Figure 1.--Here we see an unidentified American boy in the 1900s. He looks about 7-years old. The portrait is undated, but as it is an AZO post card (four up trisngles), it woulf have been taken sime time during 1904-18. We think the period before World War I is the most likely. This was a side-nuttoning blouse. Note the flopy bow and Eton collar. He is also wearing dressy long stockings (proably silk) and strap shoes.

The blouse was primarily a shirt-type garment, ususlly worn with trousers of some kind in a heavier materil. They were worn by both chidren and women. A shirt-type blouse was usually a dressy garment hile a shirt could be either dressy or casual. It often differed from a shirt because it did not have tails. We note seversl different styles. This was the most common type of blouse and what is commonly meant by the term blouse. The other type of blouse was a blouse suit. this was a blouse with pants mde in he same material. They were often similar to tunic suits. The blouse was shorter than the tunic, but otherwise the garments looked very similar. We wonder if theuy could be worn as either tunic or bloused to be worn as a blouse suit. We are not sure about that. A tunic seems too long to be worn as a blouse. And they woud require draw string. They were often worn with detachable collars. They were less common than the standard blouse, but we note them in the late-19th and early-20th century. There were several different types. We note Buster Brown and sailor styles. They were done for younger boys up to about 8 years, although that is only an initisl assessment. Given the heavy materisl used for the blouse, it would have mostly been a fall-winter style.

Created: 5:26 AM 1/3/2010
Last updated: 5:26 AM 1/3/2010