Figure 1.--Here we see an unidentified American child about 1930-35 with her cigar-smojing dad. The child has a rather boyish jacket, but we think that she is a girl. Notice the patterned beret which she probably called a tam. Given Notice how she is wearing the beret. That is another clue that she is a girl. Also notice the rather dressy wjite stockings and more cassual oxcford shoes. The way the father is dressed, it looks like a prosperous upper-middle class family.

The beret was, however, generally considered in America as girls' headwear. As we have seen in many other instances, garments considered as girlish are usually rejected by boys. American girls wore berets in a wider range of colors. Girls wore them extensively in the 1920s-30s, calling them "tams". We are not sure yet about the 1910s, but the think it was the inter-War era when they wre most popular. We believe the term tam was used much more extensively than beret, at least by the girls. They were worn of the most commonly worn types of headwear by girls. Unlike boys, they were worn by girls of all ages. I'm not sure why they were so popular. Nor are we all together sure the girls saw beret/tams as a French garment. We suspect that this may have been a French influence, however, in France it was mostly boys who wore berets. We are not entirely sure about French girls. We mostly notice dark, solid colored beret. There were patterned berets, but I don't think thst they were very common.

Created: 11:01 PM 12/16/2009
Last edited: 11:01 PM 12/16/2009