Figure 1.--This tintype came from a collection of a life long Cornwall, New York resident. She had a large collection of photographs, tintypes, and ephemera from Orange County and the Adirondacks. The boys are obviously brothers and mother has dressed them identically. They look to be wearing collar buttoning suits with knee pants and black long stockings. The large Eton collars are worn with small floppy bows. The boys have very short hair. This was more common in Europe than America. The portrait is not dated, but we would guess was taken in the 1880s.

We see Eton shaped collars in America at mid-century. It is only by the 1880s that we begin to see large Eton collars. The collars in the 60s tend to be very small and only a little larger by the 70s. By the 80s, however, we begin to see really large collars. Of course the largest were the Fauntleroy collars. Eton collars were not that large, but we do see some very substantial Eton collars. We note Eton collars being with a variety of jackets. Norfolk suits seem especilly popular in the 1880s. A example is the boy on the previous page. Here we see two up-state New York boys with large Eton collars and small floppy boys (figure 1). We see a number of boys wearing Eton collars, but they were noway as commom as Fautleroy collars. We note Harry B. Decker who we think was phoographed in he 1880s, proably the early-80s. They tended to be worn more by school age boys than Fauntleroy blouses and collars. Boys differed greatly as to the neckwear that might be worn with Eton collars. We see bows in the 1880s. Some were large floppy bows making it difficult to determine just what kind of collar was being worn. A good example here is MC Agnew. Another American boy wears an Eton collar and floppy bow. We can not tell, however, if the portrait was taken in the late-1880s or the early-90s. We also see boys not wearing neckwear with Eton collars.

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Created: 3:49 AM 1/27/2013
Last updated: 3:50 AM 1/27/2013