Figure 1.--Scottish dress was so popular in Canada among families od Scottish ancestry that even parents wuth daughters wanted to outfit the children in Scottish outfits. Here all the children look to be in Highland outfits, but there are little details maintaining traditions. The boy and girls have different bonnets (Scottish term for caps.) Actually both the Glengary and Balmorl were worn by both genders, althouh the Glengary had sommewhat more military hence boyish look. were male garments, but the idea here was gender differentiation. Even so the cildren all wear black velvet jackets and lace collars. Notice that the girls do not have sporrans and are wearing plaid skirts and not kilts. We believe that the older child is a girl, even though ringlets were popular for boys at the time, but if the child was a boy he would have had a sporran. The cabinet card portrait is undated, but we would guess was taken in the 1880s. The studio was Senior in Exeter Huron, Ontario.

Canadian Kilts: Gender

The kilt was an exclusively male garment in Scotland. And Scottish migrants brought the kilt to Canada . The British acquired Canada shortly after Culloden (1746) and the resulting suppression of the Highland Clans and Highland Clearances that drove the Scotts to America and Canada. Girls in Scotland wore a variety of dresses as well as blouses and long plaid skirts. Girls did not wear kilts like boys even in fairly modern times. Only in the 20th century did aartan skirt bcome a mainstay for girls wear and popular as school wear. One sources reports, "Traditionally, women and girls do not wear kilts but may wear ankle-length tartan skirts. A tartan sash or shawl may also be worn. Women may also wear dress tartans which are modified versions which include white in place of a more prominent colour." We note that in dancing competitions that boys and girls wore destintly different outfits. As for kilts in Canada, at aitance from Scotland, some parents with Scottish heritage appear to have moved more toward likts or at least plaid skirts than was the case in Scotland. We note a similar trend in England. This may have been most pronounced in fmilies with daughters rather than sons. Even so we notice the tendency to maintain some gender distinctions in Highland outfits. We almost never, for example, see girls with sporrans when wearing Scottish dress. The unidentified Ontario children here are a good example (figure 1).







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Created: 9:53 AM 5/19/2016
Last updated: 9:53 AM 5/19/2016