Figure 1.--This is an undated cabinet card. It klooks like hr 1890s to us, but the early-1900s is possible. Three children seem to be having fun in their backyard. The boys have drums and the guirl may be using a tib bit as a kind of cymbol. They look tobe about 3-7 years old They may be playing, but thy are not wearing play clothes. The girl wears a print dress. The younger boy wears a rather fance kilt suitwith frogging. This was not a fancy style. Notice he does not have stockings. Almost all American boys we see in studio portraits wear long stockings with kilt suits. Apparently at home this not quite so common. The older boy wears a white Fauntleroy blouse, although we can't see much in the way of detail along with knee pants and black long stockings.

Younger boys still wore dresses in the 1890s. There seems to be more of a trend to differentiate boys and girls clothing. We note boy dresses being advertized. The convention of boys wearing dresses had existed for centuries. It seemsd to have decline in popular in the later part of the decade. We are not entirely sure why. We think the popularity of the kilt suit and Fauntleroy suit were factors here. Except for infants, we see more boys wearing kilt suits than actual dresses. The 1890s, however, was the last decade that the kilt suit was a major fashion item. Smocks were not common in America except in rather affluent families. Tunic suits were worn in the late-19th century, but they werwnot nearly as common as dresses and kilt suits. For some reason this chnged at theyurn-of-the century and tunics became a major style for boys. We see this in the photographic record, but have no idea why this occurred and occurred so suddenly. The new style of tunic or blouse suits were made in various styles. The major tyles were sailor, Russian, and Buster Brown. We see some styles that were much less common. The younger boy here wears a blouse kilt suit rather than a jacket. But it looks to be done in the same material as the kilt skirt and it has very elabotate detailing--extensive froging (figure 1). Tunic suits were enormously popular and began to replace the kilt suit. Girls of course only wore skirted garments.

Created: 4:23 PM 12/29/2018
Last updated: 4:24 PM 12/29/2018