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Family images are an important part of HBC. These images are interesting because they show the fashions that all members of the family wore over time. HBC has limited its analysis to boys' clothing--itself a massive undertaking. These family photographs help to put the boys clothes into better perspective, showing what girls, women, and men were wearing at the same time. The family portraits also add some cultural context as they provides clues as to the social status or occupation of the parents--until the 20th century mostly the fathers. We have very little from the 19th centyury. Puerto Rico before the arrival of the Americans was very poor, a backwater of the Soanih Empire and Spain was a backwater of Europe. We know much more about the 20th century as Ameica brought education and public health to Puerto Rico. The economy languished, but was far more prosperous than under Spanish rule. Families wre of course affected by this. Family portaits provide wonderful historical records of fashion. They also offer fascinating insights into the structure of the American family.
This Puerto Rican family was photographed during the 1950s (figure 1). It shows a rural family in front of their modest farm house. The farmer has a few acres to farm. We can see the parents and six children. It may seem a very humble family, but in fact the family is relatively prosperous compared to earlier periods. Looking at the ages of the children we can assume that these were only the first six children of the family and several others would have born after the photo was been taken. Probably the photo was taken when the school year ended. The two older children seem to be showing some kind of diplomas. A reader writes, "As you wrote, I too think that the family can be seen as a relatively prosperous one, for the time and the context of the photo. They lived in a simple house, not in a hut. The children are simply but well clothed. At least the girls are shod, that was not so usual in rural, and often urban, Puerto Rico. The baby is unclothed, as we can see in several photos in those times. That was both an economic and cultural matter as well as the warm climate. The family could so save the money for diapers (and the mother the time to wash them). On the other hand in tropical countries and in Catholic contexts traditionally the lack of clothing was not seen as a prolem for very young children."
This is another Pureto Rican farm famiolyn in the 1950s. Unlike the previois family, here rather than thir home, we see their land. uch if the island is rolling hills like this. We see a family of six children. Due to their age range we can think that several others are likely to come. It is not clear the occasion of this photo and who is the American woman with them. A Protestant missionary is one possibilityy. They wear casual garments, but perhaps these are their best outfits. Possibly some garment was put on purposely for the photo -- they look too clean to have been worn by the children in everyday life. Both photographs seem very serious. We are not sure who is taking the photographs. Dad seems more interested in the photograph than mopyher. The younger children seem to be not quite sure of what is happening. Puerto Rico by this time had bee part of the United States for half a century. The economic condition seems more like Latin America than the United States. This is not to say thst conditiions had no improved, they had. uy wee would have expected more.
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