Figure 1.--This cabinet card portrait shows an unidentified American boy wearing a lacy white dress. It is fancier than most white dresses we hhace seen. Notice the white bow in the back. He has bangs and ringlet curls. He looks to be about 3-years old. He holds a hoop, a popular toy at the time. The portait is undated, but we would guess was taken about 1880. The studio was Neale in Tremont, New York.

We see boys wearing both plain and fancy white dresses. Many of the portraits of boys wearing white dresses in the 19th century show them wearing very plain white dresses. The plin dresses seem the most common in the photogrphic record, despite te fact it is mostly studio portraits in which the boys are dressed up in their best outfits. These may have been the dresses they wore for every day, but we are noit entirly sure about that. Most would have had a dress they wore for best. This is difficult to assess, because 19th century photography was largely studio portrait in which mother dressed up the kids in their best clothes. Some avid amateur photographers took snapshots, but it was both complicated and expensive. So the number of snapshots are a tiny fraction of the 19th century photographic record, and primarily found in the 1890s. This not change until the Kodak Brownie appeared (1900). By this time the convention of younger boys wearing dresses was declining. So the family snap shots when they do appear in large numbers during the 1900s show few boys wearing dresses, both white and colored. In addition to the many plain white dresses we see, we also see ancy cwhite dresses, with elaborate lace and other fancy frim. Thy are not nearly as common, but we have found quite a number of examples.

Created: 9:10 PM 3/9/2015
Last updated: 9:10 PM 3/9/2015