Figure 1.--This CDV shows an unidentified boy in the 1860s. He wears a cut-away jacket suit with long pants. The light-weight material suggests a summer suit. Notice the twin hair parts and peak. Toop curkswee also popular in these hir styles. The boy looks to be about 3-4 years old. Shotened-length pants suits were appering for boys this age, but long pant were still basically standard.

The development of the albumen process and the CDV sharply increased the number of photographic images. As a result, we have archived large number of portaits from the 1860s. We mostly see suits that had jackets matching the trousers in the 1860s. Younger boys might wear one pirce or blouse suits with long pants. This included very young boys. The age of breaching varird consierably from family to family. Some boy weere nreeched quite yoing motly eiyh long pants. Most boys in the 1860s wore long pants. This was especially true in rural areas which were less affected by fashion trends. We see some younger boys wearing shortened-length pants. Many boys began wearing long pants as soon as they were breeched. Some younger boys wore shortened-length pants, but this was not yet stndard. We do not see many boys over age 8 years wearing these shortened-length pants in the 60s. And they wre not as common as long pants. The Lincoln boys, for example, only wore long pants. This was not the case for the more fashionably dressed Davis boys. Most of the boys wearing shortened-length pants wore them with cut-away jackets, but even for younger boys, long pants were the most common with cut-away jackers. We even see boys with ringlet curls wearing long pants. A good examle is an unidentified New York boy. Collar buttoning and lapel sack suit jackets were almost always worn with long pants. We mostly see school-age boys wearing long pants, alythough school photograpy was just beginning.

Created: 11:15 PM 7/11/2022
Last updated: 11:15 PM 7/11/2022