Figure 1.--Here we see an unidentified American boy, we think in the 1880s. He wears a Norfolk knee pants suit with a lace collar. he is holding a peaked straw hat. Apparently his mother thought it was the height of fashion to go with his suit and ringlet curls. The photographer was the Wilson studio in Malden, presumably Massachusetts.

Hats still dominated, but caps were becoming increasingly popular in the late-19th century. We see different styles, but the cap that seems most popular was the peaked cap. We do not yet see the flat cap. Most of the caps we see in the 19th century were military styles like the kepi or military derived styles like the Oliver Twist cap. We do not see many exceptions until the 1880s. While we have archived many many petinent images, unfortunately most are undated and we can only estimate the date. We see photographs with boys wearing non-military styled peaked caps, we think in the 1880s. They appeared earlier in Britain. The nice thing about internet publishing is that we can always adjust our date estimates if readers add additional information. We hope to find confirming dated images. We still see many boys weaing the rounded crown hats that were so popular in the 19th century. But we begin to see different kinds of caps in the 1880s. Not a lot of them, but theynare definitely present in the photographic record. We believe that these caps forst appeared in fashionabkle cities. Curiously they did not at first have the association with informality that is the case today. They were seen asquite fashionable and worn with suits. We note these caps done in both fabric and straw. .

Created: 4:30 AM 4/23/2019
Last updated: 4:30 AM 4/23/2019