Figure 1.- This cabinet card portrait was patly damaged in fire. It shows three Akron brothrs who look to be about 3-8 years old. The two older boys are wearing identical collar-buttoning Norfolk jackets. The boys have modest bows done rather like stocks. The portaits are undated, but look to as if they were taken about 1880, although the creases in the trousers make us think it was taken in the 1890s, perhaps the late-90s. The studio was done by A.W. Simon in Akron, New York.

The Norfolk style was primarily worn by school-age boys which means boys beginning about 6 years old. But we begin to commnly notice Norfolk suits with boys about 8 years old, a few years after beginning school. This appears to have been the convention from the time the Norfolk style appeared after the mid-19th entury. Our iniitial assessment is that Norfolk suits were most common for boys about 8-15 years of age. This is just an initial assesment but most of the images we have archived so far falls into that range, but we have found a few showing younger boys. We see New York boys wearing classic collar-butoning Norfolk suits, we think in about 1880 (figute 1). Another cabinet card shows New York boy, Austen Fox wearing Norfolk suits in the 1880s and early-90s. He looks to be about 8 years old in the first portrait we have found. We hope to develop our age assessment more precisely as HBC expands. We can esimate within a fair degree of accuracy, but we seek to find dated images to get a more definative age assessment.

Created: 2:02 AM 10/31/2024
Last updated: 2:03 AM 10/31/2024