Figure 1.--Here we see an unidentified family, we think in the 1880s. It is a rare family portrait with all the children wearing pinafores. We believe this was much more commom than suggested by the photographic record. Notice that this appears to have been a portrait mafe at a very basic studio. We suspect that this was a working-class family and perhaps an unplanned portrait.

Our information on pinafores in the United States is very limited. This is because HBC relies heavily on the photographic record. And in the 19th century when pinafiores were mostly worn, this primarily meant studio portraits. Mothers of course wanted for the children to look their best for a portrait and dressed them up in their best outfits. Thus we believe thst the the photographic record is not a good reflection of just how prevalent pinafores were. We think they were almost certainly much more common then suggested by the photographic record. The standard photographic record meabing studio photogrphy suggests that pinafores were not very common, even for girls. As adults and children dressed up in their best outfits when going to a studio. The pinafore was a utilitarian garment designed to protect clothing. Thus we do not see many in studio portrits. This almost surely was the case for girls. But the lack of images also makes it impossible to assess how common they were for boys. We suspect that many unbbeeched boys wore pinafores over their dresses and skirts at home. We are also unable to make any assessments about demographic trends, such as disparities between urban and rural areas. We also have no personal accounts about American boys wearing pinafores to supplement the photographic record. There is one important supplement to 19th century studio photogtrphy. That was school portraits which by the end of the century had become important. And this does show large numbers of girls wearing pinafores, but only girls. A good example is an unidentified Maryland school in 1900.

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Created: 7:12 AM 8/27/2010
Last updated: 11:32 PM 7/14/2017