Figure 1--This tin-type shows two brothers dressedup for a portrait. The younger boy looks to be 4-5 years old and wears a round lace collar. Notice the very long bknee pants. His brother looks to be about 14 years old and wears a single-breasted suit with what looks like a cross-tie. Tin-types are tricky to date, but we would guess that this one was made in the early-1870s.

Collar sizes were relatively similar during the 1860s. The size of collars began to change in the 1870s and were much more varied. We see quite a wide range of collar sizes. Collars at the beginning of the decade, especially the early-70s still tended to be relatively small like 1860s collars. We gradually begin to see larger collars, including some lace collars. Collar size varied during the 1870s. We do not see the huge collars of the 1880s, but we do see some younger boys with good-sized collars and this included lace collsrs. Thus unlike the 1860s we get many good views of the collars. This occurred well before the publication of Mrs. Burnett's Little Lord Fauntleroy in the 1880s. This shows that she was drawing on existing styles rather than creating an entirely new style. Of course fancy garments like lace collars became much more popular with the publication of Mrs. Bunett's book. A good example from the 1870s is an unidentified Salem boy. Another example is a Newark boy. We see mostly younger boys wearing lace collars in the 1870s, primarly pre-school boys and younger primary school boys. They were worn with a variety of skirted garments and knee pants suits which were still not universally worn by boys. We do not see them with long pants suits. The lace we see is often real lsce, unlike the 1890s when we see a loy of eyelet lace.

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Created: 3:07 AM 8/22/2010
Last updated: 3:07 AM 8/22/2010