Figure 1.--This English CDV portrait shows five children, probably with a governess enjoying a donkey cart ride. There are five children, four boys dressed a like and a girl. The children all look younger than 10 years old. The boys mostly wear boaters. The yonger boy wears a sailor hat. The girl wears a fancier style. We know this was a wealthy family because of the grounds and donkey cart for the children. Also this is not a studio pprtrait, but a photographr came to the residence to take photographs. The portrait is undated, but look to us to date to the 1880s.

We see children from families in comfortable cicumstances wearing a variety of headwear, mostly hats. Boaters and sailor styles were populr choives. And we begin to see We do not see many caps except for school caps. The classic peaked cap was widely worn by the 1880s and not only for schoolewear. We are less sure bout the social class conventions. England had made considerable progress by the 1880s in building a free state school system. Another exception is Scottish styles, glengaries and balmorals, made popular by the royal family were an exception. We see some boys wearing what look to us to be adult styles like bowlers, but age specific headwear was more common. We have information on upper- and middle-class fmilies because they could aford to have photographic portaits made. We know less about working-class famoilies because they could least aford to have photographs taken. And of course costs narrowed the heawear choices for working class children.

Created: 4:01 AM 6/26/2017
Last updated: 4:01 AM 6/26/2017