Figure 1.--This cabinet card portrait shows three children rather eleganttly dressed children, two girls and a boy. They look to be about 3-11 years old. The girls wear similar if not identical white dresses with great props, a parasol and a doll. Their older brither wears jacket with some Norfolk styling, an Eton collar, and floyy bow, and knee pants. All the children wear long stockings. The clothing and mount style suggest the portrait as taken around the turn-pf-the 20th century. We would guess it was taken in the very early-20th century, before 1905. Whicker chairs were common at the turn of the century. We tend to see the colored whicker before 1900 and white whicker after which means that the very late 1890s is a possibility. The card mount is a larger cardwith a reltively small photograph. Size of the photo: 14.0 x 10.0 cm. The size of the mount: 22.5 x 17.5 cm. (approx.: 8 3/4 x 6 3/4 inches). The mount is a greyish green, all characteistics of very early-20th century cabinet cards. The studio is Brock & Co., Trenton, Brighton & Colborne, Ontario.

We notice Canadian boys wearing single- and double-breasted, collar-buttoning, and Norfolk jackets in the early-20th century. The Norfolk jacket was a popular choice, but there was no standard style. Some jackets had the vertical vents without the belt and others had the velt without the vertical vents. We see a lot of Eton collars with the suits, worn with and without floppy bows. The boy here with a large, crisp Eton collar is a good example (figure 1). The popularity of floppy bows with suits sees rather an American influence. The prevalence and size of the bows began to decline after the turn-of-the century, but they were still quite common in th early-1900s. We notice knee pants, knickers, short pants, and long pants suits during the first half of the century. Knee pants were common at the beginning of the century as they had been in the 19th century. Available images show Canadian boys wearing mostly knee pants suits at the turn-of-the 20th century. American boys began wearing knickers anout 1908. We do not have enough Canadian images to know if the shift from knee pants to knickers took place at about the same time in Canada.

Created: 6:08 PM 2/28/2018
Last updated: 6:08 PM 2/28/2018