Figure 1.--We know nothing about this family snapshot forwarded by a reader. The child wears a simple white frock. We thought at first that he might be a 6-year old that had not yet begun schoo, but he looks a little older than 6 years of age. Perhaps he has not started school yet. The background suggesrs he lived on a farm. You can see a car with a curved-front mud guard. These were not common until the 1920s, so we suspect that the snapshot was taken about 1920. Also the bonnet is downward dipped. Model Ts tended to have a horizonat bonnet. Some early European cars had these features. We would guess this is an American image in part because cars were not very common on European farms. The clap board house also looks like a typical mid-Western farm house.

We no longer see boys wearing dresses to any extent beyond the infancy stage. We have not found any catalogs at all offering boy dresses. We see virtually no example in studio portrait. We do see a few scattered snap shot of boy wearing dresses. Almost all were taken in rural areas. We have not informtion as to the circumstances. We suspect that the boys involved were growing up on farms where the mothers and grandmothers involved were not connected with popular fashions. They grew up in times when boys dresses were common and did not undetand the notable change in fashion conventions. Most of the examples we have found are toddlers abnd other pre-school boys, but we have seen a few younger school-age boys as well. Most of the example show the boys wearing simple white frocks. These woukd have been easy to launder garments. This was quite rare and we suspect only seen in rural areas because the boys involved would be teased by other boys.

Created: 6:35 PM 7/28/2012
Last updated: 6:35 PM 7/28/2012