*** school clothing : pinafores








School Clothing: Pinafores

school pinafores

Figure 1.--Girls commonly wore pinafores over their dresses in the 19th and early 20th century. Very young boys also wore pinafores at nursery school, but older boys while they might wear smocks to school did not wear pinafores. The image is a detail of a painting entitled "La Dictée" by Demetrio Cocola. French children spent quite a bit of class time taking dictation.

Pinafores were widely worn by girls to school in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Often mothers insist their girls wear pinafores to protect their dresses. The crisply starched white pinafore became almost a symbol of girls' school wear in Britain, the United States, and other countries. The pinafore survived until quite recently in some countries like Russia. Finally after the demise of the Soviet Union, girls began to refuse to continue wearing them. Younger boys in the 19th century also wore pinafores, but by the time that free state schools were opening to children, this fashion had begun to decline. Some schools in the late 19th century still required them for the girls and younger boys.

Chronology

We note pinafores being worn primarily from the late 19th to the early 20th century. We believe that pinafores were worn also commonly worn in the mid-19th century, but have much less injformation on this period. Many girls did not attend school in the early 19th century and we have only limited information on how they were dressed. We are not sure how common pinafores were and precisely when they became so common for girls. Also we have no information on gender concentions for pinafores in the early 19th century. We believe that some younger boys were dressed in pinafores during the early 19th century. We do not know, however, how common this was. It probably varied from country to country. It seems pinafores were more common for boys in the early period, but we have very limited information about schoolwear. We have no information about how common pinafores were in the early and mid-19yth century, in part because photography was not a commercial technology until about 1840. There are, however, relatively few images availavle for the 1840s and 50s. Only in the 1860s do large number of photographic images become available. By this time we note that

Conventions

There appear to have been three general conventions concerning pinafores at school. Some schools may have required them. This was the case in the few instances we see boys wearing them, especialleyond the pre-school years. For the most part pinafores seem to have been a garment mothers chose to protect their children's clothing and to reduce the laundry load. This was espeially important before the invention of modern washing detergents and washing machines. It is not clear what the situation was in the first half of the 19th century, but in the second half if not universal, the pinafore was an extrodinarily common garment both a home and at school.

Required

We see what look to be required pinafores in some pre-chools. This is where we see most bpys who wore pinbaroes. After pre-school, only a few countries have required school children to wear uniforms and only for girls. Soviet school girls girls had to wear ehite pinafores with their dresses. This varies over time, but we see both primsry znd secondary gir;s wearing frilly white pinafores. The pinafore survived the demise of the Soviet Union, but not by much. Finally after the demise of the Soviet Union, secondary-level girls began to refuse to continue wearing them.

Optional

We are not sure about the first-half of the 19th centyury. Pinafores were widely worn by girls to school in the second half of the 19th and early 20th centuries. For the most part pinafores seem to have been a garment mothers chose to protect their children's clothing and to reduce the laundry load. This was espeially important before the invention of modern washing detergents and washing machines. It is not clear what the situation was in the first half of the 19th century, but in the second half if not universal, the pinafore was an extrodinarily common garment both a home and at school. Often mothers insisted their girls wear pinafores to protect their dresses. The crisply starched white pinafore became almost a symbol of girls' school wear in Britain, the United States, and other countries. We are not sure what girls thought abouut it but suspect that most just accepted it a the normal garments that girls wore. The number of girls we see weafring pinafores suggest tha there was little or not obkections. Younger boys in the 19th century also wore pinafores, but by the time that free state schools were opening to children, this fashion had begun to decline. Some schools in the late 19th century still required them for the girls and younger boys.



Figure 2.--The junior boys at this school all wear apron-like pinafores. I think they may have been provided at the school.

School Supplied

Some schools had pinafores for the younger children. I'm not sure whether the children wore them all day long or just for some activities. Unlike smocks, we suspecy it was all day. Various schools had different policies. Here all we have to go on or a few scattered images which are not always easy to interpret.

Gender

The pinafore is generally seen as a girls school garment. With the exception of very young boys, the vast proportion of cildren who wore pinafores to school were indeed girls. Many images of early British schools show the children all lined up in front of a school. The girls would be on one side in starched white pinafores and the boys in dark kneepants suits. We note some images of very young children with both the boys and girls wearing pinafores. For older children, however, it is almost always only the girls wearing pinafores to school. We do note, however, note a few images of older boys also wearing them. The images we have noted to date are all from England, but this may because we have greater access to English images.

Countries

We have only limited information on the countries in which pinafores were worn to school. We have noted large numbers of images from America, Australia, Canada, the Dominican Republic (suggesting that pinafores were worn in other Latin American countries as well), England, France, Italy, New Zealand, and Scotland showing girls wearing pinafores to school in the late 19th and early 20th century. We believe that they were common in may other countries as well, but have no information on other countries at this time. We have even less information about boys wearing pinafores to school. The few images we have are from England and are all rural village schools. There are so few images involved that we are not sure if this was only a fashion at village schools or if pinafores werea lso worn in city schools. Most show pinafores and are smocks being worn by very young boys. A few images show a few older boys wearing them as well.

Ages

Pinafores were worn to school by girls of all ages, although we see feer being worn by older teenagers. Countless photographic omages show this, especially in the 19th century. Here we only have images from the alte-19th centurty. Photography was noty invented until mid-enturt (1839). But public education was just bginning to be organized in the erarly-19th century in most countries. They were very common for girls at primary schools which in England might mean girls as old as 14 years. In our images of American schools the same genrally seems to be the case. After that age girls become much more fashion concu=ious and did not want their dresses covered up. That does nor mean that teenagers did not wear pinafores, it does mean that they began to be less common after the early teens. After this age they gradually become somewhat less common. Thanks to the popularity of school photography, we can follow this in some detail once the school portarit began to become an established convention (1880s). There were even some boys who wore pinafores. In more modern times, it was primarily Soviet girls seen wearing pinafores. And this was girls of all ages in Soviet schools. It was younger boys who were the ones who normally wore pinafores, primarily nursery school children. We have, however, noted a few primart-age bots wearing pinafores as well. Not many but a few.

Color and Patterns

The pinafore is normally thought of a white garment and normally worn crisply starched. The reason is simole, white was hands down the pribcipal color of pinafores girls wofre. School images from the late-19th and even early-20th century show a virtual sea of white among the girls. The reason for this was how mothers dealt with laundry. It was a major activity, often with an entire day once aweek devoted to it. There were no laundry detergents and no washing machines. There was, however, a lot of hot water required and elbow grease. The reason so many were white is that bleech could be used with white clothes. And bleach could get the clothes really clean with less hot water and elnow grease. Colored clothes were a different. There were few color-fast dyes and bleach would really fade the colors. There were infact colored pinafores. Notice the French girl waring a pink pinafore at school on this page (figure 1). We have also noticed stripped pinafores. While most pinafores in old school portraits look white, this may be because thaey were often taken at a distance. The few available closeups shows that there were many pinafofres made with patterns.






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Created: December 5, 1998
Last updated: 9:47 PM 6/29/2019