Figure 1.--The girl here not only has a huge fabric hat, but still has a hairbow. Note the lace collar. Her big brother wears a saucer sailor cap with the 'HMS Goliath'--a new, but pre-Dreadnought battleship. Both wear warm overcoats with fur collars. Notice the girl's lace collar and floppy bow. The children look to be about 5-8 years old. This postcard-back prtrait was taken in Russia, but the writing is in English. It was Christmas/New Year card sen in 1905. The writing is hard to read. It seems to be signed something like Albrir Loeleul. The children were Jack and Florrie. Click mon the image to see the writing on the back.

The saucer caps were introduced we think in the 19th century, we are not sure just when. They appeared in America as they were adopted by the U.S. Navy at mid-century (about 1860). As in America, however, we do not see many boys wearing these caps until the late-19th. This may be because it took some time for the sailor suit to be widely nadopted. And the saucer cap for some reason did not seem as popular at first as other available sailor headwear alternatives. Our English archive is not as large as our American archive, this may simply relect the smaller number of available images. As a result, we are not at all sure at this time about the chronology of these caps in England or how common they were. We see them into the early-20th century. An English family in Russia sent a portrait bhome with a boy wearing a saucer sailor cap (1905). Here we see a post card with an undivided back (figure 1). The U.S. Postal Service began to allow divided backs so that ssome of the back could be used for a message. We are not sure when this began in Russia, but believe this change occurred at about the same time throughout Europe.

Created: 1:53 AM 11/3/2018
Last updated: 1:53 AM 11/3/2018