Figure 1.--Here we see an unidentified American boy in the 1900s. He looks about 7-years old. The portrait is undated, but as it is an AZO post card (four up trisngles), it woulf have been taken sime time during 1904-18. We think the period before World War I is the most likely. This was a side-nuttoning blouse. Note the flopy bow and Eton collar. He is also wearing dressy long stockings (proably silk) and strap shoes.

As blouse suits ha matching tops and bottoms that mean a relatively heavy top. Blouses normally used shirting mateial, meaning a heavier fabric than the pants. As a result, the suiTs were primarilly a fall and winter outfit. We ALSO note the blouse suits were often made with knickers rather than knee pants. This followded the tunic suit concention, they were mostly done wih bloomer knickers. This helps date the images. Knickers bascally become standard wear in the 1910s. And most of the blouse suit images we have found seem to date to the 1910s or the late-1910s/early-1920s. Tunic suits at the timewere mostly going out of style. Most of the styling was dome on the top. There were no destinctive blouse suit botoms. We are, however, still working on this topic and do not yet have sufficent images to build a reasonable chronology.

Created: 1:32 AM 11/23/2024
Last updated: 1:32 AM 11/23/2024