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Younger boys wore dresses throughout the 19th century. We still see some dresses advertized for boys in 1900s, but this was much less common than in the 1890s. By 1905 boy dresses were becomin relatively rare. In the 19th century advertisesments for children's dresses often meant for boys and girls. By 1905 it was increasingly meant to indicate younger girls. We still do see a few offerings for boys and boys and girls. We note Ladies Home Journal offeringdress patterns. Most were for girls, but there was a plaited dress for a liitle boy which the Journal explains could be worn by a girl as well. It was a waistless dress looking rather like a smock. An unidentified catalog cover shows fancy dresses for girls of different ages (figure 1). McCall's Magazine offered quite a range of mostly fancy dress styles. Includes in the McCall's patterns were a few boy or boy/girl dresses.
Younger boys wore dresses throughout the 19th century. We still see some dresses advertized for boys in 1905, but this was much less common than in the 1890s. We note the Ladies Home Journal offering dress patterns. Most were for girls, but there was a plaited dress for a liitle boy which the Journal explains could be worn by a girl as well. It was a waistless dress looking rather like a smock.
An unidentified catalog cover, perhaps Sears, shows fancy dresses for girls of different ages on the previous page.
McCall's Magazine offered quite a range of mostly fancy dress styles. notice several such items in the June 1905 issue which would mean summer dresses. Includes in the McCalls patterns were a few boy or boy/girl dresses. One of those pages can be seen here with the addition of a boy's tunic suit. Two other pages were very similar. The boy dresses were much plainer than the other dresses, but some of the boy-girl dresses were fairly fancy. The child dresses were very fancy, leading us to believe that the connotation here of a child dress was a very young girl. The ad copy for the various dresses provides some useful information.
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