Figure 1.--This studio CDV shows an unidentified child in a period dress. We think the chold is a boy, but with center part, the child may be a girl. The child is wearing a dress with a frilled yoke and back flap. There is a white collar and small cross tie with a bar pin at the throat. The dress has a double tiered skirt. The yoke and both tiers of the skirt have tailored, knife-edged pleats in a ruffle. A loose wide tartan sash is at the dropped waist. The child wears striped stockings, the kind country collectors search for, and highly polished high button boots with scalloped tops. He's standing on a footstool so he can lean gracefully against the back of the upholstered chair which has long fringe along the arm. The studio is Udell in Three Rivers, but the state is not indicated. The CDV is not dated, but we would guess it was taken in the 1870s.

We notice boys wearing a wide range of different dress styles. As far as we can tell the dress styles worn by boys and girls were essentially the same. We do not yet have a lot of specific stylist details. We note a simple, but boldy decorated dress worn by Gordon Bently in 1879. We note an Indiana boy wearing a very plain dress. We suspect that plain dresses reflect the fact that many dresses were sewn at home. Other dresses were more elaborately styled. We note some dresses with low waistlines. The dress the boy here is wearing is a good example (figure 1).

Created: 2:07 AM 7/1/2011
Last updated: 2:07 AM 7/1/2011