Figure 1.--Collars in the 1860s tended to be small, often only small flashes of white as they are covered over with jackets. Also niotice the white long stockings. The bioy here is unidentuified. Akl we know is that the studio was Nunneley's in Middletown, Ohio

We continue to see very small collars, almost always white collars in the 1860s. They were clearly not yet an important fashion item. The shirt or shirt-like garment was often quite small. Tom Baird wears a collar that you can barely see. And the collar was usually mostly covered up. We see this with various garments. Tunics were worn with and withoutcollars. A good examole is J. Bartlett. Collar-buttoning suit jackets were very popular at the time. We see many examples in the photographic record. Collar-buttoning jackets were prevalent, but not the only suit jackets that were worn. We see other jacket styles like cut-away jackets. Theoreticlly this would allow us to see shirts and blouses, but because vests (waistcoats) were common, the shirts commonly remained covered up. So unfortunately, often all we see in the formal studio photography of the day was a splash of white peaking out from a boy's suit jacket. This makes assessing collars in the 1860s very difficult. With the advent of the CDV and cabinent card, we have a huge photographic record to draw upon. Examples are archived throughout HBC. An example of a boy wearing a collar so small that it can hardly be seen is C. Stewart in 1865. Another is 9-year old Tom K. Christie in 1867. Girls collars could be very were very different. Girls dresses often did not have collars at all. Some were done with very open, low necklines. This included the dresses for biys not yet breched.

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Created: 2:14 AM 11/5/2022
Last updated: 2:14 AM 11/5/2022