Figure 1.--This quater plante Daguerreotype shows an unidentifird girl girl and her little brother. We tgink the portrait was taken in the 1850s, but the 1840s or ecven the early-60s is possible. The girl wears a print dress. It is a little difficult to tell, but the boy looks to be wearing a tunic suit with long pants. Note the small lace collar and ortnamental belt. One interesting aspect of this Dag was a beutifully detailed leather case with colored flowers.

The types of pants worn were primarily a chronological matter as to what types of pants were popular at the time. We do not have much information about the pants worn with tunics during the early- and mid-19th century. We think boys at the time mostly wore long pants with tunics. We know relatively little about this because photography was not yet developed. There are many Daguerreotypes showing boys wearing tunics in the 1840s and 50s. Unfortunately, it is often difficult to tell what kind of trousers they are wearing because of the pose and framing. As far as we can tell, the boys mostly wore long pants. We begin to see knee pants and bloomer knickers at this time, but believe that they were mosdtly limited to boys from fashionable, big-city familirs/ The photographic record suggests that long pants seen to be much more common. After the civil War this changed and we no longer see boys commionly wearing tuics with long pants.

Created: 3:32 AM 7/17/2010
Last edited: 3:32 AM 7/17/2010