Figure 1.--This child certainly looks like a girl. We know, however, that young boys in the 19th century wore dresses, long hair, and even hairbows. The child's toy look to be a firetruck which would appear to be more suitable for a boy.

This tendendency of children to pose with their toys is extremely helpul in identifying the gender of younger children. Boys until the 1920s were commonly outfitted in dresses when younger and many had long hair. Thus it is often difficult to tell if younger children are boys or girls. The props they hold, such as their toys, while not fool proof, can be useful in determining the child's gender. Toys may in fact be a better gender ndicator than clothes. Children holding sports equipment, balls, toy soldiers, guns, and other boyish toys are usually boys. Children photographed with dolls or baby chairages are probably girls. Sometimes it is easy to use toys to help identify gender, but sometimes the choices are very difficult to make. Here are images that we have found to be either instructive or images that we have found difficult to assess.

Figure 1: Fire Engine

The child here certainly seems to be a girl (figure 1). We know, however, that young boys in the 19th century wore dresses, long hair, and even hairbows. The child's toy look to be a firetruck which would appear to be more suitable for a boy. We have noted very few portraits of girls pictured with fire engines.

Figure 2: Toy Soldiers

A HBC reader has provided us this image. She writes, "This portrait looks to be a little girl in a dress. Her blond hair is parted on the side, in ringlets, with a white hair bow. What is unusual about this image is the props. On a table next to her are a set of toy solders, some on horses. The props, ringlets, and side part make me think this may be a boy. The description of the item by the seller gave contained very little information." We believe that the toy soldiers here are a very important clue.

Created: April 16, 2000
Last updated: 2:53 AM 9/25/2004