*
United States boys clothes: skirts chronology 1870s
United States Boys' Skirted Garments: Skirt Chronology--The 1870s
Figure 1.--This cabinet card portrait shows a mother wearing a voluminous dress with her son ewearing a blous and skirt. He looks to be about 5 years old. The studio was H.G. Wilson in Bangor, Pennsylvania. A reader writes, "Fascinating image. I would have said the boy was 6 or 7 as it was 1870s but that is my guess. (Modern boys look a little older than 19th century boys.) His face seems to have too little baby fat for a 5 year old. What are your thoughts? Interesting velvet like partial cuff on boy's sleeve. Obviously a decorative item. Makes me suspect it was handmade." Estimating ages is a problem, but necessary because so few of these old portraits indicate ages. The boy's face does look rather old. We think 6 years of age is a possibility, we are less sure about 7 years. School is a factor here. Public schools were becoming well established by the 1870s. And boys began at age 6 years. And boiys did not go to school in skirted garments. Of course not all 6 years hafd their birthdays before September when school began. So unless the boy was tutiored at hime, it is unlikely that he us 7 years old.
This changed in the 1870s when we begin to see more kilts and fewer dresses. We are unsure about skirts. We see far more boys wearing kilt suits than just skirts without a jacket. Thus is not what we might have expected, but apparently continues the trend of more and more boys wearing suit jackets. We see some, but not as many as with the jackets. Herevis an example of a boy in a blouse and skirt. we think in the 1870s (figure 1). We think mother may have called it a kilt. Thevboys looks to be about v5, ppossihblky 6, years old. We are not sure if this was a good refection of actual prevalence. We nbeed more images befoire we can make a valid assessment. It may have been that skirts were a kind of casual alternative and for a formal portrait, mothers wanted their sons dressed more formally. We suspect that more formal dresses and kilt suits were seen as more suitable for a studio portrait. Skirts and blouses may have been more common at home than one might think from the photographic record.
