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The HBC biography section is for people or families that have achieved some degree of notariety or fame. HBC readers in many cases have submitted family portraits. HBC has until now not added them to the biography section. We believe now that this is a mistake. Many of the HBC readers contributing family portraits can also provide details about the boy and him family. This background information help us to assess social trends and put the fashions involved in perspective. This is just why the biographical section is an important part of HBC. As a result, HBC has decided to create pages for these relatively unknown people, when some basic family data is available. Incidentally if you find a relative here, please do tell us somehing about him. Here we are listing these biographies alpahabetically to facilitate looking up individual names. The alphabdetical list is the primary data base in this section. While we have not persued geneolgical resreach on these individual, having the names and in many cases the loaction provide the potential to acquire more back ground information in the future which may provide additonal insights into the fashion and life style trends.
We notice a portrait of a boy about 10 years old taken on November 27, 1902. He wears a very plainm but heavy dark wool sailor suit. There is very hard to see dark detailing on the sailor collar. There is adickey, but the boy's undershirt seems to show above the dickey. The lapel of the "V" collar front has a non-traditional shape. We know very little about the boy, but so often images are not dated, it is useful having a precisely dated image.
Adrian Gerald Foley was borm in 1923. We have little information on his childhood. We do note a charming portrait in a romper-like tunic suit in 1926. Adrian was 3 years-old at the time. He holds a great teddy by the ear. We do not know if that was actually his bear or a studio prop. Adrian and his parents were photographed at an extensive shoot with Bassano Ltd, Royal Photographers, a firm founded by Alexander Bassano. There were many subsequent shoots with portraits of Adrian. We also notice a kind of teddy on wheels which was not a studio prop. We see Adrian wearing a long pants Eton suit in 1930. This may have been when he began at his prep school. We do not know which school he attended. Foley is a British peer, 8th Baron Foley, who dabeled with composing and piano playing. He married three times, including two heiresses. He particularly enjoys golf. Baron Foley is a title that has been created twice in the British Peerage, in both instances for members of the same family. The ininitial creation was 1712. The Foley family seat was Witley Court until this was sold to trustees for William, Lord Ward, later Earl of Dudley (1837).
Here we have a CDV portrait of a brother and sister. They look to be about 7-11 years old. The children are identitified on the verso, where written in pencil is,"Presented to Mrs. Knapp, By C. L. & I. M. Foltz" (as near as we can make out). They are nicely posed and dressed in period outfits. We would gues they are from a staid middle-class family. Both children are holding hats to complete their outfirs. The boy wears a sack suit. We think the jacket and trouders match, but because of the lighting, this is difficult to tell. The girl is wearing a hoop dress with a Zouve-style bolero Jacket. Their outfits would be great to recreate for a Civil War era reenactment. No photographer or location is indicated. As was common at the time, the boy has hair down to his ears. The girl has short hair which was less common.
The Font boys, Charles abnd Louis, were peanut venders in Louisiana. They erev invited to a party in the governor's mansion for new legislative pages (1938). They stand out because they are wearing bib-overalls. It may klook like they are not dressed up, but we suspect that this was their best clothes. If you look closely you can see that the overalls look brand new. This was actually the last few years that bib-overalls were worn by rural boys. Even before Pearl Harbor (1941), the war emergency was drawing rural families into the cities where well paying jobs could be found in the booming war indudtries. In addition, states were closing small rural schools and bussing the chikldren to town schools. Not wanting to look like 'hicks' the difference between rural abnd town fashions quickly disappeared.
Dr. Edward Bliss Foote (1829 – 1906) was a notable American doctor, author, and advocate for birth control at a time it was widely seen a terrible crime. The religious community genberally saw any form of birth control as a moral violation. Dr. Foote published the controversial, but successful book, Medical Common Sense (1864). His book included a frank discussion of sexual health as a public health issue. He also published Plain Home Talk (1880). He was eventually convicted under the Comstock Act and forced to remove information about birth control from his book. The Comstock Law was passed by Congress during the Grant Administration (1873). It was reinforced by many state laws and municipal codes. Ot was designed to suppress the trade in, and circulation of, obscene literature and articles of immoral use. Contraception devices and books discussing cointraception methods was included as one of the items for imoral use. Dr. Foot sold 750,000 books. This and rekatedvactivities made him a very rich man. He went on to co-found the Free Speech League (1902). It was disbanded during World War I, but laid the Foundation for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). Here we see Dr. Foot's four children. His son Ersawtd Cond Foot, Jr. would carru on his free speech work. The CDV portrait is undated, but looks to have been taken in the mid-1860s. The children look to be about 1-9 years old. You can see that long pants were still standard for boys, even boys from prosperous families. Notice that only the very young pre-school boy seated is weaing knee pants.
The portrait here shows Mrs. J. B. Fowler's children, aged about 4 and 9. The photograph was taken in November, 1927, at a studio in Montreal. I'm not sure whether the child on the left wearing a one-piece romper outfit in white is a boy or a girl--although I suspect he is a boy. The schoolboy on the right seems to be dressed in typical schoolboy clothes, although, since the photograph is a professional one, he may be a bit more dressed up than usual. Notice that he wears a light colored woolen pullover sweater, perhaps beige or maybe even white, with knitted cuffs and waist, with a shirt with a very wide collar that spreads out over his shoulders.
