Figure 1.--This cabinet card portrait shows three unidentified children, presumably siblings. They are two girls and a boy about about 5-13 years old. The boy wears a reefer jacket, a popular styl with sailor suit. The girls wear overcoats. The older cirl wears a dark caoat with faux foyble-breasted styling. The younger girl wears a light-colored coat with what looks like a fur muff. The children wears varied headwar, a cap, hat, and bonnet. The older children are weraing gloves. I am not sure what the boy is hilding. The mount amnd clothing suggests the 1900s decade. The studio was Oskar Rothe in Weinböhla, Saxony.

We do not have a lot of German coat gender information yet. We see boys and girls wearing both similar coats and different styles. Our preliminary assessment is that girls more commonly wore overcoats than boys. This was probably because boys were more active than boys, And overcoats were a more restictive garment than jackets. We also notice differences in colors. Boys commonly wore blue or brown coats. Girls were more likely to wear colorful and light-colored coats than boys. Unfortunately the black and white photography common until the late-20th cenyry does not provide us much in the way of color information. We can of course destingush light-colored and dark-colored coats. We also yemd to see more fur trim on girls' coats. This may reflect the greater use of fur on women's jackets. And possibly brcause girls could usually be trusted to take better care of their clothes.

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Created: 11:42 PM 4/29/2019
Last updated: 11:42 PM 4/29/2019