Figure 1.--The main religion in Portugal is Roman Catholicism. This photo was taken in Mora, Alentejo region, during the mid-1910s. It shows a group of children after the Resurection Mass (Easter). They are going through the streets ringing little bells. Most of the children wear stocking caps, but we see other caps and one boy wears a broad-brimmed hat. The boys wear long pants and most are barefoot. Two boys wears smocks, one with long stockings and shoes and the other is barefoot. Boys might wear smocks for school, but wearing smocks for play was less common and this of course was not a school day. The boys with shoes probably belong to more affluent (or less poor) families. Presumably the boys are wearing their best clothing for Easter.

Various terms were used for smock in Portuguese, including guarda-pó, avental, bata, and jaleco. We are mot sure at this time about the usage of these different terms. Smocks were not just worn by children, but by factory workers and shop workers, commonly women. The different Portuguese terms probably involve the different terms. We do not have a large Portuguese archive and thus cannot make any substantial assessment of smock trends in Portugal at this time. We have found very few images of Portuguese children wearing smocks, but this seems to reflect our small archive. We can not yet say how common they were. We note one image of boys wearing smocks while celebrating Easter (1910s). We notice one large Oporto family with most of the boys wearing smocks about 1920. It is not clear if the boys commonly wore smocks for play or if they were still wearing their school smocks after school for some reason. They do not appear to be uniform smocks. We think that smocks were commonly worn to school in the 20th century. They are still worn at some schools, mostly private schools. Other images show boys wearing school smocks, we think in 2000s. We also see boys wearing smocks at summer camps in the 1950s. We are not sure how common that was.

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Created: 10:16 AM 9/7/2018
Last updated: 8:44 PM 10/21/2019