We have a collection of portraits of Austen Hoppin Fox (1877-1946). We don't have any family portraits, but several portraits of Austen over time. And we know a little about his family. It was a respected Quaker family with connections to important figures in American history. His fatherbtook a serious interest in public affairs. We have less informatin about Austen, but he would have grown up in New York City knowing important individuals at a time of great optimism that the American economy was becoming a major industrial nation. He was educated at a military academy and Harvard University. This collection of of his portraits tell us a great deal about a well-to-do but not rich New York boy was dressed in the 1880s. We suspect it would have been a little differet had he been a few years younger when the Fauntleroy Craze broke out (1885). He never wiore Funtleroy suits, but we see him wearing knee pants into his teens, some that was not commin in the 1870s or even the early-80s. Of coursem, New Yorkl City was the cebnter of Anmerican fashion. Styles in New York took a while to work down into mid-America and into the hinterland.
Here we have an undated CDV of two children, presumably brothers. We would date the portrait, becuse of the CDV format and the clothing, to the 1860s. It is definitely not from the 1850s, but could be from the early 1870s. A dealer believes it is enscribed in pencil Master Fox, but we think it says "chas Fox" or Charles Fox. The little boy with the curly hair seems to have a capital letter "F" on his shirt as you can see. Only one child is identified. The photographer is Wm. Reiterman at the Sturgis Art Gallery in Sturgis, Michigan. The boys wear different outfits. The younger boy wears a rather plain collar buttoning jacket. His older brother wears an elaborately embroiders cut-away jacket. This ome is unsual in that the blouse has the same embroidery as the jacket. The boys has similar hair styles, but the younger boy's top sausage curl is much larger than the hair styled on his older brother.
We see Sidney Franks with his schoolmate and buddy Russell Gustavson. They are pictured in the school yard. The photograph is undated. The dealer suggested the 1930s, but the Denver, Colorado school in the background looks rather modern. We might guess the photograph was taken in the 40s. Strangey the photograph was printed in New York City. The boys wear the casual clothes common in Americam schools at the time.
We note a portrait of Arthur Franz taken about 1898. Arthur was born in Borodino. The source indicates Borodino wa located in Bess. which I think means Bessarabia. We had thought that Borodino was the town near Moscow where the bloody battle was fought by Nappleon during the 1812 invasion of Russia. Bessarabia is located, however to the south and is the border region between the Ukraine and Romania. Bessarabia in 1893 was part of Tsarist Russia. I believe the portrait we have was taken in America, but we are not sure.
This boy here is Ernst Frederick unless mother neglected to write the family name. He looks to be about 8 years old. He wears a vested cut-away jacket suit with bloomer knickers and white long stockings. It is a white or very light-colored suit. Ernst seems to have a small Eton collar and no neckwear. Note the fashionable high-top shoes.
His boater style hat is on the table. The studio is Ayles & Bonniwell, Trinity House, Hastings. The portrait was taken in 1861. We at first thought that the date was perhaps his birthday because the pose, the shoes, and perhaps the hat are no right for the United States in 1861. Than we noticed that it was an English CDV. This thus is very helpful in destinguishing Amerucan and English CDVs and dating English CDVs. We do not see high-top shoes in America untill the 70s and poses like this also begin to appear in the 70s. The white stockings, however, were common in both America and England.
This large 5x7 in oval format cabinet card shows the two Freeland children, Millard Freeland and Joe Freeland. Jim Batey is unidentified as their grandfather. The mount does not indicate the studio and where it was taken, something increasingly common with the new style mount after the turn of the 20th century. The children look to be about 1-3 years old. The younger child wears a white baby dress. His big brother wears a white Fauntleroy blouse with knee pants and long stockings. His hair is done in short ringlets. We still see many boys with ringlets in the 1900s, not as many boys as in the 1890s and fewer older boys. This was the last decade that we see really large numbers of boys with ringlets. The portrait is undated, but the cabinet card oval mount and color suggests the 1900s.
Marquess of Willingdon was a title in the Peerage created for the Liberal politician and colonial governor Freeman Freeman-Thomas (1936). He had personal contacts with bith Prime-Miister Asquith abd King Gdeorge V. Hev has posts in Undia (beginning 1913). He was appointed Governor-General of Canada (1926-31). This was a fairly quiet period in a stable country, then largely independent. Then he go a far different assiugnment -- Viceroy of India (1931-36). This was a far different situation. He was thrust back into India's turbulent politics and had to deal with the rising, but totally unothodoc star in Imperial politics--Mahatma Ghandi India by this time had been given a degree of home rule, but Gandhi and the Congress Party were moving toward independencer. Following instructions from the India Office, Freeman Thomas not only arrewsrted Gandhi and outlawed the Congress, but he rounded up all members of the Working Committee and the Provincial Committees and imprisoned them as wll. He also banned Congress youth organizations. Some 80,000 Indian activists were inprisoned. The sction affected Congress' boycotts and demonstratiins, but the Indian people became increasingly arrested and Gbndhi's stature only rise. Apparently Parliament rewarded Freeman-Thomas for the stressful 5 years of dealing with the Mahatma by granting him a peerage. Freeman-Thomas married the Hon. Marie Brassey, the daughter of Thomas Brassey--creating famoly connctions with the Brasseys. Here we have Freeman-Thomas boys, Gerard Frederick Freeman-Thomas (1893-1914) and his brother Inigo Brassey Freeman-Thomas, (1899-1979). The photograph was taken in 1905 outside the family estate. Freeman-Thomas died (1941). He was was succeeded by his only surviving son, Inigo las the 2nd Marquess of Willingdon. Inigo was a soldier and also served as Liberal Chief Whip in the House of Lords from 1948 to 1949. Though married three times, he was childless and all the titles became extinct upon his death (1979).
