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Most American boys did not wear uniforms to school. Of course the public school system was just begining to develop in the early-19th century. We have relartively little information about the early-19th century, but beginning in the mid-19th century thanks to photography we begin to have nore information available. For the mosdt part we see portraits of childrenb dressed for school, primarily city children. By the end of the century we begon to see school portraits, some tomes showing the school in the background. There are few inside photographs until the turn of the 20th century.
The the imagery primarily shows the children rather than the schools. This we can not glean as much information about education as we would like. But we can certainly see how the children dressed for school. We see almost no children wearing uniforms in the early 19th centuty. The one exception was military schools. We are not sure when the first military school was founded. but we know they existed before the Civul War. We note some private schools organized along English lines. Again we are not sure when they were founded, but they were well established by the late-19th century. With these exceptions, children wore their own clothes throughout the century. Thus school clothes were a good reflection of the fashions of the day. We also have a section on individual schools during the 19th century.
Without photography we gave only a few painted images of early-19th century schools. Thanks to the Northwest Ordinance (1787), America even before the Constitution began to create a public school system, one if the first in the world. Schools were created in rural areas as the frontier relentlessy moved West. They normally began as one room schools and expanded as communities grew.
Photography began with the development of the Daguerreotype in France (1839). Within months, studios began opening in America. America from an early point would develop the largest photiographic industry in the world (1840s). The Daguerreotype was the only photographic process of anyb imprtance throughout the 1840s. We do not see school portraits ar first because photograohy was so new. But also the early photographic processes like the Daguerreotype only created on image. So images coukld not be sold to parents. So at first we only have images of children, mostly noys, in theitr school clothing. At the time, while American primary schools were coeducastional, few girls continued their education beyond the primary years. American children wore their regular clothes to school. Oliver Twist caps were popular for boys, a military style appearung during the Napoleonic War. Tunics were worn earlier. We are niot sure about the 1840s.
America was still largely rural in the 1860s although manof the major cities were well etablished. Industry had begunto grow in the North, but most Americans lived on farms or in small towns. As a result, most Americans received their education in small one or two room schools. Thus the children of different ages had the sanme teacher. Classroom manaagement was a major undertaking. The teachers before the Civil War (1861-65) were mostly male, but by the Civil War we begin to see more and more lady teachers, almost always young single women. Education played a major role in the women's movement. Because Protestants believed it was necessary for individuals to read the Bible, both boys abd girls weeceducated, at lear at the prinmary level. Even in conservative communities there was no reluctance to sending girls to primary schools. And thus eduction would be the first pression to open up to women. Some times more girls attended school than boys who were needed on the farm. Books were still exopensibe and in limited supply. The children learned from a blue back speller, a new England primar and the Bible--almost always the King Jamese Version. The childtren did exercizes with chalk slates. The teacher might hve a blackbiares, often wooden planks painted black. The monthly schedule varied. Especially during the charvest time the older boys were needed on the farm. The boys commonly wore suits with long pants. Younger boys might wear bloomer knickers, but long pants were much more common. Girls wore dresses often with pinafores.
We see some school portraits from the 1870s, but not very many. It does not yet seem common to have class porteaits made. The system of public schools had begun to take shape in the United States by the 1870s. Here the Homstead Act (1863) plyed an important role as it provided for a school allotment in the sakle of homesteads. Even the the Southern states begn to found public schools. The images we have found show the boys wearing suits with long pabts except for the very youngest boys who wore knee pants. Several of the 1870s images are private schools, presumably because the families of boys at private schools could more easily afford to ay for the portraits.
We begin to see many more school portraits in the 1880s but the number is still relatiely limited. The comvention of the school portrait was just beginning to become established. We are not entirely sure why this did not occur earlier. We suspect that the technology of operating outside studios was still fairly complicated. This made the portraits still fairly expensive. Portraits seem more common at private schools than public schools for economic reasons. This presumably reflects the fact that the school portrait was still a fairly new feature and children at private schools were more able to pay for it. We mostly see boys wearing hats. There were caps, but hats dominated. We see boys wearing a range of outfits, but mostly suits. This was the standard wear. We see both collar buttoning and lapel jackets. Many were worn with vests. We also see jackets that look like short tunics. We see larger white collars. Fauntleroy suits begame a major style, but we do not see mamy at school given the age range of Fauntleroy outdits. We do begin to see some sailor suits. Boys mostly wore long pants suits, but younger boys especially in the city might wear knee pants. As the century developed we see older boys wearing knee pants. By the end of the decade knee pants were becoming standard, but not yet common for teenagers. The girls all wore dresses, often wih a pinafrore. Knee pants were worn with long stockings, mosthy black long stockings. We primarily see high-top button shoes for both boys and girls.
School portraits by the 1890s had become very common. Photography improved and had become incerasingly affordable. We see class portraits from all over the country, including one-room schools on the rapidly shrinking western frontier. We see boys commonly wearing suits to school, even in country schools, although there boys in warm weather commonly just wore blouses and knee pants. We still do not see many boys wearing overalls. Rather the boys are for the most part dressedup to go to school. Nor do we see many Fauntleroy suits, even though the 1890s was part of the Fauntleroy era. We do see many boys wearing Fauntleroy items, including Fauntleroy blouses abd floppy bows. Notive the number of colored blouses. Many boys wore straight-leg knee pants, especially in city schools. Knickers were not very commonabd we do not see them at private schools as was the case in Britain. The type of pants did vary. We see boys at some schools wearing long pants, but by the 80s this was not very common exceot at rural schools. Most boys. if they did not drop out earlier, ended their schooling in 8th grade (about age 13 years). The secondary school sytem was expanding. And in the 90s, knee pants were common even at these schools, but for the most part the older boys were wearing long pants. We are not entirely sure why there were such variations. Age of course was a factor. Boys and girls commonly wore long stockings. Black long stockings were especially common. Many younger boys wore blouses with large collars, sometimes ruffled Fauntleroy collars. We also see sailor suits, especially in urban schools. Sailor suits are not as common as one might think, in part because it appears to have been more of an urban, middle-class fashion. Girls wore dresses, often with pinafores, but this varied. We see some schools wghere the girls are not wearuing pinafores. Some children came to school barefoot, especially in rural areas, but this was not practgical if long distances were involved.
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