Figure 1.-- This unidentified American boy wears a tweed double-breasted jacket suit. The portrait is undaed but looks like the 1930s to us.

Double-breasted jackets appeared we think in the 1870s. Before that boys wore single-breasted jackets and other styles like cut-away jackets. We still need to work out the chronology in more detail. Quite young boys might wear double breasted jackets. We note younger boys with double-breasted kilt suits. We note some collar-buttoning jackets in the late 19th century styled like double-breasted jackets. A good example is an American boy about 1890. Double-breasted suits were popular in the ealy 20th century. We see many American boys wearing them. Manybys had double-breasted suits for formal occassions. A good example is is John Czechatowski, A Polish-American boy in 928 doing his First Communion. We see double-breasted suits commonly in First Communion portraits like this. Double-breasted jackets were popular through the 1940s. After World War II, boys tended to wearmostly single breasted suits, although suits became less common for boyswear. There was a brief revival in the 1970s.