Figure 1.--This American cabinet card portrait shows three siblings all dressed up. hey look to be about 1-8 years old. The boy may be 3 years old. We see two older children (boy and girl) propping up their younger sibling, perhaps a sister. They appear to be dressed in their Sunday Finery -- lacy dressese for the girls and a boy dress for their broher. With all that white, we can't make out much detail on the gils' dresses. The lack of lace and frills makes theboy's dress a good example of a boy dress. It looks like moher has brought a size that he can grow into. After the turn-fhe 20th century, dresses for boys rapidlky went out of style, even with boy styling. On that back of the card are the names 'Alderic and Amanda'. It makes you wonder if the baby had a name. The porrait is undated. We might guess it was taken in the 1890s, but weare not at all sure. The studio is B. Woodhead, Palmer, Massachusetts. Woodhead operated in that area until his death in 1918. Click on he imagefor an enlargement.

The age at which boys were breeched varied over time and from family to family. We still see many boys wearing dresses at age 3. A good example is an unidentified Pennsylvania boy, we think in the 1880s. We also note an unidentified Indiana boy. Another example is an unidentified Illinois boy. And we note twins Arthur and Henry about 1870. And two more Indiana boys look to be about 3-4 years old. We note another Massachussetts boy in the 1880s. Many families breeched their boys at 3 years of age or sometimes while they were age 3. It was th first age hat really large numbers of boys were being breeched. And the number of boys being breeched seems to have increased as the 19th century progressed. We also begin to see more boy-styled dresses after mid-century. That is something you do not see in he earl-9h cenuy. Such dresses did not even eist unilafter mid-cenury. We note many different dress styles, both plain and fancy. A California boy, Carlton Gardner, wears a white dress at age 3 years. We notice an Ohio boy wearing a very plain, long front-buttoning dress. Another example is J. Nelson Patterson. Another example is Richard Lancaster Witzleben in 1899. Like the Ohio boy, he weaes a very plain dress. We do not know a great deal about the breeching process. We have few actual breeching images, but we know that breeching occured because we begin to see more portraits of 3 year olds wearing knee pants and fewer boys even at this young age wearing dresses. Breeching at age 3 became less common in the early-20th century, but we do not have photigraphic imges to help assess this. We believe that social class factors were involved here, but we do not yet fully understand this. Toilet training was a factor in boys wearing dresses. The fact that many boys were not breeched at age 3, suggests that much more was involved than toilet training. It is likely of course that boys from affluent families are over represented in the photographic record. A complication here is that families in isolated rural areas may be less connected with fashion trends and some of the boys may have contunued wearing dresses in the early -0h century when this convention was passing out of fashion. Some options appeared for 3 year olds that mothers were not yet ready to breech, these include both kilt suits (1870s-1890s) and tunic suits (1900s-10s). Se see a lot of boys as young as 3 years beginning to wear knee pants in the 1880s. This was in part due to mothers' desired to outfit them in Little Lord Fauntleroy suits--a popular craze befinning after Mrs. Burmnett published her book in 1885.

Created: 8:33 AM 11/18/2024
Last updated: 8:33 AM 11/18/2024