Figure 1.-- Here we see twp unidentified German children with a rather stern-looking granbmother. This boy wears a bowl-shaped wide brimmed hat with his sailor suit. He looks to be about 4 years old. Notice how his hat is turned up so you can see his hair. His sister looks a little older, perhaos 6 years of age. She probably had a similar hat, but mother did not want her hair and ribbon covered. The portrait is undted, but the clothes and cabinet card mount suggests the 1900s. The studio was Alfred Richter Radebeul in Anhalt-Saxony.

We have seen these hats worn by boys of a wide range of ages, mostly pre-teens. The younger boys were the most likely to wear sailor hats, as least this is suggested by the photographic record which when these hats were popular was mostly during the 19th and very early-20th century. Boys might wear these hats even before thgey were breeched and began wearing sailir suits. Some 2 year ols may have worn them with dressess and they were fairly common with pre-school boys. Our assessment is primarily based on the photographic record. Perhaps older boys were less likely to wear the hats for their studio portraits. This we can not confirm. At least we see fewer older boys wearing sailor hats, especially the wide-brimmed hats. Intrestingly, for some reason, the younger the boy the larger the hat. Here we suspect that mothers simply had more sway over the clothes of the younger boys. We see pre-school and early-primary boys wearing sailor hats with very wide brims. Some younger teens wore sailor suits, but not commonly with sailor hats. Amlost all of the images we have found with teenagers wearing sailor suits, if they had sailor headwear, it was caps rather than hats. Much more common, however, were to see younger boys wearing these hats--especially the wide-brimmed hats. This is clearly shown in the substantial photographic record. Unfortnately, the headwear is not included in many of the portraits we have found of German boys wearing sailor suits.

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Created: 11:26 PM 6/25/2014
Last updated: 11:26 PM 6/25/2014