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One noticeable feature about the skirted garments worn by American boys was length. Many of the skirt lengths we see the boys wearing are very long. This included dresses, kiltsuit kilts, and skirts. Sometimes they reached down to the ankles. This was stylish for girls and women in the early-19th century, but by mid-century only women were still wearing long length skirts. We do not see this in Europe. And we are unsure why the skirt length for boys was cut this long. It is possible that mothers brought long skirts so that they could be worn as the boys grew taller, but this would not explain ankle-length skirts. Boys would never grow into skirts that long before breeching. Adult women wore skirts to their ankles. Teenagers might wear longer dresses, but girls commonly wore shorter lengths. We are not yet sure about girls at this time. This is something we hope to assess in more detail, but our prelimary assessment is that very young little girls did not wear such long skirts in the late-19th century. Another possibility is that the boy inherited his older brother's kilt suit. This can not be determined in single portrait photographs. The length of skirts may have varied from family to family, but so many young boys wore these long-length skirts that it seemns to have been an actual style. The long skirts worn with kilt skirts seem especially strange as kilts were knee-length garments and their older brothers commonly wore knee pants. And for some reason, it was the youngest boys that had the longest skirts. The Philadelphia boy on the previous page wearing a Fauntleroy kilt suit probably in the 1890s is a perfect example. Another good example is an unidentified boy wearing a jacketed dress with a very long hem also probbly in the 1890s is another good example. The older boys still not breeched wore shorter skirts.
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