Figure 1.--Here we see an unidentified mother and her son whon loks to be abouut 4 years old. He wears a kilt suit. Notice the center hair part, very unusual fo English boy, even for younger boys. The studio was Thomas Barns, Haversham, Buckinghamshire..

One of the most reliable gender indicators in 19tyh century photograohs is that girls generally had center parts and boys side parts. this is important because so many younger boys wore skirted garments and had long hair styles. Identifying the girks is not so difficult. hile many had short hair, girls did not wear pants. Center pars are not fool proof inducators, but they are highly correlatedwith gender. Not all girls had center parts, but it was very common for girls. This appears to have been a general American and European convention. We suspect this is because center parts were a way of dealing with long hair and girls more commonly had long hair. Most old portraits do not identify the children, but those we have found that do, confirm that center parts were commonly used for girls. We have seen boys with center parts when it became somehing of short-termed fad aduring certain periods, but in these instances we are generally talking about older boys and it is obviously that they are boys We see very few boys that mother had combed center parts in the photographic record.

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Created: 5:48 PM 7/11/2023
Last edited: 5:48 PM 7/11/2023