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We note both plain and fancy dresses. A good example of a plain but fashiomable dress is an unidentified Philadelphia boy, probably in the 1880s (figure 1). As it is white we doubt it was for everyday wear around the house. We note both fancier dresses and dresses which were plainer and showed more wear. These differences are interesting both for stylistic reasons and becauuse they suggest how the dress was bein worn. Fancy dresses were presumably for special occassions, including formal events. We believe that paliner dresses were more common for boys than girls. But this was up to the mother and some boys wore dresses just as fancy as the girls. Plainer dresses were more likely to be worn for everyday around the house. Young children are of course very messy and mothes, even in the very formal late-19th century would hesitated to have boys wear fancy dresses done in expensice fabric for everyday wear.
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