Figure 1.--Here is an undated colorized portrait of two of the Haight boys. One has finally been breached. We would guess that the prtrait was made about 1870. Notice the boy wears his dress with plain pantalettes and blue long stockings.

A HBC reader has a coolection of portraits from the Haight family, an English family. We do not have any information about the family. Based on the photographs, however, it looks to be quite a prosperous family. The children are all very well dressed in fashionable clothes. All five boys Haight boys wore dresses and long hair until about 8 years of age. At about 5 years of age under their dresses appeared baggy pantalettes. Gradually the boys began to wear suits. Another page shows two of the boys. One in a suit and another wearing a dress. A reader writes, "This costume appeared to be unique to this family. Well I found a match on ebay. The boy appears to be 7 or 8 years old. He wears a dress very similar to the Haight boys and has long hair. The only difference is that his is done up in ringlets." Actually the outfit is not that unusual. We have seen images of quite a few boys dressed like this in the 1860s-70s. We are less sure about the 1850s as fewer photographic images are available. The Haight boys wear pantalettes. The boy ibn the image are reader is referring to wears what look like bloomer knickers.

Created: 3:45 AM 1/6/2005
Last updated: 5:40 PM 1/6/2005