Figure 1.-- Friederich wears a plain white sailor suit, a popular choice for summerwear. Even during the Summer he wears long stockings. He has high-top heavy shoes which would have been very durable for play. Younger boys also had close-cropped hair cuts. Click on the image for a back view. Drawing by Birte Koch.

Friedrich or Fritz as he may have been called is 4 years old. He is still at home with baby Klara. Younger boys like Fritz commonly had close-cropped hair cuts. His is not as cloesly cropped as some boys at the time. The single most popular outfit for boys in the 1900s was the sailor suit. Imperial Germany was building a modern Navy as well as overseas colonies. Boys wore sailor suits in many different styles and colors. Fritz wears a plain white sailor suit, a popular choice for summerwear. Some were detailed with traditional stripes while others were very plain. Even the dickie here is plain white. Sailor caps were also very popular. Fritz doesn't wear his cap here, but almost certainly he had a cap, perhaps with "Deutschland" on the tally. I think the plain white suits were considered rather elegant. I suspect that it was hard to keep them clean for a boy Fritz's age. She may have had him wear a utilitarian pinafore when playing. Fritz's sailor suit has knicker-length pants that are we thought were bloused at the knee with elastic. A reader writes, "Here you indicate Friedrich's sailor suit has knicker-length pants that are bloused at the knee with elastic. Are you sure he wouls have hd elastic leg closures? How about a simple draw string like the sailor blouse has?" Well we are kind of guessing here. We have inseed noted draw string blouse closures in vintage clothing and photographs. We have never noted this for the pants leg hem and it would be more dofficult to hide the draw strings thn is the case of blouse waist bands. I can't say that I know for sure, but I do not yet any confirmation that there were drawstring closures with the bloomer knickers. This is something that we need to persue further to get a definitive answer. Perhaps more common at the time were kneepants that were open at the knee, although we have noted both styles. At least mother did not have to worry about the colors fading. Even during the Summer he wears long stockings. Here he wears black stockings. For special events he might have worn white long stockings with strap shoes. He wears heavy boot-like high top shoes.

Created: 5:22 AM 12/21/2005
Last updated: 5:22 AM 12/21/2005