Figure 1.-- This old French post card is only identified "Arab boy". France at the time controlled Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco. We are only guessing that he may be Algerian. The dealer handling this photograph advises, "I'm 80 percent certain this is from Algeria as it came with a folio of 150 photos that are definitely from Algeria." We do not have any information concening clothing differences between the three colonies at the time. Hopefully HBC readers will provide some insights here. Notice the dark cast of skin. We believe that this is exagerated by the film used to take the photograph.

Algerian children in fural areas were more likely to wear traditional styles. We do not have details at this time on these traditional styles. We have some images such as the one here showing Algerian children. Sometimes we notice the children wearing a mix of clothes. Note the boy here is wearing a French-style jacket (figure 1). We do not know the names of the traditgional clothes we see the Algerian children wearing. Another question we have is if there were differencies within Algeria. We do not know, for example, if the settled Algerians wore the same styles as the bedouins. Hopefully an Algerian reader will provide us some insights here. One Algerian style was adopted by French mothers. A baby garment had an Algerian origin and is called : "Burnou". It was popular with French mothers from the early 20th century through the 1960s. It was a sort of cape with a hood made in wool. This garment waas very practical: quick put on and take off. It was elegant with the baby dresses or rompers . Normaly two pompons were place at the neck and one other at the hood." Children in rural areas were more likely to dress in traditional clothing.

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Created: 6:31 PM 11/12/2004
Last updated: 4:37 PM 11/13/2004