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For whatever reason the French photographic record is not as large as that of many other major countries. Our French archive is much smaller than we wouldv like. We see more French commercial postcards than studio portraits and snapshots. And this desite the fact that photograohy was born in France with the Daguerreotype (1839). We have, however, found some examples. One is the unidentified photograph seen here (figure 1). It is clerarly a group of French school boys and taken at their school. It is dated 1933. It shows nine French school friends. We are not sure just what the group involves, but they clearly went to the same school. They all wear smocks, but different designs. There is some text on the back, but we are unsure about the meaning. The boys are named, but the writing is difficult to decipher. We need more examples to understand how common school smocks were and to what extent they were actually required by the schools. The writing on the back reads something like, "Souvenir de 1933 des mes petits camarades." Thankfully, our French readers have helped us with the translation and understanding the image. Click on the image to see the writing on the back. The words we can figure our read something like--"Memory of 1933 of my little comrades" So what we see appears to be just a group of friends. Also on the back is the names of the boys. Like the text, the writing is not very clear, but a French reader has provided the correct spelling. Intresting here is how different the smocks were. We thought one of the children might be a girl, but they are all boys. Three of the boys have school medals of some type. Also notice all the berets and the different ways of wearing them. Some boys seem to want to make a statement, others just popped them on. . Also of note is that some boys have belts and other do not. The belts of course have no real purpose. It is unclear if mother has priovuided the belt bor thatb the boys had asked for them. The photograph suggests that all the boys at the school were wearing smocks, but we see a boy in the far background at the right playing without a smock.
A French reader tells us, "Cette photo est de qualité trouble, il s'agit certainement d'un cliché amateur concernant une
école d'une province de France.
Au dos il est écrit :
Souvenirs de 1933 de mes petits camarades ;
Clotaire Maismaint;
Jean et Jacques Pourmins;
Robert Lavenue;
André Benoît;
Jean Fournier;
Georges Mitatis;
Robert Villarmet.
Ce sont 8 prénoms de garçon et les noms de famille sont 100% français.
En 1933 la mode était encore aux blouses noires ou grises pour les écoliers. Les bérêts étaient courant à la campagne.
Noter, que 3 écoliers portent une médaille d'Honneur, ce sont d'excellents élèves, méritants.
Ils étaient autorisés à la porter uniquement jusqu'aux prochaines épreuves de leur classe."
That translates as, "This photo is of blurry quality, it is certainly an amateur photo concerning a
school in a province of France.
On the back it is written:
Memories of 1933 from my little comrades;
{Then we have the names]
These are 8 boy names and the last names are 100% French.
In 1933 the fashion was still for black or gray blouses for schoolchildren. Berets were common in the countryside.
Note that 3 schoolchildren wear a medal of Honor, they are excellent and deserving students.
They were only allowed to wear it until the next tests of their class."
