Figure 1.-- Here we see Willie and his cousin in their fancy velvet Fauntleroy outfits for an episode of 'Little house on the prarie'. Fauntleroy suitswere mostly worn with black long stockings. White long stockings were worn by boys in the 1860s, but mostly appeared after the turn-of-the-20th century.

The first years of 'Little house on the prarie' were full of girls, but Michael Landon eventually added a boy to the series presumably to broaden its appeal. In one 1978 episode a spoiled Eastern boy makes a one-time appearance. He was expelled from his pretigiousv military school. For some reason many American privare schools were military schools. His uniform was not like the uniforms of actual Ameican miltary schools. He was sent to live with his uncle. This of course was the store keeper with his obnoxious wife. The wife of course is the perfect overbearing female to put a boy in the hands of. The nephew arrives in a velvet suit and lace collar. The episide is 'The Stranger' (S4E19). The suits in his episide are obviously meant to be a Fauntleroy suit. The lady soon has her son in a similar velvet suit, to the boy's great horror. She orders it by mail. Period mailorder catalogs were full of Fasuntlerroy outfit offerings. She rushes up to Wille's room with his new suit so he can try it on. Willie of course is agast. In another scene he purposefully gets into a fight with the local boys knowing what will happen. They rip the suit off him, ruining the suit and slap him with mud. The bullies who attack Willie even call him 'His Lordship'. The episode is set in 1876, while Little Lord Fauntleroy was not published until 1885. The suits the boys wear have very modest collars, nothing like the Fauntlroy collasrs appearing in 1885. One fan writes, "Walnut Grove was ahaead of its time." But boys wore fancy velvet suita before the advent of 'Little Lord Fauntleroy'. The cosuming in LittleLord Fauntleroy is generally correct. We begin to see younger American boy wearing knee pamys (1860s) and they gradually grew in popularity, but mostly with fashionable city families. We begin to see boys in rural areas wearing knee pants, but the dashion was slower to castch on han in rural areas and less common with older boys even wnen knee oants became sandard in the cities. Peter Billingsly, Clay O'Brian, Matthew Labrouioux (young Charles).

Created: 5:39 PM 3/6/2026
Last updated: 5:40 PM 3/6/2026