over 1 year old. He wears a colored print dress with a small lace collar. He has short hair. Note the destinctive stockings. Image courtesy of Albumn.1900.

We note some small German boys wearing dresses in the late 19th century. Te boy here looks to be about 2vyears old. We note another unidentified boy we think in the 1880s. Unfortunately many images are undated, rather complicating our assessment.Almost all are very young boys, most with their hair already cut short. We notice far more boys in America, England, France, Italy, Spain, and other countries wearing dresses, especially older boys commonly to 4 or 5 years of age. There are many images of even older boys in many countries wearing dresses, but this is not the case for Germany. This suggests to us that by the late 19th century that German boys were being breached earlier and having their hair cut short earlier. This is still a preliminary assessment, but as we acquire more and more images, this is the pattern emerging. We do not know yet, however, how this pattern varied within Germany. We also are not sure as to just why this was, but suspect the very aggressive masuline ethos of Prussia was a factor. Germany was of course unified around Prussia as a result of the Franco Prussian War and Prussian values and customs thuis had a significant imapxt on the new German Empire. Other factors may be the more advanced system of public education in many German states. Boys would normally be breached before beig sent to school. This would not explain, however, why so many German boys were being breached before age 5-6. Hopefully our German readers will have insights to offer here.

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Created: July 10, 2003
Last updated: 4:44 AM 9/21/2006