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sailor suits: American styles -- sailor pants trousers long pants long trousers ages
American Sailor Suits: Long Pants--Ages
Figure 1.--Were we have a colorized cabinet card with little information. It looks like a 1900s decade card. The boy wears a classic sailor suit and broad-brimmed hat. At the time, knee pants were almost universal for American boys. Except for rural boys wearig ioveralls, sailor suits were virtually the only outfits with a long pant option for boys. There is writing on the back, but just mom's name and probably an uncle the portrait to which the card was being sent. We think it says For Charles Lmeback From Emma Shuller."
The first sailor suit for boys was made with long pants because it was made for Prince Berie to emulate Royal Navy uniforms (1840s). The British Royal Family dressed the princes in sailor suits styled like Royal Navy uniforms which of course meant long pants. American mothers followed this precedent when they began dressing their boys in long pants. And knee pants were just beginning to be worn when the sailor fashion first crossed the Atlantic and began to be worn in America. Gradually knee pants became increasingly important and by the late-1890s virtually universal for Ametican boys. At the time, American boys mostly wore long pants. Interestingly, some sailor suits were available in long pants at times in which younger boys rarely wore long trousers. Thus the variety of pants worn with sailor suits was more varied than with standard sack suits. Gradually knee pants suits became more common, but long pants suits never disappered. Presumably long pants were acceptable because this was what actual sailors wore with their uniforms. We see many boys in both the late-19th century and the early-20th century wearing long pants sailor suits at a time that most boys did not wear long trousers.
