American Barefoot Trends: Gender


Figure 1.--This wonderful American images shows two brothers and a sister with a litter of puppies. Theyounger boy in knickers is barefoot. His sister and other brother in kneepants wear shoes. The postcard is undated, but we would guess the photograph was taken about 1910. Inscribed on the back, "Jim, Jerry and Belle and their little dogs" Notice that the girl's hair is not done much differently than that of her brothers. Image courtesy of the MD collection.

Both boys and girls went barefoot in America, but we seem to see more boys than girls in the available photographic record. Here we think that accepted gender roles were a factor. It was accepted that bous were wilder and were freer to engage in adventuresome outdoor activities. There was also a question of toughness and manliness for many boys. Girls on the other habd were expected to be more demure and take more care with their grooming and how they dressed. Many very young girls in the 19th century when barefoot, but it was much less common for older girls. This changed in the late 20th century and it is now much more common to see girls goung barefoot than boys.

Reader Comments

As with many images on HBC, there are usually interesting aspects besides the one that we may single out to highlight. A Canadian reader asks, "Was it common for girls to have such short hair cuts?" Here we simply do not know. We have noted a lot of girls with short hair cuts at this time. This girl has rather shorter hair than most. We are not sure just what the conventions were for girls' hair. Some girls had long hair which they wore with haifr biows. I suspect having two brothers may have been a factor with this girls' hair, but we have no specific information about the image. Also notice that she seems to be wearing a colored pinafore.






Christopher Wagner





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Created: August 27, 2002
Last updated: August 27, 2002