Figure 1.--This cabinet card portrait shows two California brothers, Staon and Vance Black. They look to be about 9-12 years old. The younger boy weas acollar-buttoning knee pants suit. His older brother wears a lapel jacket and long pants. We are not sure about the date, but would guess the early-1890s. The cabinet card was unusual, it had fancy matting and was was larger than the standard cabinet card at the time, 7 1/2" x 9 7/8". Click on the image to see the card. We canroughly date many mounts, but this one we are unsure about. The studio was Nathan B. Strong in Eureka, California.

We see many of the same age grading trends we noted in he 1880s in the 1890s. This was the peak of the Funtleroy Craze. We think Fauntleroy suits were so popula tht many mothers breachd their sons earlier than they might ahve done so that they could outfit them in a Fauntleroy suit. This might have been a factor in the decline of the convention of dressing younger boys in dresses and other skirted garments. This was notable by mid decade. The use of decorative items were a particularly prevalent way of age grading. A factor here was how prevlent and visible decorative items were in the 1890s. Another major development was shifting age conventions associated with knee pants during the decade. By the end of the decade. knee pants not only had become shorter and stadardized at knee level, but they had become stndard. We not only seen then in rural areas, but being worn by working-clas boys as well as boys from families in comfortable middle-class circumstances. We also see older noys wearing knee pants by the end of the dcde which affected the use of pants as an age grading device. It meant that boys of quite awude age range, even including some teenagers who were wearing knee pants suits. There was substantial age grading which we can clearly see in family portraits.

Created: 4:29 PM 7/22/2016
Last updated: 4:30 PM 7/22/2016