Figure 22.--We are unsure about this unidentified image which appars to be French. At first glance the child appears to be a girl.

We are unsure about this unidentified image which appears to be German. The portrait was taken at the Stein studio. The address is difficult to read, but appears to say "Chausscestr 70/7". That sounds rather French to me, but the name Stein and the "str" ending seems German. Hopefully our European readers will provide some insights here. At first glance the child appears to be a girl. The hair style and clothing seems to suggest a girl, but this requires more detailed analysis. This child could be a boy, but we are unsure.

Identity

This portrait is unidentified. The child looks to be about 4 years old.

Chronology

The image is undated. We would estimate that it was taken about 1900.

Country

We are unsure about this unidentified image which we first thought might be French. The portrait was taken at the Stein studio. The address is difficult to read, but appears to say "Chausscestr 70/7". That sounds rather French to me, but the name Stein and the "str" ending seems German. Hopefully our European readers will provide some insights here. We note that this portrait was being sold in Germany, so it does seem to be a German child. A German reader tells us that it is undeed a German street address. Chaussestrasse is German means "broad Street".

Hair Style

At first glance the child appears to be a girl. The long hair and hair bow suggest a girl, but of course in the early 20th chidren, boys might still have long hair. This convntion was perhaps less common, but unknown in Germany. We note the side part, but by the turn of the century, a center part was no longer an exclusvely girl's hair style.

Clothing

The child's pleated, plaid dress seems rather plain with only a lace collar and cuff trim. This dress done looks with its low belt looks rather like a tunic. Certainly dresses in this plain styling could well be worn by a boy at the turn of the century.

Doll

Props often sugest gender in old portraits. child with a doll is oftn a girl. We have, however, noted many images of boys with dolls. We note that the doll does not have long hair. It is dressedin what looks like a dress, but could be a tunic--suggesting a boy doll.

Reader Comments

An American reader writes, "Seem to me to be a boy. Just a hunch, but the belt, collar bow, and doll (short hair and hat) suggest a boy to me."

A French reader writes, "I believe it is probably a little German girl for the following reasons: "In French one says, "Studio Stein" and not "Stein Studio". The indication "Chausscestr. 70/7" probably means "Street Chaussce Number 70". The style of garment is rather German" more than French. At the turn of the 20th century, here little girls more commonly wore English dresses. Long stocking were rare in France. The little girl as an older girl look, the French style was more juvenile look. Normally in French photogrphs it is very easy to identify girls and boys from their clothing. Earlier in the 19th century it was much more difficulr to identify the genbder of children in old photographs."

A Dutch reader writes, "I am almost certain that the image is German on account of the address: Chausseestr. The word chaussee has been widely used in Germany since the Napoleonic wars. It means 'highway". So Chaussee Straße is Highway Street, probably a street near the highway. Another German name, also from the French, is Allee (common in many cities). About the gender of the child I am less sure. It looks like a girl to me."

A German reader writes, "I believe that the child here is indeed a German girl,I believe the doll does suggest a girl, too, because girls usually have dolls, moreover it is a female doll. [HBC note: The doll looks to be wearing a tunic or boyishly styled dress, so we are not positicve that it is a girl doll.]

German Street Names

As HBC readers know, we use our study of fashion and old photographs to better understand the different historical periods. Here we were confussed with the address, "Chausseestr." The "Chaussee" seemed rather French while the "str." was clearly the German abreviation for straße or street. We thought this might mean somewhere like Alsace with both French and German influences. A German reader offers a more insightful assessment, "The page mentioning Chausseestr. turned out to be really interesting! You opened a new research field: "where and why do certain street names occur?". This is easy to find out from an electronic data processing (EDV) directory. This is a German telephone book available on a CD-ROM. I have such a programme containing a telephone and address directory in my computer which is named ClickTel for whole Germany. It also contains a map of Germany where each item you mark in the list is indicated with an arrow. You can search by streetnames in it. For example ClickTel which I just consulted: Over all of Germany, the name "Chausseestrasse" occurs 80 times. Except about 3 in Schleswig-Holstein (in the very North) and one in Lower Saxony, all are situated in an area of 150 km to 250 km (the latter to the North) of, and one in, Berlin. Nowhere else. I mean 150-250 km around Berlin whereby 250 is a kind of extension towards the Baltic Sea--the island of Rügen (Ruegen). To me it seems that this has something to do with the 18th century Prussian fashion to speek French as the most elegant and educated language. I have heard that Friedrich II the Great ( Friederich der Große ), king of Prussia (second half of the 18th century), knew better French than German. It seems that almost all Chausseestraßen are in former basic Prussian state before it expanded in the 19th century. Frederick the Great or one of his predecessors invited Huguenots from France. They were Protestant refugees because they belonged to another christian sect (Calvinists or so) than Ccatholic and were severely persecuted in France. There were anti Protesrtant riots like one especially terrible massacre on St Bartholmew Day. Thus many French Protestants fled France for Protestant countries, including Prussia. They introduced into Germany a lot of French ideas, such as patterns of town and house building etc. A town like Erlangen (which has no Chausseestr) was built by them. Since under the 19th century conditions in the case shown here, the house number was comparatively high, 70, it might have been in Berlin itself. No other big town appeared in the ClickTel list of 80 "Chausseestraßen". In ClickTel I find that nowadays the Berlin Chausseestraße has up to 131 house numbers and many many people living along the whole road (i.e. many telephone numbers). It is one of the big arterial roads of Berlin, I remember that it leads towards Northeast. It seems to be an interesting area where many foreigners and "alternative" people live. There are also 3 or 4 Stein´s there, but far away from number 70, namely close to the center of Berlin, from where the Chausseestraße starts with number 1. Stein is a Jewish name so there almost surely would have been more there before 1933 and the NAZI takeover."