Figure 1.--Willie is pictured here at about 11 years of age, shortly before he died. He wears a stsbdard collar-buttining jacket with brass buttoins. Mary added a white collar and elongated stock. He hs one button, unbuttoned, but not one of the middke buttons where a hand was often inserted--the Napoleonic pose. Like all the Lincoln boys it us a long pants suit. Note the hat he is holding. It looks like a straw hat.

Willie by about 5 or 6 years of age is wearing juvenile cut-away jackets with Eton collars and long pants which we see on the previous page. He wore a jacket which was popular in the 1850s and 1860s with a jacket wore open or partially closed. He does not wear a bow with his Eton collar. Willie's jacket has one button holding it closed in the middle. Other boys at the time wore a similar jacket with a closing button only at the collar and the two sides completely separate at the bottom. Willie by 8 or 9 wears increasingly adult looking, rather nondescript suits. We note him ewearing collar-buttoning suits with a long column of brass buttons, rather a military look (figure 1). This had been a standard style for boys since the 1840s. The primary variation was the collar. Mary seems to have preffered the white collar for the boys. This wa sa juveile style. Adult men wore lapel jacket suits, but we only notice Wille and Tad wearing these collar buttioning suits, usually with a white collar. We are not sure about the color. They may have been blue, but we are not sure. Much fancier styles had begun to appear in the 1860s. As fashionable as Mary was, you might expect one of these fancier styles for the boys. But probably these styles were not yet popular in the Midwest and by the time she and the boys got to Washingtoin, it was too late to change. All of the available images show all the Lincoln children wearing long pants suits.