Figure 1.--This serrated edge cabinet card shows the three Walgreen children: Laura Elektra, Anna Petronia, and Floyd Bernard Walgreen. The children look to be about 4-10 years old. The girls wear identical white dresses with hair bows. The older girls has ringlet curls. The boy wears a black Fauntleroy cut-away jacket suit with with knee pants and matching black long stockings. He has a large white ruffled collars and modestly sized floppy bow. As almost universal in America he has high-top shoes. He has short hair. The portrait was taken in 1898. The card is serrated with smooth corners, one of the features that can help date undated cards. Unusually there is no studio information at the bottom of the card. So we do not know where the portrait was taken.

This America serrated edge cabinet card shows the three Walgreen children: Laura Elektra, Anna Petronia, and Floyd Bernard Walgreen. The children look to be about 4-10 years old. Estimating ages is not easy. Genrally speaking, children in a family are usually spaced in 2 year ingrements. They can be shorter intervals, but about 2 years is common in large families. The fact that the boy is so much larger than his sisters suggests a larger interval. Our age 10 estimate for the boy is only an educated guess, but 9 or 10 years we think is a fairly good assessment. The girls look to be about 4-6 years old, but there is clarly more than a 2-year increment with the boy. The girls wear identical white dresses with hair bows. The older girls has ringlet curls. The boy wears a black Fauntleroy cut-away jacket suit with with knee pants and matching black long stockings. These suits were done in various colors. Black was the most important, but not the only color. Floyd has a fancy Faintleroy blouse, often worn with cut-away jackets so the frilly work can be seen to best advantage. The blouse had a large white ruffled collars, fancy work repeated with the front placket. Notice how these fancy blouses had a back flap like a sailor blouse. He also has a modestly sized floppy bow. During the Fauntleroy craze era, these bows were usually larger. As almost universal in America he has high-top shoes. He has short hair. The portrait was taken in 1898. The card is serrated with smooth corners, one of the features that can help date undated cards. We believe that 1898 is on the upper range of these seerated edge cards. Unusually there is no studio information at the bottom of the card. So we do not know where the portrait was taken. All we know is that it was taken somewhere in America.

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Created: 6:24 PM 6/8/2019
Last edited: 6:24 PM 6/8/2019