Figure 1.--This portrait is unidentified. We believe that they are two Bremen children. We are not at all sure, however, wether the children here are boys or girls. The portrait is undated, but was probanly taken about 1900. Click on the image for another portrait of the same children.

Photographic Record

We still have only a small number of 19th century images from Germany. As a result, we are just beginning to assess the photographic record. One problem here is that mot only do we have a limited number of images, but the gender of the children is not always identified in the old images. Actually most available imafes do not have the children identified. Thus boys wearing dresses can easily be confused with girls, especially if they also have long hair. A good example here is an unidentified child who we think to be a girl, but certainly looks like a boy.

German Family

Here we see a charming German family scene with a mother and two children. Notice how tenderly she is holding the hand of the younger child who we suspect is a boy. Both children here wear identical pinafores. Mother apparently like to dress the two children alike. Another portrait shows them in identical dresses. One curious aspect of the other portrait is that the older girl also has short hair (figure 1). This we do not fully understand if it is fashion or some other reason. A reader writes, "I feel the children here are the same as those in a portrait with their mother. Quite a bumber of girls had short hair, in some cases girls that contracted head lice had to get short hair cuts. After she recovered, she grew her hair long, I think the other child may be a boy. It was common for boys to wear dresses at the time." We are not positive, but we think the long hair portait may have been taken first. We are not sure that smallpox was the reason, but there must have been some reason for the short hair cut. We think it was probably not fashion. A French reader writes, "Very curious! Their hair styling looks boyish, but nevertheless they are wearing necklace and their dresses with the top open looks rather girlish. I think they are girls, but realy I am not sure seing the other portrait of the children. And necklace could be worn by baby boy and girl in France even in the 1970s. In some Institution one could find little girl with short hair during the early 20th century. Finaly I am sure of nothing! If they had a Christian name at the portrait back or other solution would to ask old German people." Another reader writes, "I remember many girls like this one when young. It disturbed me greatly at the time because I thught it was a boy dressed like a girl. At 5 years old, if you had no sister, it was not always clear who was a boy and who was a girl. Just imagine what the little girl must have felt when she had to have her hair cut. We called the haircut cut a "brosse" (in French) when a boy."

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Created: 6:09 PM 12/10/2006
Last updated: 2:28 AM 12/12/2006