Figure 1.--The boy here is flipping through a photograph album. The image is clear enough to make out the portraits in the photo album and even see the leaf decoration on the latches. His dog lies patiently at his feet. The boy is wearing a 2-piece styilized collar-buttoning suit. He has long knee pants and striped socks along with high-button shoes. His dog, who appears to be some type of Spaniel, has raised his head so there’s a bit of motion blur with the slow emuslsion speeds of the day. Handwritten on the reverse is “Ruth Williams & Fritz – 1878 – Aged 9 years”. (I am a bit puzzeled with Ruth as a boy's name.) The photographer is “Barr & Wright” of Houston, Texas.

Younger boys by the 1870s commonly wore kilt suits. Kilts suits originating in Briain were done in a wide range of styles. They became a very important garment for younger boys. In earlier years these boyswould have still worn dresses. They were only worn by boys, especially boys from comfortable, established middle-class and upper-class families. The jackets of kult suits were similar to some suits older boys wore with pnts. Fancy suits like Fauntleroy suits were not yet very common. The cut-away jacket suits so popular in the 1860s continued to be worn in the early 70s, but were decling in popularity by the end of the decade. We do not yet note sailor suits as a major style, but we believe that they did appear. We see a variety of both lapel and collar-buttoning suits. The coolar-buttoning suits were for younger boys. Many were three-piece suis with vests. Some of the jackets were heavily styilized. We begin to see more younger boys waring knee pants suits. We do not yet see knickers. The knee pants were commonly cut at calf level. The term knee pants is more derived from the actualshorter-cut pants of the 1890s. Most boys wore long pants suits. This included many younger boys and almost all older boys. Knee pants suits were a kargely urban fashion. Almost all boys in rural areas wore long pants. Teenagers rarely wore kneepants even in fashionable cities.

Created: 12:30 AM 2/14/2008
Last updated: 12:32 AM 4/6/2008