Figure 1.--This cabinet card has no studio name or place. It shows four unidentified brothers, three wearing identical dreses. The boys look to be about 1-7 years old. The boys wearing dresses look to be about 1-5 years of age. This would mean that the boys wore dresses until about 6 years of age. The portrait is undated, but we suspect was taken in the 1870s, although large collars were more common in the 80s. Click on the image for a fuller discussion of the date.

We see some 5-year old boys wearing dresses throughout the 19th century. Our infotmation is primarily derived from the photographic record which first becomes available in the 1840s. It is clear that not all 5-year olds wore dresses. The prevalence seems to have varied over time, but we would say yhat only a minority of 5-year olds wore dresses and this seems to have varied over time. The photographic record clearly shows a minority of boys were involved at this age. We are not yet in a position to assess the prevalence by decade. A factor here is that the boys in most surviving period costumes are not identified. Thus we have to estimate ages. While there is no way of being precise, such estimates can not be very far off. A factor affecting the prevalence by decade is that there were other skirted garments worn by boys during the 19th century, complicating the assessment, but we have begun to collect images to help with the assessment.

Created: 5:52 PM 3/9/2008
Last updated: 6:50 AM 5/19/2010