Figure 1.--This American boy is unidentified. This photo came from the Ferry Seed Estate in Detroit Michigan. This photo was most likely taken in Santa Cruz California, the paperwork in the box of photos shows the photos were developed in Santa Fe, New Mexico and Santa Cruz California and dated 1889. It is a rare 19th century snapshot. Most photographs of American boys wearing kilted skirts show them being worn with suit jackets and often vests. This boy perhaps because of the heat is wearing is kilt-skirt with a white blouse. Note that he is wearing long stocking rather than knee socks which were worn with real Higland kilts.

The kilt is a fairly simle garment. We note mothers in the 19th century, however, turning it into a wide range of different garments. Some had little connection with a kilt other than both were skited garments, but American mothers seemed to prefer to call them kilts because the kilt was a male garment. We are not sure just for whom this was a selling point. We don't think that mothers had to be convinced. And except for boys nearing school age or begnning school, it probably was not an issue. Perhaps it was useful for the fathers who may not have been as enthusiastic about delaying breeching. The standard Highland kilt seems to be the least common of the various permutations and the only one not worn with long stockings. The most common was the kilt suit which in many cases seems to be more of a skirt suit although as far as I know was never called this in advertising for boys. We also notice boys waring the kilts without the jackets during the summer. While they may have been called kilts, many of not mjost look more like skirts. This included both plaid and pleated skirts. A further complication is jacketed dress. Some of these look rather like kilt suits. It is not always posible to destinguish the two in a photograph. The various kilt outfits were all boys' outfits. Girls wore similar garments, except for Highland kilts, but they were never called kilts. Only in the 20th century did this chabnge to a limited extent..

Jacketed Dress

Some dresses were made with matching jackets. We see women and girls wearing this style. It was quite stylish for quite a time, It was also worn by boys who have not yet been breeched. It was not nearly as popular for boys as kilt suits, but we do see some boys wearing these dresses. It is a style similar in some extent to kilt suits. Both had jackets which usually matched the skirted part of the outfit. The essential difference here was what was under the jacket. If the child ws wearing a dress undernath, meaning a garment with a connected top and skirted bottom then we have a jacketed dress. If the child wears a blouse with or without a vest and kilt/skirt underneath, then he is wearing a kilt suit or skirt. The vests that were often worn with kikt suits sometimes maje it difficult to dertermuine just what the child was wearing.

Kilt Suit

A very popular outfit for younger boys in the late-19th century was the kilt suit. While few American boys in the 19th Century wore proper Scottish kilts with Highland regalia, many more boys wore the kilt suits that were popular in the late 19th Century. While Higland kilts were most popular with families that had Scottish conections, there does not seem to have been any relationship between kilt suits and Scotland. Mothers of many varied ethnic backgrounds chose klit suits for their boys. These suits were only worn by boys. We have created a section on kilt suits and much of the information is about America where the style was most popular. We have a more limited section on American kilt suits, but are gradually expanding it.

Stand Alone Kilt Skirt

The kilts associated with kilt suits were usually always worn as suits, at least in the available studio photography. We think that during the summer outside of the studio, not wearing the jacket was more common than suggestd by the photographic record. And we do note a few images of boys wearing just the kilt skirts without the jacket and just a blouse. Here we are talking about the standard blouses made from light shirt material, not the heavy-weight blouses made for blouse kilt suits like we see here (figure 1). Just wearing a blouse with a kilt-skirt seems to have been a summer style. What we are unsure about is if American mothers purchsed or made kilt-skirts to be worn without jackets or if they just dressed the boys in only the kilt-skirt during warm summer weather. We have not yet found any written information on this. All we have to go on is the photographic record. So far we have only noted photographs of boys just wearing the skirt-kilts during the summer and we do not yet have nany studio portraits. The studio portraits of course could have been taken during the fall or winter. We notice a numbr of examples. One is an unidentified Worcester family about 1880.

Skirt Suits

This is a tricky category because skirt-like suits look so much like kilt suits. And it is a distinction that was not made at the time. Kilt suits were not an exclusive American style, but more widely worn in America than any other country, including Scotland and England. But American mothers hd no idea what a kilt was. For the most part, American mothers saw a kilt as simply a skirt worn by boys. Many but not all mothers saw it as alaid skirt. Scottish and English mothers did know what a kilt was, but not American mothers. As a result you see many American boys weraring what were more skirt rather than kilt suits. The skirts might be plaid, but had no other kilt fearures. As far as we know, these garments were clled likt suits whether or not the skirted bottom had any kilt features. We see these as more correctly be called skirt suits. The conventions were not different, but as a purely fashion matter we think worth noteing.

Highland Kilt

Many American boys wore kilt outfits. They were primarily kilt suits for younger boys. These were not precisely kilts, but the term was commonly used. Actual Highland kilt outfits were less common, although boys from wealthy families like Franklin Roosevelt might wear them. Even kilt suits were primarily worn by children from affluent fmilies, but Highland kilt outfits we believe were indicators of very well-to-do families. Both the image projected and thecost of items like sporrans suggest to us that thry were mostly worn by boys from well healed families. While Highland outfits were not very common, they were worn. We have found several portraits of American boys wearing full Higland regalia, most commonly in the late 19th century up to about the turn-of-the 20th century. We even note one Highland outfit that one mother seems to have brought home from London, only with knee pants rather than a kilt. We also see boys wearing Highland kilts as a kind of fancy dress costume.

Created: 9:15 AM 6/22/2012
Last updated: 12:42 AM 3/19/2021