Figure 1.--This is an illustration from "Sunday at Home". (Sunday in many families was a comntemplative day in which the children would stay home after church and read or amuse themselves.) The illustrator is ???. The caption reads, "Then Puff was forced to part with the treasured two farthings". Puff is the children's younger brother. Note the back buttonng smock and bow at the back. His brothers wear Eton suits. Often these stories written for boys have realistic depictions of the opinions boy had about contemporary fashions. Click on the image for details on the story.

Collecting information, especially photographs, on smocks in England and other countries has proven complicated. We do not believe that the eisting photographic record acurately reflects the extent to which smocks were worn in 19th century English homes. This is because during the late 19th century, most photographs of the average family were formal studio portraits in which mothers usually dressed up their children. Amateur photography was not unknown before 1900, but the complications and cost resulted in a relatively small number of snapshots being taken. Very few mothers took their children to a photographic studio dressed in smocks, even though the children may have worn them at home. This changed in 1900 when George Eastman introduced the Kodak Brownie. Even so, snapshots inside the home were not common until well into the 1930s or really after World War II. By this time smocks were no commonly worn by English boys, or for that matter boys in other European countries. The one exception here was school smocks in France, Italy, and other countries. Thus drawings and illustrations have to be used rather than relying on photographs for the period before World War I. While useful, however, drawings are less definitive than photograhs. Some such as the book illustration here, probably do realisticall reflect how the smock was actually worn in English homes.

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Created: May 20, 2002
Last updated: September 12, 2002