Figure 1.--This brother and sister dressed in matching sailor suits for their portrait. The children are unidentified, the photo is a cabinet card taken by Barrauds Ltd, Oxford Street, London circa 1880s I would estimate from the style of the card. It makes a pleasant change to see a nice smile in a portrait. Image courtesy if the MD collection.

As a general rule English boys as did boys in America and other Europdan countries generally wore shorter hoir styles and their sisters longer hair styles. Very young boys might have long hair, but most boys geberally had their hai cut short at the time of breeching, some well before that. While this is a general rule, there are many instances of boys with long flowing shoulder-length hair, sometimes done in ringlet curls. This was especially the case in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. As many portraits were done individually, we are often not sure how their sisters had their hair styled. We note that in most, but not cases, that we habe observed, their sisters had their hair done differently. This sometimes meant a different style of long hair. In other instances their sisters had their hair cut short. As a result, considerable care has to be exercized in assessing the gender in unidentified old photographs.

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Created: March 28, 2003
Last edited: March 28, 2003