We are not sure what style of hats boys wore in the early 19th century. Boys wore three-corner hats in the 18th century, but we are not sure what style of hat replaced them. We see men wearing top hats, but very few imahes if boys wearing them. We note boys in the early 19th century wearing peaked caps, sometimes with tassles, but we are less sure anout hat styles. This was a military style from the Napoleonic Wars. Our information on the early 19th century is very limited, orimarily becaue photography was not yet developed. The first specialized children's hat was probably the wide-brimmed sailor hat made popular in England and worn by American boys through the early 20th century. We note a lot of boys beginning in the mid-19th century wearing hats with shallow rounded crowns. We note a number of fashionable headwear styles in the 19th century. Tams were popular for a while, but became seen as more of a girl's garments as did berets which for a while were worn by younger boys.

The 1800s

We are not sure what style of hats boys wore in the early 19th century. Boys wore three-corner hats in the 18th century, but we are not sure what style of hat replaced them. Our information on the early 19th century is very limited, primarily becaue photography was not yet developed.

The 1830s

We see men wearing top hats by the 1830s, but very few images of boys wearing them. Our knowledge of boys headwear is liited because there are virtually no photograohs of boys from the 1830s.

The 1840s

The Daguerreotype priovides us substantial numbers of reliable detailed images for the first time in the 1840s. Studios were rapidly opened throughout America. We note boys in the early-19th century wearing peaked caps, sometimes with tassles. We see these caps in the 40s, but am not sure just when this cap style first appeared. This was a military style from the Napoleonic Wars. They are sometimes called Oliver Twist capa. We are less sure about hat styles. We believe the rounded crown hats first appeared in the 1840s.

Figure 1.-- This American boy we think in a 1850s Daguerreotype wears a military-style peaked cap. This was a style worn by American soldiers in the Mexican War.

The 1850s

Our knowlege of 1850s boys headwear is still very limited. And is complicated by the difficulty in dating the available Daguerreotypes. While Dags cannot be dated very precisely, Anrotypes are much easier to date. We see boys wearing both hats and caps. Hats seem the most common and we see several different types of hats. The most common type of hat in the 1850s was the rounded crown hats we at first noticed in the 1840s. Most of the dags and ambros we have found from the 50s do not show headwear. Thus we are not entirely sure about the range of these rounded hat styles, especially the brims. We also see flat top hats. Boys did not wear the famous stove-pipe caps, but we see some boys with hats much highter than boaters. We are not sure just what to call these hats. As a result of the 49er Gold Rush in Califonia, we begin to see a substanial entry of Ecuadorean straw hats, usally called Panamas. We also notice a few caps, but there was not very many different types. Caps do not seem as common as hats, but they were worn many boys. A peaked military style we first saw during the Napoleonic Wars and wirn during the Mexican War seems ti have been the most common style. The Civil War kepi was not yet worn. The Mexican War wtyle caps were worn in the 1850s, but not very commonly in the 60s. They did not, however, entirely disappear for boys. Both the Federal and Confederate soldiers used the kepi as their uniform caps in the Civil War which began in 1861.

Figure 2.-- Here we see a younger boy in the 1860s wearng the popular rounded crown hat. This boy's hat as a brim that came us quite high. This was a style we do not notice very commonly.

The 1860s

We note a great deal about hat styles in the 1860s because photography became so common place during the decade. Photography existed in the 1850s, but the number of images are relatively small and it was not very common in dags and anbros for boys to wear their headwear. Most portraits did not include the hradwear, but quite a number did and given the number of portraits taken we know a good deal about boys' headwear during the 1860s. Many CDVs takebn during the 1860s are standing portraits (rare for dags and anbros) and quite a number of the standing portraits have the boys holding their headwear, but less commonly wearing it. We note a lot of boys beginning in the mid-19th century wearing hats with rounded crowns. Here the crowns as well as the brims varied widely. Earlier they were well-rounded crowns. By the the 1860s we notice some more shallow crowns. We also notice widely varied brims. These hats are a little difficult to assess becaue they were varied and because photograhy was less common in the 1850s and thus we have fewer images to comare with. These rounded-crown hats were by far the most common style worn by boys in the 1860s.

Figure 3.--This tin-type studio shows us hat styles for women and children. The portrit is not dated, but we believe it was taken in the 1870s. Notice how decorative the ladies' hats are. These are rather vertically orinte, there were also wide-brimmed hats. The children are wearing a boater and a wide brimmed hat. We are not enirely sure if the younger child is a boy or girl.

The 1870s

We note a variety of American headwear stles in the 1870s. Here in this tintype we see a variety of hats worn during the decade (figure 8). Age was an important factor. There continued to be some elaborate styles for infants and todlers. These styles do not seem to be gender specific. We are not sure how to describe some of the headwear, many of which seem to be designed to keep the younger children warm. We see a tin-type of two unidentified children, we think in the 1870s. We see somewhat older American boys wearing caps in the 1870s, but hats as far as we can tell, based on the photographic record , the rounded-crown hat continued to be the most common headwear. We still see many boys wearing a variety of hats with rounded crowns. Both the crowns and the brims varied leading to a variety of hat styles. The first specialized children's hat was probably the wide-brimmed sailor hat made popular in England and worn by American boys. We are not sure when they first appered in America, but we note them by the 1870s and they were worn through the early 20th century. These rounded-crown hats were not the most stylish type, but they were the most coimmon. We note a number of fashionable headwear styles in the 19th century. A good example are the Glengary and sailor caps shown in a 1878 fashion magazine. These styles seem to have been worn by younger boys from fashionable families. These fancy styles do not appear to have been as widely worn as the rounded-crown hats. We notice an unidentified boy with a broad-brimmed straw hat, we think in the 1870s.

Figure 9.-- This American boy in the 1880s wears a wide brimmed straw hat with a rather rounded crown. Thesecare much larger hats than we noted in the 1870s. Nore there are no streamers.

The 1880s

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. The boy here is a good example (figure 9) .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 behin to notice woodsmnen's cap, a kind of baseball styled cap done in plaid. Tghey were not very common at least in studio portraits. They were proibably more common when the boys were not dressed up. We also notice sone 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.

Figure 10-- Here we see boys who I think are shooting marbles. One boy wears a military-styled peaked cap. The other two wear boaters.

The 1890s

We note quite a range of headwear in the 1890s, both hats and caps. Wide-brimmed sailor hats were popular for younger boys. This is the last decade we note boys wearing these hats that were so popular during much of the 19th century. Wecsee a wide variety of brim widths. We also notice boys wearing boaters (figure 10). While the rounded crown hat was a juvenile style, boaters were also worn by adults. We note several fifferent styles of caps. We also see boys wearing sailor caps, many in saucer-top style. Boys wore a wide range of cap styles. We notice a number of cap styles that we are unsure how to classify. Others are more familiar. There were peaked caps with a military look. There were also peaked caps styled like British school caps. We also note woodsmens caps. One of the headwear types we so not know how to classify was a hat where the brim folded up tight with the crown looking more like a cap. Boys a little to old for wide-brimmed sailor hats might wear boaters.

Created: 3:23 AM 6/18/2007
Last updated: 5:35 AM 3/30/2018