Montreal Family (probably 1940s)


Figure 1.-- Here we see a French Catholic family from Montreal. Catholic families at the time could still be quite large, even in the city. Unfortunately we do not know the family's name nor when the photograph was taken. The contribuor believes that it was taken in the early or mid 1950s. This is possible, but we believe the 1940s, probably the late 40s is more likely.

Here we see a French Catholic family from Montreal. Catholic families at the time could still be quite large, even in the city. Unfortunately we do not know the family's name nor when the photograph was taken. The contribuor believes that it was taken in the early or mid 1950s. This is possible, but we believe the 1940s, probably the late 40s is more likely. The children are graduated by size and age. The youngest (in bare feet) wears bib shorts with a striped tee shirt. The shorts are quite long for the 1940s. The older boy wears a striped polo shirt with long trousers held up by striped suspenders with leather ends. This style of suspenders was commonly worn in both England and Canada during the 1940s and 1950s, sometimes with short pants and sometimes with long trousers. The girls all wear dresses, despite the informality of the photograph. All but one of the girls wears a pinafore over dresss. Notice the scissors in the hand of the smallest boy. The children look to be about 4-11 years of age. A reader writes, "Why do the girls wear pinafores? And why the scissors in the boys' hands?" HBC is unsure about the scissors. The pinafores are a protective garment and the girls are probably wearing them to orotect their dresses. There pronably was not a lot of money to go about and clothing so many children must have been a considerable cost. By this time the pinafore wascseen as a girl's garment and not even commonly worn by girls in much of Canada. I am not sure how common it was in French-speaking Canada.






HBC






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Created: 11:49 PM 3/24/2005
Last updated: 5:13 AM 3/27/2005