Figure 1.--The dealer describes the child wearing a dress in this CDV-sized tintype as an 'androgynous short hair girl'. We are not so sure. The child looks rather boyish. The striking blue eyes do nottell us anything about gender And with younger children it can be difficut to tell. The portait looks like it was taken in the 1870s. There are no clues as to gender other than the dress is rather plain. Hair styling is often helpful, but not definitive. Most girls had long hair, but some girls for whatever reason had short hair. Age would have been a factor here. The child looks to be about 5-6 years old. If 5, the child could ave been a boy, but by age 6 when school begins, the child is more likekly to be as the dealer suggestrs, an 'androgynous girl'. Another factor is tht portraits were notb only taken at the time of breeching, but some mothers wanted a keeosake portait done just before breeching,

Younger boys still commonly wore skirted garments in the 1870s. Dresses were still worn. Kilt suits were also very common. The problem we have with this is that some girls had short hair. Thus it is difficult assessing the gender of some of the children in the photographic record. This is especially the case of children wearing dress. The decade can usually be estimated with a degree of certainty. The children wearing kilt suits are relatively easy to identify. While younger boys wearing what seems to us as girlish attire was fairly common, girls wearing boys clothes were not. Girls did not wear kilt suits. We know that because in the many named portraits, we never see a girl wearing kilt suits. As for the younger children wearing dresses, that can be a problem. Often details in the portrait such as props can help determine gender. But in many unnamed portraits, there are no clues we can pick up on. We will load some of them here, perhaps readers will have some thoughts as to gender. By the 1870s we see fewer boys of any age wearing dresses. It was more common to see American boys in the older pre-school years (3-5 years old) wearing kilt suits. That said, dresses were still also worn so the gender of many children in the old photographs is a bit of a mystery. A reader writes, "Interesting image. I agree with your assessment and I lean towards this is a girl as I think the child is probably 6 years old or more with bangs and possibly a pony tail we cannot see as she is looking straight at us."

Created: 9:06 PM 8/22/2024
Last updated: 9:06 PM 8/22/2024