Figure 1.--This post card was made and mailed in Portugal in the early 20th century. Click on the image to see the message on the back. |
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One useful source of information about early 20th century fashions is post cards. They were, however, commercial and thus they are not reliable depictions of what the average child was wearing. They do depict garments that were worn, but often how mothers wanted to dress their children rather than how they actually did. Colors are also questionable. Note that the boy here has a brown sailor suit with a blue and white back flap (figure 1). While we can not say with any certainty that such suits did not exist, we have not yet noted such a mixture in the information we have collected. Another problem is that post cards were widely sold in Europe and the cards available were mot always made in the countries where they were sold. Portugal did have a national post card industry, but we are unsure how important it was. Many cards sold and mailed in Portugal were probably imported.
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