Figure 1.--This cabinet card does not have a studio imprint. We see the four children of the family, all young boys. Only one boy has been breeched. The other boys wear very basic dresses, albeit with lace collars. Given the basic biological contraints, we would guess the children are about 1-7 years old. This suggests that the breeching age in this family was probably about 6 years of age. How formal the procedure was and the timing was we do not know. Notice that while mother did not believe in early breeching, she certainly did believe in cutting the boys' curls at a very early age. The portrait is undated, but looks like the 1870s to us.

American children generally began school at age 6 years. This became a standard throughout the country. A few schools in the late-19th century had Kingergartens, but this did not become common until well after the turn-of-the 20th century. And as public schools became increasingly established, most boys were breeched before they began school. This was generally the case in the early-19th century before public schools were well established, but in the late-19th century as public schools became increasingly important, they had the affect of standardizing breeching conventions. While breeching conventions varied from family to family, most boys were breeched well before school age and those 5 year old still not breeched, were breeched when they approached school age. (Each state set slighjly different rules, but generally you had to be 6 or within a monthor so of turning 6 by September when school began.) Thus boys turned 6 after September had to wait a year to begin school.) We very rarely see unbreeched boys at 19th century schools. We occassionally see very young children at rural schools. We suspect that this is some of the children bringing their younger siblings to school for a variety reasons, presumably cleared with the teachers in advance. Because boys were breeched before beginning school, we see far fewer 6-year olds wearing skirted garments than pre-school age boys. Most were breeched before age 6 years. Not all boys were breeched by age 6 years. Those that were not generally came from well-to-do families and were being educated at home. Such mothers were under less pressure to breech their sons at a given age.

Created: 6:13 AM 8/16/2010
Last updated: 6:13 AM 8/16/2010