* United States tunics chronology 1870s








American Tunics: Chronology--The 1870s

American boy tunic

Figure 1.--The CDV portrait here was made at the R. Goebel studio in St. Charles, Missouri. The boy looks to be 2-3 years old. Notice how short the tunic skirt was. The portrait us undated, but looks to have been done in the 1870s. Notice the stick prop the boy is holding. Such crops as whips and riding crops were populasr for boys.

We seem to find fewer images of boys wearing tunic suits during the 1870s, at least in the photographic record. Our information is limited, but the photographic record probably is a resonable ibdicator of actual trends. We think that the tunic suits were generlly a style populasr with urban elites. We notice considerable variation in designs. A popular deign was a diagonal design element. A reader writes, "You can see these diagonal front cuts of the jackets conciderably often in the 1870s." Tunic suits mostly came with a belt or other waistline device to create a defined waisline. We are not entirely sure why this was. We think the belt and other waistline feature was seen as military feature. We note both large leather belts as well as modest cloth devices which emulated a belt. One major stylistic element is the length of the tunic skirt. Some of the tunic skirts were so short that they were barely recognizeable as tunics. The Missouri boy here is a good example (figure 1). Other boys had tunics with quite pronounced skirts.

Popularity

We seem to find fewer images of boys wearing tunic suits during the 1870s, at least in the photographic record. Our information is limited, but the photographic record probably is a resonable indicator of actual trends. We think that the tunic suits were generlly a style popular with fashion concious urban elites.

Ages

We have just begun to assess age conventions for American tunics in the 1870s. So far we have noted boys 2/3 -5 years of ages wearing tunics, but we believe older boys wore them as well. We are jut beginning to assess age trends. But hope to do so as HBC expands. The boy here looks to be about 2/3 years old (figure 1). We note a CDV portrait for a New York boy name George who is noted to be 5 years old. We notice an unidentified boy who looks to us to be about 6 years old. We see an unidentified boy who looks to be about 8 years old. We would call his garment a short tunic, but it is styled differently than a standard tunic. We would describe it as a cross between a tunic and a cut-away jacket.

Construction

A tunic is a sleeved garment covering the body toirso. It differs from a fress in that it a generally plain, simple garment. The length also tends to be shorter than dresses, although there are some longer tunics. Many of the boys' tunics in the 1870s looked rather like long shirts. Most but not all were well above the knees. Diagonal detailing was very popular, basically a give away as to the the 1870s. Buttoning was often at the side, although we do see friont buttoning. Most came with belts. Many of the garments were not ready made. The ready mnade garments were less likeky to fillow any stranfdard plan.

Diagonal Design

We notice considerable variation in designs which affect the cut of the garment. A popular deign was a diagonal design element. A reader writes, "You can see these diagonal front cuts of the jackets conciderably often in the 1870s." We are not entirely sure about the chronology of these disgonal cut tunics. I believe the style first appeared in the 1860s, but it seems most popular in the 1870s. The diagonal cut was commonly accented with both piping and buttons.

Waistlines

Tunic suits mostly came with a belt or other waistline device to create a defined waisline. We are not entirely sure why this was. We think the belt and other waistline feature was seen as military feature. We note both large leather belts as well as modest cloth devices which emulated a belt. This included both actual cloth belts as well as features sewn into the tunic that meerly emulated a waistline belt. The cloth belts seem much more common than the leather belts. Either was the beklts served no practical purpose such as holding up trousers. They may have been used to cinch the tunic tighter at the waist, but this only affected what the tunic looked like when the boy wore it. Some if the cloth belts could not even do this. We have seen European tunics that did not have belts or other waistline features. We do not see American bots in the 1870s wearing tunics without defined waistlines which were created by either belts or cloth features sewn into the tunic.

Buttons

Buttoning was often at the side, although we do see front buttoning. The buttons were both a decoration and a construction element, used in fasening sides of thee garmnent.

Skirt Length

One major stylistic element is the length of the tunic skirt. Generally the tunic skiers were fairly short in the 1870s, but there was some variation. Many of the tunic skirts were so short that they were barely recognizeable as tunics. They seem more like jackets. The Missouri boy here is a good example (figure 1). Other boys had tunics with quite pronounced skirts. A good example is Stirling G. Anderson, we think in the early 1870s. And some boys like George in New York had very long tunics.

Lacy Decoration

We notice quite a number of white tunics with lacy decoration in the early-20th century (1900s-10s). We thought that this was a style destinctive o this period. We have found a lacy tunic outfit which we bdlieve vcomes from the 1870s that looks very much like the early-20th century tunics. Like the early-20th century, it is the cut-out lave variety, not true lsce. They do not seem very common in the 70s and to date we have only found one example. We have archived qyuite a number of 1870s images and only finding one exampole, suggests that it was not very common. Nor have we found examples in the 1860s and 80s. Dating the image is a problem because it is a tin-type and tin-types are more difficult to date than other formats.

Pants

We note boys wearing a variety of pants with tunics in the 1870s. We see boys wearing bloomer knickers, straight knee pants, and long pants with tunic suits. We do not see as many long pants as in the 1860s, but they were still quite common. This reflected general fashion trends associated with pants and trousers and no specific tunic suit trends. Many of these outfits were done as suits with the tunic and pants matching. We also see tunics and pants that did not match. The matching pants were often heavily stylized with stripes and other detailng to match the fancy tunic styling.







HBC





Navigate the Boys' Historical Clothing hair style pages:
[Return to the Main long hair page]
[Return to the Main curl hair page]
[Bangs] [Ringlet curls] [Hair bows] [Caps] [Collar bows]



Navigate the Boys' Historical Clothing Web Site:
[Return to the Main American 1870s skirted page]
[Return to the Main American tunic 19th century cronology page]
[Return to the Main American tunic cronology page]
[Return to the Main American tunic page]
[Return to the Main American 1870s page]
[Introduction] [Activities] [Biographies] [Chronology] [Clothing styles] [Countries] [Topics]
[Bibliographies] [Contributions] [FAQs] [Glossaries] [Images] [Links] [Registration] [Tools]
[Boys' Clothing Home]



Created: 2:12 AM 3/12/2007
Last edited: 3:52 PM 10/19/2020