Figure 1.--Here we see three unidetified siblings, probably at a seaside town. Notice the surf in the background. The children look to be about 4-12 years old. they look to be two girls and a boy. Younger boys this age might wear dreses, but their headwear was less likely to be so girlish. The boy weas a plain wide-nrimmed, rounded top hat. The girls wear much fancier more decorative hats. Boys wore caps in the 19th century, but hts eem more common. The tintype portrait is undated, but looks to us like the 880s. ..

Parents had far more choices concerning boys headwear in the 1880s than ever before. We are not sure just why this was. Surely the rapidly expanding American economy was giving a widening sector of society ever more purchasing power. And the clothing industry was expanding with new conpanies widening their product line. The new mail order catalogs also were widening retail outlets. What ever the reasons we note many different styles of headwear for boys. The most common style of headwear seems to have continued to be the rounded-crown narrow brim hat. We see these hats also done with flatened crowns, looking somewhat like boaters with narrow crowns. We also see wider brims than we have noted before. We note boaters. A good example is Edward Wilson in 1882. Wide-brimmed sailor hats were very popular for younger boys. Sailor styles common had streamers. Tams were popular for a while. We first note them in the 1880s. They became seen as more of a girl's garments as did berets which for a while were worn by younger boys. We also begin to note more caps in the 1880s. This is the first time we begin to notice woodsmnen's cap, a kind of baseball styled cap done in plaid. They were not very common at least in studio portraits. They were probably more common when the boys were not dressed up. We also notice some boys wearing syles such as bowlers that that seem rather inappropriate to us today. We see more straw hats than ever before. Again we are unsure just why this was.

Created: 11:57 AM 3/30/2018
Last updated: 11:57 AM 3/30/2018