Figure 1.--This American cabinet card is undated, but looks to have been taken in the early-1910s. The bowler hats suggests father is a businessman. Father and son wear overcoats. The boy's flat cap matches his overcoat. Note the velvet collars. The little girl wears a shorter, but heacy jacket. Both chikldren wear black long stockings. The children look to be about 4-7nyears old. The studio was Petri & Svenson in Mineapolis, Wusconsin. Set in the uppernorther tier of states, cold weather gera was imprtant.

Cold weather outerwear changed over time. Overcoats seem especially popular in he 19th century. And we still see overcoats (early-20th century). And the school portraits which by the end of the century were becoming popular generally do not show head wear and winter overcoats. Coat styles shifted in the 20th century. We still see girls wearing overcoats, but not many boys. A good example is an Iowa school in 1909. We still see some overcoats (1910s). A good example is ??? Green in 1919. We see a definite shift toward jackets, especially after World War I (1914-18). We see increasingly casual styles (1920s). This means various styles of shorter winter garments. We see some overcoats (1920s), but not as many as in the early-20th century. Some of the jackets we see are very heavy items for cold weather. This is a little difficult to follow as mom's usually took off a child's cold weather outerwear for a studio portrait, but we do see some portraits with cold-weather garments. And the increasingly prevalent snapshots provide information on winter garb. We begin to see rainwater becoming more important than overcoats. Overcoats might be worn in the rain. But dedicated rain coats become very important as overcoats declined. Notice the rain coats here in 1942 (figure 1). By by mid-20th century, children might or might not have overcoats, but many had rain coats. Jackets became increasingly popular in the 20th century gradually replaced overcoats, even with suits, but suits were also becoming less common. There were heavy jackets. They were very common in the northern states, but less necessary in the southern states. After mid-century especially during the 1960s, long overcoats basically went out of style for children. A factor here was the trend toward casual clothes and fewer boys wearing suits. Rather we see heavy jackets. Ski-styles become popular.

Created: 3:46 AM 9/2/2024
Last updated: 3:46 AM 9/2/2024