Figure 1.--Here we have an early short-sleeved shirt. This unidentified boy with a new sibling wears a short-sleeved striped blouse or shirt with a sports collar. The AZO stamp box means that it could have been taken in the late-1910s, but more likely the 1920s.

The most important blouse and shirt feature after the collar is the length. Sleeves were done in both long and short lengths as well as an intermidiary length elbow length. We are just beginning to develop information on sleeves. We only have a preliminary assessment at this time. Early shirts had long sleeves. The only exception was early blouses. Here the blouses for younger boys followed the designs of children's dresses which could be made with short sleeves. A good example is two unidentfied siblings in the late-1850s. The boys We see these short sleeved blouses in the 1840s and 50s, but blouuse fo schoola ge boys were dione with ling sleeves. We have far graeter coverage in the 1860s becauuse of the opularity of the CDV. And boys except the very youngest always wore long sleeve blouses or long sleeve shirts when they appeared. This followed trends for men whoonly wire long sleeves. We continue to see for both shirts and blouses (1870s) and the rest of the century. We firsr notice short-sleeved blouses and shirts well kinto the 20th cebntyury. They were the sailor blouses done with open square collars. Short-sleeve shirts seem to haveappeared (1920s). We can not rule out that their may have been some appearing uin the late-1910s. But short sleeves only began to be common in the 1920s as boys made the transition from blouses to shirts. While length is the most noticaeable features of sleeves, there are other features.

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Created: 2:12 AM 4/8/2010
Last updated: 4:08 PM 8/19/2024