Figure 1.--HBC has found a portrait of an unidentified American boy. He looks to be about 5 years old. He has shoukder-length hair, but they are not done in ringlets. He seems to be wearing a dark forrest green velvet smock. The garment is not shown in detail, so this is only a guess.

We will collect here personal expeiences we can find as well as images of specific families or individual boys which we have analized on separate pages. Most of these images or accounts come from the 19th century. In some cases all the children wore matching smocks.

Cocroft Family (1886)

Mrs. Cocroft of Staten Island in 1886 carefully dressed her nine children and picturesquely arranged them in a sumac tree. Note all the children, except the oldest girls, are outfitted in white smocks--including all the boys. Mrs Cocroft looks rather young, more presumably followed. It is difficult figuring out who is who in her family. She describes the children as "born as close together as nature permits". Mrs. Cocroft appears to have been particularly parcial to white smocks, presunmably the laundry load was a factor here even if she had help. The family is a good example as to how large 19th century families could be.

Another Family (1880s)

We notice another American family, we believe in the 1880s wearing smocks. We have lost the name of the family, but believe it was a wealthy family. The smocks are identical and were some dark color, buto I am not sure which.

Unidentified Boy (1890s)

HBC has found a portrait of an unidentified American boy. He looks to be about 5 years old. He has shoukdervlengtryh hair, but they are not done in ringlets. He seems to be wearing a dark forrest green velvet smock. The garment is not shown in detail, so this is only a guess. Boys did not normally have their portrait s done in smocks, but this looks to be a rather elegant smock. An E-Bay seller identified it as an ante-bellum portrait, but it looks more recent to us. The large Eton-like collar suggests the 1890s.

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Created: December 21, 2003
Last updated: December 21, 2003