|
The major suit components are the jacket and the pants. One distinctive feature feature of 1840s suits is that the jacket and pants often did not match. This was the case of many of the skeleton that were worn in the eraly-19th century. So it is only natural that the suits worn in the 40s consisted of items that did not match. Vests were also important at mid-century and commonly were in sharp contrast to the other items, especially the jacket. Head wear was also important at the time, but we do not notice any head wear especially associated or matching the suits. And we rarely see the boys wearing suits pictured with the head wear worn with the suit. We do not know much about the blouses worn with suits because they are covered up with the jackets and vests. For the most part we only get to see the collar and any neck wear. As the boys were wearing long pants, we are unsure about hosiery. We also do not know a lot about footwear, in part because relatively few boys were posed sanding up in full frame. They are usually posed sitting down with their footwear out of the frame.
We note several varied jacket styles American boys were wearing in the 1840s. The suits are notable for quite a range of different jackets. We see collar-buttoning suits, primarily military-style jackets, and lapel jacket suits cut shorter than the frock jackets. The collar-buttoning jackets were loosely based on blue U.S. Army uniforms. We are not yet sure about cut-away jackets, primarily because we are unable to reliably distinguish between 1840s and 50s Dags. We do npte what we think are 1840s cut-away jackets, but we are not positive because of the difficulty dating Dags or how common they were. And we do see some in the 1850s. Another suit issue is the convention of matching jackets and pants. The boy on the previous page here wears a long jacket called a frock suit jacket, the style that adult men wore. We do not see many boys wearing these frock suit jackets. Rather the other styles, especially the collar-buttoning and lapel jackets were the most important.
The boy on the previous chronology page wears a very short jacket that looks like the skeleton suit jackets still worn through the 1830s. This mid- to late- 1840s sixth plate Daguerreotype portrait shows a boy wearing a very short dark jacket and light-colored pants (figure 1). We also note very long jackets and lengths in between. We see boys wearing suits beginning about age 10 years. This varied somewhat, largely by social class. Boys from well-to-do families might begin to wear suits earlier than boys from working-class families. Jacket styles seem highly varied. A factor here is that ready-made clothes were not yet commonly. Most jackets were sewn one at a time. This gives rise to more diversity than is the case of ready-made jackets. We notice suits with short jackets and often contrasting pants in the 1840s. At this time younger boys began wearing fancy suits, often heavily embroidered jackets. The standard for men was the somber frock coat. Not many boys wore frock cots, but we do see teenagers wearing them. We notice boys wearing short jackets with military styling, although we are not sure precisely when this became stylish. The Mexican War (1844-46) was fought during the 1840s, we believe that the short military-style collar buttoning jacket was a popular style for boys after the War. Men and boys fashions are often affected by military styling, especially after a War. We notice jacket there were smartly tailored like the one the boy here is wearing. We also notice rather poorly fitted jackets. The cost of jackets and tailoring is presumably a factor here. The lapels and button arrangements varied. We note both small and large lapels. We note many younger boys photographed wearing blouses and tunics rather than suit jackets in the 1840s. In contrast we mostly see boys wearing jackets by the 1860s. We are not entirely sure why there was such a difference, The difficulty of sewing jackets at home, the cost of purchasing jackets, and the generally low incomes of Americans before the industrial expansion at mid-century, especially with the Civil War (1861-65).
We note boys wearing stiff collars and cravats or stocks like adult men. The collars do not seem very prominent, but the neck wear usually is. Boys wearing suits almost always had neck wear. Stocks were very common, especially for adults. We notice bother plain and pattern stocks. Black stocks were common, but there were also colored ones. Notice what looks like a dark colored stock the boy here is wearing (figure 1)..
We are not sure just when the vest (waistcoat) first appeared. We see some in the 1830s. We are not yet sure about the 1820s. Vests often had lapels which if you you look closely you can see in the vests that the boys on the previous page are wearing. Vests were commonly cut shorter in the 1840s than modern vests. As you can see here, the vest was an optional garment (figure 1). They were usually as a fashion statement done in a different pattern meant to contrast with the jacket. The vests the boys wear are a good example. The contrast was achieved through both different colors and patterns. This was very common in the 1840s. We are not entirely sure about age trends. One source suggest that boys at At about 12 years of age began wearing vests (waistcoats). We are not sure that there such distinct time lines . Boys were commonly breached at least by 5 years of age. This varied significantly from family to family. Here social class was a factor. After that they might wear tunics. Some parents might skip the tunic stage altogether. We note boys swearing suits with suits by 10 years of age. This probable occurred earlier. Vests do not seem nearly as common as they later became for men or boys. We note plain and fancy vests. A major problem here is that we are not yet able to reliably discriminate between Daguerreotypes taken in the 1840s and 50s. This makes it very difficult to assess the styles of the suits worn in the two decades. Most portraits taken n the v40s and early 50s were Dags, but by mid-decade in the 50s we se many Ambros and and a few tin-types. A good example is Clarence E. Summer, we think in the 1840s. The vests seem highly variable. We note some vests that match the jacket. Others varied with different colors as well as patterns, including loud patterns. The photographic record mostly shoes boys wearing vests as part of suits. Of course that was virtually all studio photography. We do not know to what extent boys wore these vests without their jackets. We know they did not do so to any extent for studio portraits, but whether they did so to any extent in actual everyday life is another issue.
We note boys wearing suit trousers that matched their jackets as well as pants that contrasted with the jackets. Contrasting patterns were very common in the 40s. As far as we can tell the suits were purchased that way. It was not just a matter of boys casually wearing different pants on that day. It was a popular style. We are looking specifically at boys, but men also wore patterned pants. Patterns were not common for the jackets, but they were for the pants. And we commonly see very loud patterns. We do not have a good fix at this time on the relative prevalence of the two options. We think both matching and contrasting pants were fairly common. We think the loud patterns were a break from the 1830s, how great a break we are uncertain. We do note some contrasting pants in the 1830s. And even during skeleton suit era of th earkly-19h century, there were contrasting pants--but no loud patterns. Without photography, assessing 1830s fashions is much more difficult than during the photographic era. We continue to see pants with loud patterns n the 1850s, but the popularity appears o be on he decline during the decade and we no longer see them by the 60s. All the trousers we have found worn with suits in the 40s seem to be long pants. Unfortunately many of the poses provide images in which the pants are not very clearly depicted. THE portrait here is a good example (figure 1). Studio subjects were usually posed seated with the image basically focusing on the torso, The suit pants were more standard than the jackets. American boys at the time wore long pants. We do not yet see any boys wearing shortened-length pants like knee pants or knickers which appear after mid-century and steadily grow in popularity for the rest of the century. This appears to be the fashion in Europe as well. We suspect that Americans in the 40s were still simply following European fashion. The way Dags were commonly posed, we don't get to see much of the pants. So we don't have much detail--except for a glimpse of the fabric patterns.
Navigate Related HBC Pages:
[Rounded crown hats]
[Cut-away jackets ]
[Shirts]
[Button-on shirts]
[Long pants]
Navigate the Boys' Historical Clothing Web Site:
[Return to the Main U.S. 1840s suit page]
[Return to the Main U.S. 19th century cronology page]
[Introduction]
[Activities]
[Biographies]
[Chronology]
[Clothing styles]
[Countries]
[Bibliographies]
[Contributions]
[FAQs]
[Glossary]
[Images]
[Links]
[Registration]
[Tools]
[Boys' Clothing Home]
