Indian Boys' Clothes: Families


Figure 1.--This portrait was taken in Tamil Nadu State (southern India) in 1941. It shows a middle class family. The children wear western style clothing, but they are barefoot. There parents wear traditional clothes. This was very common at the time.

Family portrait provide useful insights as to how the entire family dressed. Many HBC images are of a single boy. It is interesting to see how boys of different ages, sisters, and parents dressed so we know what fashions were worn at the same time and how trends fluctuated over time. It is interesting to see in India how Western and traditional clothing was mixed. Here we will include images of the entire family as well as just the children of the family. In our small sampeling we notice quite a few large families.

The 19th Century

We have begun to collect information in Indian families. We have found a few images from the 19th century. The British brought photography to India. We do not have any Daguerreotypes or Ambrotype, but presumably some exist. We do begin to see images onece tghe aklbumen process was ontroduced with CDVs and cabibet cards (1860s). We have found on a few early images. Until the late-19th century we see mostly traditional clothing. By the end of the dentury we see Western clothing beginning to be worn. After the turn-of-the 20th century we begin to see many more family images abnd the growing importance of Western styles.

Unidentified family (1880s?)

This unidentifief family portrait shows what is presumably a brahman family. The pooirtrait is undated. We would guess it was taken in the 1880s, but it could have been taken in the 70s. It is difficult to assess dares when the subjects are wearung traditional clothes which changed little over time. The portrait is an albumen photograph. We don't know where exactly the portrait was taken, but we think it was probanly in the south. The family is very traditionally clothed. The father is wearing a white lungi or dhoti and a sort of scarf. He is also shod, but we cannot clearly see what sort of footwear he is wearing. The mother is wearing the sari. It seems to us that, with the sari, she is wearing a very close-fitting shirt. However, traditionally the sari can be worn also as an only garment without other clothes. She wears some necklaces and bracelets and is barefoot. The three children are all bare chested. We can assume that they are also all barefoot, although we can see only the child sitting in the front. All are wearing necklaces. The seated child is a boy (you can also look at the hairstyle) and the child standing in the back seems a girl. I am uncertain about the younger child in the middle. We think, however, that he is a boy, at least because his necklace is like the one worn by the elder brother. The boy in the front seems to be wearing a white dhoti. He is wearing also some bracelets. Probably the girl in the back wears a lungi. We cannot see how is clothed the younger child, but, at most, he is wearing a lungi. In a family so traditionally clothed, the young boy could be wearing only waist laces. Note thge father's anbd older boy's hair style. There may be some religious significance.

Unidentified family (1890s?)

This Cabinet Card is an image of an Indian family posing for their portrait. Unfortunately we do not know where it was taken. The photo is also undated. We would guess that it was taken in the 1890s, but as the family wears traditional clothing, this is very difficiult to assess. Perhaps our Indian reader will have a better insight as to the date. The family looks like an affluent one. We can see many differences between the children in the photo. A boy wears a jacket and long trousers (and he is also the only shod in the photo). We would guess that he attends an English school, probably the only child in the family to do so. Another boy wears only the lungi.

The 20th Century


Tamil Nandu family (1941)

This pprtrait was taken in Tamil Nadu State (southern India) in 1941 (figure 1). It shows a middle class family. The children wear western style clothing, but they are barefoot. There parents wear traditional clothes. This was very common at the time. I am not sure why this was. Perhaps the Western clothing was more practical. Or perhaps the children wore Western style school uniforms. The older daughter, however, wears traditional dress.

Unidentified Family (1940s)

We notice three children of an unidentified Indian family. The portrait is undated, but looks rather like the 1940s to us. It would seem to be a rather prosperous, Westernized middle-class family. Note the boy and the younger girl wears Western dress. The teenage girl wears a traditional sari. The boys wear a white shirt abd short pants with white socks and leather shoes. The leather shoes in particular show a degree of affluence abd Westernization. The girl wears a diaphonous dress. It is not styled like a sari, but the fabric is similar.

Karnataka village family (1987)

The result of the free market economic reforms begun in the 1990s has been an enormous expansion of the Indian economy and growth of a prosperous middle class. India's economy today is probably the most diverse in the world. There is traditional village farming almost untouched by the modern world. The photo shows an Indian peasant family in 1987. It was taken in Kudle, a village in Karnataka. At the time the village had no contacts with the western culture. The image shows the priblenn India faces. The family farmsxa small polt of land. But if the father divides it among his sons, it could not support families. Thus the younger children are forced into the cities to seek jobs.

The 21st Century


Mumbai begger family (2010)

Here we see a beggar family in Mumbai. India is aand of great contrasts. We see great wealth and a rapidly expanding middle class. There remains, however, a vast population of urban and rural poor. And there are many beggars, primarily in urban areas where begging is primarily conducted. Here mother is using her young children as props for her begging. Here mother is with her children and we do not have details about her circumstances. An uneducated woman like this with small children can often earn more money begging than working. In Endia there are often begging gangs and connections with organized crime that prey on children. This young woman seems to be working on her own.

Unidentified southern Indian family (2010s)

This family portrait shows a group of women and children in front of their home. We are not sure just who is who. We see an obvious mother and children. We suspect that another of the women is her sister who may also have children. We are not sure how common these extended family groups are in India. The photograph was taken in Karnataka, southern India. They may be Tamils. The men are absent, except for a man in the background at the right wearing Western clothes. The photograph seems to have been taken right after school. Notice that the women are wearing traditiinal saris and not Westrern dress. The children in contrast are wearing western-styled school uniforms, except for the teenager at the extreme left. We see this quite a bit in India. Women wear sari and the children their Western styled school uniforms. They also commonly have Western-styled play clothes. A few schools have uniform with traditional styles (mostly girls' schools), the vast majority of schools have adopted Western styles.

Street Children

A disussionn of Indian families would be incomplete without mentioning the millions of street children forced to exist without families. Along with all the striking economic successes of modern India, the country continues to have an enormous problem--street children. This is not a problem created by the free vmarket economy. It was problem that has developed as a result of urbanization, especially the vey rapid growth of urbzanization since independence. The driving vforce has been rural poverty. India has the largest population of street children in the world. UNICEF estimates the number at over 11 million and this may be a conservative estimate. Large cities like Mumbai, Calcutta and Delhi are believed to have populations of street children exceeding 0.1 miilion. These children have either run away from their families are been ejectedcby them. Many fathers refuse to restrict the number of children they create even though they do not have the ability to care for them. There are also orphans or children living on the street with their families. There tend to be twice as many boys on the streets as girls because even poor families are reluctant to eject girls. And girls can be placed as servants with more affluent families.







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Created: 3:43 AM 11/18/2006
Last updated: 2:00 PM 3/13/2012