Figure 1.--This unidentified American boy is clearly wearing a skirted garment. It is a bit difficult to make out, but it looks to us like a jacketed dress with some sailor styling. The portrait is undated, but the as it was not a cabinent card, itwas probably tken after the turn-of-the 20th century, probanly about 1905.

The jacketed dress was quite a stylish convention for some time. This seems one of the more popular dress styles for boys. We do not yet have a complete time line. We have begun to build a time line. We are not yet sure about the 1870s. This does not mean of course that boys did not wear dresses in the 1870s, but we are not yet sure that they wore these jacketed dresses. We do notice jacketed dresses being worn mostly in the 1880s and 90s. We think that the time line is wider than this, but our information is limited at this time. We have found a few images from the 1900s, but not the 1910s.

Created: 4:56 AM 6/9/2008
Last updated: 5:29 AM 6/9/2008