Figure 1.--Here we see two brothers with their grandfather, probably about 1905. The younger boy wearing the tunic suit looks to be about 3 years old. His brother wearing knee pants looks to be about 6 years old. Photographs like this with brothers gives a good idea about family conventions. In this family, the tunic was clearly a pre-school garment.

We suspect that tunics were a more common school garment in the early 19th century. Very little information unfortunately is available to us on this period. While clothing catalogs show that tunic suits were made in styles up to the younger primary ages, the photographic record suggests that they were most common for pre-school boys. We notice many more photographs of boys wearing tunic suits in the pre-school years, especially boys from about 3-5 years of age. Here we see a 3 year old wearing a white tunic suit in 1904 (figure 1). We see very few boys wearing tunic suits to school in available school photographs, at least in the early 20th century. And these photographs are widely available.

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Created: 8:14 AM 10/27/2008
Last edited: 8:14 AM 10/27/2008