Figure 1.--Cabinet cards generally replaced CDVs in the 1870s, but we still see some. This one was taken in September 1879. We see two boys and a baby. The boys look to be bout 6-10 years old. The younger boy wears a double-breasted collar-buttoning jacket. His older brother wears a jacket we can not identify, but mnote that vthe collar has a back flap like a sailor suit. This is all a departure from the small collars, unobtrusive collars we see at the beginning of the decade. The studio was Morrill in Lowell, Massachusetts.

We contunue to see rather small collars in the 1870s, mostly the same styles as we see in the 1860s. Many garments could be worn with or without collars. We see that with tunics. Eton and Peter Pan styles were very important. Unfortunately we often see very little of the collars, especially in the early-1870s. Age was a factor affecting the collars that boys wore. So did the type of suit, which was also affected by age. Whuch we can see in American photographs. The collar buttoning jacket hiding the collar was still popular. Earlier they were single-breasted styles. We begin to see double-breasted styles in the 1870s. So we just see a small bit of collar peeking out over the jacket. A good examole is Minnie Tamn who has a shirt with a kind of ruff. And for the first time we begin to see large Eton collars like British boys were wearing. A good example is an unidentfied Boston boy with his faithful pooch. These larger collars would have been detachable collars. Some of these collat-buttoning jackets jackets actually were done with collars of their own collars so we see nothing of the shirt or shirt-like garment being worn. In addition to the suits that boys mostly wore, at least when dressing up for studio portaits. We also see a variety of button-on outfits. Some of these were done without collars. They do not seem mall that coomon, at leasr based on the photograohic record. An unidentified Boston boy in the 1870s provides a good example of the small collars, lthough little larger than what we often see in he 1860s. Sailor collars were becoming more prevalent as sailor suits had becomee increasingly popular. There was not yet a firmly established style. We see some sailor infliences on garments, sych as a back flap with out the traditiin front 'V". Collars began to increase in size during the 1870s and were definitely larger than in the 1860s, especially by the end of the decade. We do not notice any of the giant collars prevalent in the 1880s and 90s. That dies not mean rhat they did not exist, but the lack of examples in our archive suggests thatbthey were not yet a major fashion item.

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Created: 2:51 AM 8/25/2007
Last updated: 6:53 AM 4/27/2021