Figure 1.--These two unidentified American boys look to be about 5-8 years old. Both wear short pants suits, we think in the 1930s. The youngr boy wears an Eton suit with a peaked cap. The older boy wears a double breasted suit with a flat cap.

The same age convention associated with caps and hats also affected the headwear worn with suits. Many boys only had one hat or cap to wear for both fomal and casual occassions. They probably had special headwaer for winter. Boys from affluent families would have both casual formal headwear. The age conventions for the different type of headwear varied over time. Thus any assessment has to include chronological assessments for each age. Not only did styles change and the age of the boys wearing them, but aftter the mid-20th century, the popularity of all headwear declined especially formal headwear. A few younger boys wore Scottish styles as well as the related tam like the boy here is wearing (figure 1). We also see sailor styles. The sailor suit and sailor headwear became very popular in America for school age boys, but we do not see older boys wearing sailor headwear and outfits as we do in Europe. We see boys wearing rounded-crown hats and peaked caps of different design in the 19th century. We begin to see younger boys wearing very large hats in the late-19yth century. At the turn of the century we see all kinds of different caps without clear age conventions which became more clear cut in 1910s when flat caps became standard wear for boys, including teenagers. At the same time the peaked cap became seen as more of a cap for younger boys, although there were also class conventions. While formal headwear declined after the mod-20th century, we still so see casual styles. Baseball caps became very popular in the late-20th century and boys of all ages wore them.

Created: 6:42 AM 3/7/2014
Last updated: 6:42 AM 3/7/2014