Figure 1.--This photo portrait of two unknown boys was taken in Pennington Co. (Minnesota), probably during the 1900s. We know that the name of the photographer was Jacob Borry. It is an unusual portrait in that it is a well posed photograoh like you would expect from an expensice studio, but the boys are pictured on crates. Almost certainly the crates were chosen for effect, but that was not very common. The older boys cap looks like a European student cap, in this case its looks Scandinavian. The younger boy wears a style we have seen more commonly in America, but usually not with the leather bill. Tgese boys look Scandinavian and many Norwegians and Swedes settled in Minnesota.

We notice a few portraits of American boys wearing what look like European student caps. Boys in Germany, Scandanavia, and other countries did not normally wear school uniforms. They did wear military-styled peaked caps. The caps often had detinctive styles and colored trim identifying the school and class. We note different styles in Germany and Scandinavia.We do not commonly see these caps in America, in part because they were commonly worn at secondary schools. And the families that sent children to secondary schools were the more established families less likely to emigrate to America. One destinguishing element of these caps was a leather brim or bill. We see leather bills earlier, but not by the late-19th century. American caps were almost always made with cloth brims. Thus we do not see very commonly with American boys caps by the late-19th century. We suspect that boys wearing them came from relastively recent immigrant families.

Created: 3:44 PM 9/21/2010
Last updated: 3:44 PM 9/21/2010