Figure 1.--This family photograph, taken during 1899 in Wolf Springs, Lawrence County, Alabama, is one of many examples of portraits in which everybody dreses up or the occasion, but boys often didn't put up the shoes. In this case only one boy is barefoot, but often all the younger boys are barefoot. This is simething you do not often see in earlier decades, but begins to become quite common after the mid-1890s as portaits around the home become more common. In th1900s we even see many studio portraits with barefoot boys. Notice that this quite obviously a well-off family. There is no doubt the boy had shoes and tockings, he just didn't want to wear them. And mother didn't have any problem with it.

America by the 1890s had gone through a remrable transformation. About half of the contry now lived in the large industrial cities. And the country had developed a large affluent middle class. we continue to see boys in rural areas going barefoot. A good example is a 1896 Boisseau painting. Thus while going barefoot in the summer was still common, it was not nearly as common as it once was. It is interesting to note how many boys, even working-class boys, that wore shoes. We see this both in 1890s school portraits and in the 1900s images of child labor that were taken in the 1900s. Many of these children are barefoot, but it is interesying to note sjust how many wear shoes. Most of the city newsies, for example, wear shoes. Interestingly, we seem to see more barefoot portraits in the 1890s and 1900s than before or after. We are not sure why. We do not believe that going barefoot was more common than in the early- and mid-19th century. It was probably less common for a variety of reasons (urbanization, higher incomes, more comfortable shoes, ect.). We believe we see more barefoot images because we supect two factors at play. One was the declining cost of a photographic portrait. The other was that there were more opportunities, such as itinerate photographers and studios set up in places like county fairs and photographs around the home. This is, however, an issue we are still working on. A good example is the Kemp brothers in 1898. Barefoot portraits are more common in bare-bones portraits like this than in established studio portraits. What is paricularly notable is that we begin to see large numbers of boys dressing up for formal portraits, but barefoot. The Alabama family here in 1899 is a good example (figure 1). A reader writes, "By the end of the century shoemaking machinery had been developed that greatly reduced the cost of children's shoes. And they were much more comfortble than early mass produced shoes. I wonder if there is a connection with encouraging children to wear the 'new' style sandals by calling them 'Barefoot Sandals'? I have traced this name back to 1901."