Figure 1.--We know nothing about this boy, except that he was German and photographed in 1915. He looks to be about 13 years old. Image courtesy of Album1900.
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Figure 1.--We know nothing about this boy, except that he was German and photographed in 1915. He looks to be about 13 years old. Image courtesy of Album1900. |
The photograph here is a good example of the images we have noted of German boys wearing long pants suits in the early 20th century. Unfortunately we know nothing about the boy so we can assess the conventions involved with long pants suits.
Perhaps our German readers will have some thoughts on this photograph.
The boy is unidentified. He looks to be anout 13 years old.
All that we know definitively is that the photograph was taken in 1915 during the early years of World War I.
We do not know where the boy was from in Germany. One German reader believes the boy may have been from a rural area or small town.
We know nothing about the boy's family. We wonder what kind of family this boy came from. He certainly looks to be well dressed wih a three-piece suit, high probably detachable collar, and Windsor neck tie. Also note the very adult-looking hat and walking cane. Often a well dressed boy came from an affluent family. Here we are just not sure if the boy cones from a well-to-do family or a working-class family which splurged to buy a suit for the boy.
German families varied as to when they bought a boy his first long pants suit. Many boys this age were still wearing kneepants. We wonder if this boy was purchased a long pants suit when he finished primary school. Boys finished primary school at about age 13-14. This was also about the time that they did their confirmation. Here we do see any props such as a Bible ot prayer book. We know that Germany had a large Socialist movcement. No all boys did confirmation, but the ceremony was still so important that even non-religious families may have purchased a suit for their son at this time.
We are also not sure if the boy's hair cut has social-class connotations. It looks to be a short-cropped hair cut that has been allowed to grow out.
A German reader writes, "Well, my guess is that the boys got their first long pants suit with the confirmation (church event). I do not think that he is too young for that. Yes, the picture scene looks a little rural so maybe he lived not in town
but in the countryside." Another reader writes, "Don't forget we are during the war. A lot of youngers were on battlefront. To be dressed like a male signifies you are a good potential warrior, a man in other words. The boy is dressed very elegantly and he surely represents the ideal teenager in younger boys' mind wearing short pants and long stockings, those garments associated to todlers and little boys. Finally, he is not so far from our today's kids. But there is something false in this "uniform" with the pocket clock of a grandfather ! This dress expresses maturity but the boys has a child face. I have known a lot of infatuated boys like him when I was young. My parents were against this mechanical access to adulthood.
They said:" You will be dressed as an adult when you will prove you are able to do some adult jobs"
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