Figure 1.-- This 1/6 plate cased Daguerrotype shows a father and his young son. The boy looks to be about 5-years old. He waes a light-weight summer tunic with long pants. his is the only exaple we have found of such a light-weight tunic. We think this is a 1840s Dag, in part because of the leather tooled case cover. Click on the image to ee the cover.

Most of the tunics we have found had long sleeves. That was the case for all 19th century boys garments except the dresses for younger boys. Girls had short sleeve dresses, but boys and men for whatever reasons all had long sleeved dresses. Tunics were a minor exception. A few were done with half sleeves. They were all cut at lengths well below the waist but above the knee. There was some variation as to how far they came toward the knee, but most were cute well above the knees. The tunic here is relatively short, but not unusual (figure 1). It is falls below the waist, but well above the knees. We also see tunics with different buttoning arrangements. Many had no front buttons, but commonly side buttons. Others were done with front buttons like jackets. We are still working on the prevalence of the different constructions. Our number of 1840s images is still limited. And we need a certain number of images before we can draw valid assessments. We also have the problem of differentiating 1840s and 1850s Dags as so few Dags are dated.

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Created: 1:38 AM 4/19/2025
Last edited: 1:38 AM 4/19/2025