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We note a steroscopic image card of boys wearing smocks at Newport, Rhode Island beach. This was rather surprising to us. Unlike many European countries, we rarely see American boys wearing smocks, especially school-age boys. This of course was very common in many European counries, but not in America. We have seen European school groups wearing smocks to beaches, but never in America, even much younger boys. . The image is clearly labeled Newport, R.I. by the Alfred S. Campbell Company in Elizabeth, N.J. Without this label we would have confiently archived it as a European image. The card is labeled "273 Beach View, Newport, R.I."
The 273 is the Company card number in aparticular series. Companies like Campbell issued catalogs from which customers could selects card views from various sets such as land marls, peeople, countries, animals, ect. These viewes appeared before it was possible to reproduce photographs in newspapers and magazins. . These sterescope viewers were very common in parlors during the mid- and late-19th and early 20th century. The boys are identically dressed, in matching smocks and wide brimmed, dark smocks. It thus must be a school or more likely an orphage group. The smocks could have only been for playing in the sand or padding at the shore. Th boys could not have swam in the smocks. And in the sun they must have been uncomfortable. Perhaps it was a cool day. It is dated about 1897. We do not think that this was very common in the United States. Smocks themselves were not common. We have never seen boys wearing smocks to school. And orphanage seems more likely, but even here we have not noted them at an American orphanage. We really cannot explain the photograph at this time. It could have been a modesty issue. Or perhaps it was a Catholic orphanage with European nuns.
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