Figure 1.--This cabinet portrait shows an unidentified boy wearing a sailor cap with a polkadot blouse. He sports a large hankerchief in his pociet, and he looks directly into the camera with a little good-natured smile. Notice the large collar. The studio was J. B. Parker, Columbus Ohio. Curiously the portrait was not taken in the studio. We are not sure if Mr. Psarker went around the neighborhood or if the boy's father took snapshots which Mr. Parker developed. The portrait is undated, but we would guess was taken around the turn-of-the 20th century. The boy stands on the family porch stairs of a clapboard house. A eader points out, "The blouse fastenings here are interesting. They look like toggles rather than buttons. Toggles, though would have a loop to attach the toggle. Here the toggle in sinserted through the button hole like a cuff link."

Geomertric shapes were one of the most popular pattern. By far the most important were poladots. We notice polka-dots meaning fill-in circles. They were done in many various sizes. We also notice poladots beeing used on bows. Other geomeric shapes were used, including diamonds and triangles. There may have been other patterns besides these basic geomeric shapes, but polkadots were the most important. Most of these geomertric shap patterns were done on white shirts. But we also see them done with colored shirts. Plain shirts were the nost commn, but we see quite a number of polkadot shirts. We are not yet sure about te cronology of polkadot blouses. We think it was a style mostly worn during the 1880s-1900s, but this needs to be confirmed. We are not sure about the gender conventions.

Created: 11:06 PM 3/5/2010
Last updated: 6:43 AM 3/6/2010