Figure 1.--This American boy is unidentified. His clothes suggest that the portrait was taken about 1890. The suit he is wearing does not look particularly elegant, but the tintype portrait looks to be a very low-cost portrait. Note there is not even a painted basic backdrop. This suggests to us that the boy did not come from a particularly well-to-do family. Portraits like this suggest that floppy bows were worn by boys from a wide social class spectrum.

HBC relies heavily on the photographic record to assess fashion trends. We also use to a lesser extent fashion magazines and catalogs. All of these soureces tend to emphasize for various reasons affluent individuals, not necessarily the very rich, but at least propsperous families. The prosperous were, for example, more likely to have photographic portraits taken, especially in the 19th century before family snapshots became popular. We see many boys wearing large floppy bows in the late-19th century. We are not entirely sure how the popularity of floppy bows varied with social class. The photograohic record certainly shows conclusively that they were popular with the well to do. We believe that they were also popular with lower-income families, al least to a certain threshold. We note nnumerous images of boys who do not look like they came from particularly affluent families wearing floppy bows. A factor to be considere here is that the bow was not a particularly expensive item. This most mothers could easilt afford a floppy bow for their sons.

Created: 11:55 PM 4/30/2009
Last updated: 11:55 PM 4/30/2009