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HBC of course is designed to collect and archive information on clothing. We have decided, however, that many decissions on clothing are made or stongly influenced by the parents. The increasing influence of children over the clothes they wear is, im part, a reflection of changing family patterns and the weakening of parental authority. The family is a key institution that needs to be better understood if we are going to fully access clothing trends. Here we will archive full family images with parents or grandparents or imges which show all of the siblings in a family. This will help to show the types of clothing being worn by other family members in different countries over time. We have begun to build family pages in several differnt country sections of HBC. We hav not yet begun to assess the family and clothing trends here but will when we have archieved sufficent numbers of images. We would be very interested in comments about the family trends in the various countries of HBC readers.
We have begun to collect some images of families from different countries.
Many images exist of American families. 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 weraing 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. Most of the portraits are of the privligded classes, but by the late 19th centuries falling prices at photographic studios had brought the family portrait within in the reach most
American families. Thus family portaits provide wonderful historical records of fashion. They also offer fascinating insights into the structure of the American family.
Here we will follow family fashions over time. HBC has decided to also gather information on entire families. One of the limitations of HBC is that too oftn we just view boys' clothing in contex with what the rest of the family was wearing. This will help to compare boys' clothing with that worn by mothers, fathers, and sisters. These images will help show show differences in both age and gender appropriate clothing. Here we are still beginning to collect information.
Family portraits are an interesting way of comparing the clothing of the other members of the family with the ways that boys dressedin any given time period. Many of the HBC pages show boy's clothing in isolation. This is necessary because we donot have the ability to address the enormous additional topics of girls, women's, and men's clothing. Images of families, however, enable us to relate boys' clothing to hat worn by the other family members which might be useful to readers with a wider dfashion focus. These images also provide some insights into Belgian family life.
HBC has decided to begin a new section with family images. This will help to put boy's fashions in a better context to see how the father, mother, and sisters were dressed. In some cases the photographs will even include the grandparents. It is interesting to
see how the fashions of the other members of the family changes along with the boys. We will prganize these images by decades. We also note some differences between English and French speaking families.
Available images of Danish families provide interesting insights on how Danish boys were dressed as well as how other members of the family were dressed. Often boys of similar age were dressed similarly. Many families could be quite large, so there were often several boys of similar age. The sailor suit was one of the most popular garments, but by the 1930s was beginning to be worn less. Older boys might wear adult-looking garments.
Here we will follow family fashions over time. HBC has decided to also gather information on entire families. One of the limitations of HBC is that too often we just view boys' clothing without any context as to what the rest of the family was wearng. Cllecting information and images on what the rest of the family was wearing will help to compare boys'
clothing with that worn by mothers, fathers, and sisters. These images will help show show differences in both age and gender appropriate clothing. Much of the photographic evidence here is very stiff formal portraits. This provides important evidence as to the formal clothes worn by English families. The photographic technolgy of the 19th century limit the ability to take candid portrits of family life. The many children's books and periodical publications provide many wonderful images of family life, although almost always comfortable middle class families. The illustrations of course provide less definitive information, but do give an idea as to what boys wore for various occassions.
HBC has begun to collect information and images of families around the world. We believe that this helps to put the more individualized photographs of boys into a more complerte fashion and social context. These images not only show what the other menbers of the family (sisters, mothers, and fathers) were wearing, but also the homes and activities over time and of different social classes. Styes not only varied over time, but also on other variables such as social class. Such information is often difficult to discern from individua portraits. While the individual portraits provide more details on the actual fashions they often provide only cluses as to some of the sociological and historical trends which HBC is also pursuing.
Here we will follow family fashions over time. HBC has decided to also gather information on entire families. One of the limitations of HBC is that too oftn we just view boys' clothing in contex with what the rest of the family was wearing. This will help to compare boys' clothing with that worn by mothers, fathers, and sisters. These images will help show show differences in both age and gender appropriate clothing. Here we are still beginning to collect information.
Here we will follow family fashions over time. HBC has decided to also gather information on entire families. One of the limitations of HBC is that too often we just view boys' clothing without the context of what the rest of the family was wearng. This will help to compare trends in boys' clothing with that worn by mothers, fathers, and sisters. These images will also help highlight differences in both age and gender appropriate clothing. Here we will collect information about specific families over time as well as individual images of unidentified families to show glimses of Greek families in various historical periods.
Available photograophic images of Dutch families provide useful information of Dutch boys' clothes. Family portraits not only provide useful insights into boys' clothing, but also an interesting way of comparing the clothing of the other members of the family with the ways that boys dressed in any given time period. These images are especially helpful as they provide some idea of the type odf family the boy came from and thus an indicator of which boys were wearing soecific styles. Familiy photographs also provide information on what type of clothing other members of the family were wearing at any given time, including brothers of other ages, sisters, and parents. One popular fashion among Dutch parents was to dress their similar in identical or coordinated styles. HBC pages show boy's clothing in isolation. This is necessary because we do not have the ability to address the enormous additional topics of girls, women's, and men's clothing. Images of families, however, enable us to relate boys' clothing to hat worn by the other family members which might be useful to
readers with a wider dfashion focus. These images also provide some
insights into Dutch family life over time.
We have noted a variety of family conventions concerning clothes.
Generations of mothers dressed their children, in some cases both sons and daughters, identically or in similar
outfits--convinced this was a charming fashion. This was a simple matter in the 18th and much of the 19th Century. As
little boys wore dresses just like their sisters, it was easy to ooutfit the boys and girls in identical. At the time it ws
considered in appropriate to outfit girls in boys clothes. As distinctive dress styles for little boys developed in the late
19th Century and the fashion of dressing little boys in dresses disappeared after World War I (1914-19), this became
more difficult. Many nothers, however, still wanted to dress their children similarly. Thus styles outfits with girls dresses
and coordinate boys outfits were developed.
Hair was one of the most common ways of identifying the younger boy. In
some families the boys would wear almost identical clothes and only the
hair style would vary among the different age boys. In other families
mothers would vary both clothes and hair style. Some mothers might cut
the curls of their older boys or perhaps add a hairbow to the younger
boy's hair. The younest boy would be the most likely to still be in curls or
wear some sort of fancy hair style. The age at which mothers may the cut
off from the curls for the younger boy to shorter hair styles varied. Often
curls were cut at about 5-6 years old, but this was not always the case
and older boys did wear them.
A HNC reader writes, "you haven't discussed the phenomenon of hand-me-downs in the HBC pages. This was especially important in large families. In a big families with many children the same clothes for tge children, even boys and girls sometimes,are very practical. When the child grows, mother can give old clothes to his (or her) smaller brother (or sister).
One fascinating subject is the strength of family attachments. Some interesting research has suggested that grandparents are more like to invest their time and money in grandchildren to which they are genetically related. Here the variable is infidelity. The mother's relationship is obvious. Without DNA testing, the father's relationship is less obvious. Thus maternal grandmothers are positive about the relationship while their is some uncertainty with a patetrnal grandfather. An Australian resarcher investigated the emotional attachment of students with their grandparents. The students reported feeling cloest to their maternal grandmothers and least close to their paternalb grandfathers. [Hippel]
Is anyone familiar with a publication called The Family, which would have been printing during the 1920s (may have been before, as well). I'm trying to track down a cite that reads THE FAMILY 8, (1926). The Eisenhower Library at Johns Hopkins and Michigan State University have copies. They have vol. 1-14 (1920-1933).
Hippel, William von. Personality and Social Psychoology Bulletin (2004).
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