Figure 1.-- This rather poorly posed CDV portrait shows an unidentified boy. He looks to be about 5 vyears old. He wears a blouse and long pants. The portrait is undated, but looks to us like the 1860s. The hair cut suggests the early-60s because it look like a popular style. Even younger boys in the 1860s wore long pants. We see some boys from fashionlble northeastern cities wearing shortened-length pants, but most boys like the boy here wore long pants. The photographer was A.M. Allen in Pottsville, Pennsylvania.

American boys wore a variety of pants in the 1860s. And with the CDV there is an exponential increase in the number of photographic images. The CDV was less expensive than the Dags and Ambros taken in the 1850s. Given the number of images we are able to assess prevelence better thn in previous decades. The photographic record, however, shows that the vast majority of American boys still wore long pants in the 1860s. We note knee pants in the 1860s, but long pants were still much more common. Thus included most primary school boys. All older boys and most younger boys still wore long pants. There was a strong social-class factor here. Boys wearing shortened-length pants all seem to come from well-established, comfortable families. Photography, especially CDVs brought down the price of portraiture, but still the photographic record strongly over emphasizes the more affluent sector. Working-class people had far fewer photographs taken. Most Americam boys of all ages wore long pants. We do see some portraits of boys wearing shortened-length pants. They are almost entirely, boys from well-to-do famlies, primarily from fashionable north-eastern cities. Photographs of working-class families are much less common. And the portraits we have found all show boys wearing long pants.

Created: 12:01 AM 3/28/2022
Last updated: 12:01 AM 3/28/2022