Figure 1.--.Here we see two brothers or cousins. They look to be about 4-5 years old. They both wear kilt suits, but with very different styles. The cabinet card potrait is undated, but looks like the 1870s, only the large collars seem somewhat out of place. These jackets were purchased as part of a suit, especially the boy's outfit on the left. The studio was J.?. Kent in Rochester, New York.

The kilt suit came with a jacket and kilt-skirt and in some cases a vest. We believe that they were mostly sold that way. Most all kilt-skirts came with jackets at least with the available images. Some kilt sits had jackets and kilts that were clearly made to be worn together. In others the kilt and jsckets seem interchangeable. Some mothers may have sewed or purchased just the kilt-skirt, but we are not sure if this was very common. And we are not entirely sure just how common it was for the boys to wear the jackets. We see some boys with just blouses and kilts. We think this may have been a prevalent practice during the summer. But for boys at home it would seem that mothers might uinderstanabkly only dress them in a blouse and kilt and not having then wearing the jacket while playing around gthe hime. As most photography was studio portraits, it is difficult to assess this. The photographic record may over emphasize the jackets because mothers wanted to dress boys formally for a studio portrait. It probably was more common to wear the jacket, but all we know for sure that is was most common for the boys to be photogrphed with the jackets.

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Created: 2:35 AM 7/7/2023
Last updated: 2:36 AM 7/7/2023