Figure 1.--This cabinet card, shows a family all dressed up for a cabinet card portrait. It is undated, but the crd mount looks like it was taken in the very early-1900s. The boys look to be about 4-8 years old. The older boys wears a small white floppt bow. His little briother wears a Fauntleroy collsr, but ithout a bow. J.G. Denniston is written on back in pencil. We believe that is the family's name. We think mother's dress style confirms the turn-of-the 20th century.

Floppy bows especially after 1905 began to be worn more and more by younger boys. A good example is a San Jose boy about 1905. They were worn mostly by pre-teen boys, both pre-school boys and boys in the first few ywears of primary school. After this they become less common at school, but we still see them when domewhat older boys were dressed up for special occassions. here were no defenitive rules. Sometimes we see an older boy in a family wearing a floppy bow, but on these occassions the younger boy usually had a fancy collar. Some mothers mighr still add a floppy bow to an older boy's outfit to add a little flare and color, but in such ccases he might commonly wear a more mature suit. This reflected the convention for wearing Fauntleroy blouses and collars both with and without floppy bows. We are still assessing the age range as our archive continues to expand. We believe floppy bows in the 1900s were primarily a pre-teen style, but it is possible that some younger teens may have worn them. This remains, however to be confirmed.

Created: 12:16 AM 1/31/2013
Last updated: 12:16 AM 1/31/2013