Fogure 1.--This famly snapshot shows three sisters. The photograph is undated, but looks like the 1950s to us. The two oldr girls look to be about 6-10 years old. Thru wear matcjong party dresses with skirts that flared out. This was a popular style at the time.

American girls wore a range of skirted garments. We are developing information on the various skirted garments worn by American girls. Dresses wre of course the standard garment for girls, but skirts were also very imporant. By far the most important was dresses until the late-20th century. American girls like girls in other countries wore dresses throughout the 19th and much of the 20th century. After mid-century girl's clothing became much more diverse. Dresses continued to be standard, but we see girls wearing formerly boys' garments, essentially the reverse of 20th century conventions. We begin to see girls wearing first bloomers and rompers and then shrts in the early-20th century, but this was for play at home or for Girl Scouts and summer camp. After mid-century we begin to see many girls wearing shorts and pants more commonly. Jeans became particularly important. Dresses continued to be widely worn, especially when dressing up. Through the 50s, we see grls wearing dresses and skirts to school, but in the 60s we see girls neginning to wear shorts and long pants to school. At forst this was primry chool girl, bjut by the 70s we see girls in seconday chool wearing pants, espeiallu jeans. This was when we begin to see designer jeans. At first schools had dress codes. but eventually it was left to the children and their parents. Pinafores were commonly worn by grls in the 19th and early-20th century. Smocks were, however, not very common.American girls did not wear two skirted garmnts, kilts and tunics. These were boys' garments.

Dresses

American girls wore a range of skirted garments. By far the most important was dresses until the late-20th century. American girls like girls in other countries wore dresses throughout the 19th and much of the 20th century. Younger boys also wore dresses. http://histclo.com/Country/us/gar/skirted/usgar-dress.htmlWe do not know a great deal about dresses at this time. We believe dress styles were largely set in Europe throughout the 19h century. We do not, however, know to what extent American and European dress styles varied. We want to develop information on fashion trends over time. We also want to see how girls' dress styles compared to adult women's styles. This will be very useful in improving our ability to date old photographs, many of which are not dated. We notice many different styles of dresses. We see Empire dresses, jacketed dresses, A-Line dresses , pinafore dresses, and any other styles. One popular style was sailor dresses. Girls continued to wear dresses in the 20th century. Only after World War II do we commonly see girls wearing other garments. Of course girls still wear dresses, but there is considerable diversity. Some girls prefer dresses. For many girls, however, dresses have become a less important even minor garments, reserved for dress up occassions.

Skirts

Other skirted garments girls wore included skirts. Skirts became a major style for girls and are still widely worn. The skiet was not a child's garment. We note adult women wearing them as well, but they seem more common for girls. We are not sure about the chronology of skirts as opposed to dresses. We are unsure avout the early-19th century. We see girls commonly wearing skirts in the mid-19th centuy. In fact, they seem more common at mod-century than the late-19th century. And we see girls commonly wearing patterned blouses with patterned skirts. By the late-19th century, the comvention of plain, light colored skirts seems mucg more common. The length of the skirts varied, both chronologically as a result of stlistic changes and by age. Most skirts in the 19th century were not pleated. After vthe turn of the 20th century, pleated skirts become more popular. Pleated plaid skirts became popular in the 20th century. Many schools adopted them as a schoolmunifirm, but many girls wore them even not as part of a uniform.

Smocks

Smocks do not seem to have been very common in America, even for girls. We are not sure why that was. Much more common in America as wearing pinfores over dresses.

Pinafores

American girls commonly wore pinafores in the 19th and early-20th centuries. We are not sure about the early-19th century. The painted portraits we hve found to not show children wearing pinafores. We are not sure that this means that pinafores wre nor worn in the early-19th century are the girls and nothers wanted the portraits to show off their best outfits. With the advent of photography we have a much larger image archive. We do not notice pinafors in the early photographic types (1840s and 50s). or even with CDVs (1860s). We think this may be because the children were dressed up for the portraits. We do begin to see oinafores when school photographs behins to become common (1870s). They were definitely worn to school. e see a few studio portraits wih pinafores, but they were not very common even though they were commonly worn to school and we believe around the home. We also see them in the very early-20th century. The pinafores we have seen are white, especially the school pinafores. We believe there were colored pinafores as well, but were much less common. .

Kilts

Some skirted garments were primarily for boys, nut the kilt was a boys' garment. Of course plaid skirts are a fifferent matter.

Tunics

We have found some American children wearing tunics that seem to be girls, although in the early 20th century that was not always possible to tell. Tunics as far as we can tell were always worn by boys in the 19th century. We do not see mail order tunics offered for girls. This may have been a little different in the early 20th century. This was more common in American than in Europe. We think that this might reflect girls wearing hand-me-downs rather than mother purchasing tunics for their daughters. A complication here is that some girls' dresses seem to be styled rather like boys' tunics. This seems to be only the case of the last phase of tunics in the early-20th century. This actually is a development of some importance and occurs at just the time that we stopped seeing little boys wearing girl garmehjts like dresses. Girls in the 19th centuru made no effort to wear boyish garments. It would have been seen as improper. This is in sharp contrast to the 20th century, especially after World war I, where it became increasingly popular for girls to wear boiy gaements. Some of these tunic-looking girl outfits are clearly dresses, but with a variety of tunic elements. Thers are more difficult to descriminate from actual tunic suits. One useful indicator is that boys wore their tunic suits with bloomer knickers in the 20th century and they usually showed below the hem of the tunic. Here the length of the tunics and the bloomer knickers varied. Girls never wore the tunics with bloomer knickers or knee pants.

Created: 2:09 AM 4/16/2017
Last updated: 11:00 PM 9/21/2017