This photograph shows a boy pulling a girl through snow on a sled. On the back is written, "Jos. S., Jr. & Emily Frelinghausen". "Jos." we assume means Joseph. It was dated 1922. They look to come from a wealthy family, especially if the house in the background is the family home. Note that Joseph wear short pants rather than knickers which were more common in America. This also suggests they came from a fashionable family influenced by European fashion. The name is German, but we suspect the fashion influence is British. Many Americans of German ancestry had lost their family commections. More important we think is that the primary fashion influence for men and boys in affluent families was British.
Here we see a backyard scene from Jersey City, New Jersey. We even know the address, 9 Hancock Avenue. It is a family snapshot probably taken by dad in July 1937. The boys are Ralph Herman Freudenberg I (1931-92) and Richard Charles Freudenberg (1932- ). They wear "T"-shirts and white shorts. American boys had for many years worn knickers, but they were becoming less popular in the late 1930s. Youngr boys like Ralph and Charles commonly wore shorts, especially in the summer. Note the ankle socks. They were not common in the 1920s, but becamme increasingly common in the late 30s. Some boys eve wore them with knickers. Also note the leather shoes. Sneakers existed, but boys very commonly wore leather shoes, even for play. We also see two neighbor girls: Winifred T. McManus (1928- )and Nora Belle Piatt (c1921-?). Girls still commonly wore dresses, even for play. Girls also wore leather shoes, nut more commonly strap shoes or sandals.
Here we see a cabinent card portrait of London boy Harold Frodoham (writing indistinct) with a classic pull horse, presumably a studio prop. Harold wears a kilt suit and pantalettes. Even if we did not know this was an Engish portrait, we would know it was no not American where kilt suits were also widely worn. American boys at this time wore long stockings instead of socks. Also while American boys also wore pantalettes, but we never see them worn to be seen like this in American portraits. The studio was Turner & Killirk in Islington, northern London.
This cabinet card portrait shows a little boy named Maurice Frost. He apparently had a son named Maurice as he is identified as father and senior. Here he looks to be about 5 years old. Mauruce wears a fancy dress with a 1880s looking lace collar, but a midest 1870s looking bow. Thus we would guess the portrait was taken about 1880. The dress was low-waisted and made to look a little like a kilt suit, a popular style at the time. We have no idea what color the dress was. There was a huge number of buttons.
He has long stockings and low-cut pumps. The long stockings were commpm, the pumps were relstively rate,much more common in England. The studio was Pullman's Photograph Portrait Gallery in Washington D.C. It was located on Pennsylvania Avenue, meaning it was a high end studio.
Here we see a water color painting of Alfred Fuller, an English boy. He was 4 years old when the portrait was painted. We know nothing about his family, but surely he must come from a very affluent family. We do not know who the artist was. We do know that it was painted in 1836 which is helpful. The boy wears a low-cut blue dress with lace edgeing and ballon sleeves. We have noted other paintings of boys wearing dresses with baloon sleeves, but the baloon sleeves here are as about as large as we have noted. I believe these sleeves were also called gigot or leg-of-mutton sleeves. The boy here also wears white patalettes, white socks, and strap shoes. The boy looks to be about 5-6 years old, but estimating ages is often more difficult in paintings than in photographs. While the child is unidentified, the short hair and side part, whip, and stick horse all suggest a boy to us. Note that the dress here is just the same style a girl might wear, although a girl might wear fancier pantalettes.
This oval image cabinet card portrait is not dated, but the mount and garments suggest the 1900s to us. The boys are identical twin brothers, Elmer and Homer Fulton. They are wearing polka dot tunic suits with. matching tunics and bloomer lnickers. The frame looks like the They have black long stockings and low-cut shoes. The portrait was taken in Hillsboro, Ohio. Hillsboro is the fifth largest city in Oregon. Lying in the Tualatin Valley on the west side of Portland, it was inhabited by the Atfalati tribe of the Kalapuya. Settlers founded a community here in 1842 later name after David Hill an Oregon politician.
Earl William Furlow, Jr. had his portrait taken in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania about 1910. He was about4 years old. His teddy bear is sitting on the floor beside him. The portrait is undated, but the clothing and the gray heavy paper frame helps date it. He wears a button-on blouse with a bordered Peter Pan collar and short pants. He seems to be wearing white long stockings.
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