Figure 1.--This elegantly dressed Iowa boy wears a white sailor suit with a wide-brimmed sailor hat. Note the center hair part. He looks to be about 5-years old. Notice the rather severe collar mother has chosen. The way the portrait is posed, we do not know if there was a streamer. The cabinet card portrait is undated, but we believe was taken about 1900-05. The studio was Heintz in Harlan, Iowa.

We notice many American boys wearing sailor hats. It was a hat style specifically for children, primarily younger childen. Both boys and girls wore them. Girls had fancy styles, but both boys and girls wore the plain ones. Boys wore them both before and after breechuing. No other hat style was especially common for younger boys. There were many cap styles specifically for boys, but hat styles were somewhat less common. Several hat styles were worn over time, but the most common was a wide-brimmed style mostly worn by younger boys. A minority of bnoys wore them. This can be clearly established by the photographic record. They were expensive and imparactical. And thus they wee mostly worn by boys from affluent families. Thy were not very common for working-clas boys. This is also clear from the photographic record. This thus limited the prevalence. But they were very common with children from affluent families. By the time these hats were popular, photograph was well establishd and relatively in expensive. Thus the photographic record is a reasonable indicator of over all prevalence.

Created: 11:29 PM 12/4/2013
Last updated: 11:29 PM 12/4/2013