Figure 1.--This is the Acord siblings. We are not sure about the gap in their ages. Perhps one of their parents ws married twice. The younger children look to be about 4-10 years old. They are Vicy Jane Accord (b. 1898), Beulah May Acord (b. 1910), Ruby Jewel (b. 1912) and Charles Haskell (b. 1908). So the photo would have been taken in mid-1910s. Charles is dressed up with bare feet. We believe they were from Hulbert, Cherokee County, Oklahoma.

We continue to see large number of children going bsarefoot in the 1910s. And we also see boys appearing barefoot for relatively formal occassions, at least duting the early part of the decade. This is something we begin to see in the 1900s. We are not seeing that going barefoot was new, that was standard during the 19th century. What is new is having studio portraits taken while barefoot. That is something we do not see to any extent in the 19th century. We are not sure why we suddenly se it in the early-20th century. e do not think it reflects more children going brefoot. Perhaps more loe-cost studios opened. Perhps going barefott for some reason suddenly ws seen as less casul. We are justvunsure. Perhaps readers will have some insights here. We do note that this was ighly regionl, much more common in the South than other regions. It was not unknown in other regions, but much more pronounced in the South than other regions. Here climte was a factor as well a income, but even so not sometung we seein the 19th century. The Texas boy on the previous page wearing a sailor suit in 1910 is a good example. Notice the girls are wearing stockings and strap shoes. Girls also went barefoot, but not as commonly as boys, especually when dressung up. The Acord children here in Oklahoma about 1915 is another good example (figure 1). We see lots of images of girls going barefoot in family snapshots and school portraits. Girls going barefoot while dressing up while not uncommon, was much less common than was the case for boys. What is not clear to us is if going barefoot was more common, but for some reason simply appears in the photographic record at this time. Another example, probably taken by a traveling photiographer, is the Johnson family in 1913. A good indicator of prevalence is school portraits.

Created: 10:15 PM 11/8/2015
Last updated: 10:15 PM 11/8/2015