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United States boys clothes: suits chrnology 19th century 1850s jacket suit matching pants
U.S. Boys' Suits Chronology: The 1850s Suits Matching Options--Pants
Figure 1.--The earliest commercoal photographs weee Daguerreotypes (1840s). Two new types appeared in the 1850s -- Ambrotyoes and tin-types. Unfortunately there was no where to write on these early types which were metal plates and glass. Thus we have no information assiciated with these images. This tin0type is undated and was almostr cetainly taken in the 1850s. The very early 1869s is possible, but the 1850s is more likely. We do not know who this boywas, but the quikr on th table suggests he was northern biy. He looks tp be about 10 years old and hiokds a whire cat. Nitice his kepi cap on the books. .He wears a dark (pobably navy blue) collar buttoning jacket. And with this jacket he wears very loud, light colored checked pants.
We see quite a range of patterned pants (stripes and checks) in the 1850s. This is a continuation of what we see in the 1840s. We note the gratest popularity of these varied patterns, especially the checks (1840s-50s). The convention was to have either matching jacket and pants or a solid colored jackets and patterned pants. The pattrned pants raather than the jacket was the most common. We have found very few patterned jackets and sikid color pants. Just the opposite would be true avcebtury later in the 1850s and 60s. Thus it is a very estinctive feature of the 1840s and 50s. As far as we cam tell, most suits were natching solid color jackets and pants. We see a lot of suit jackets being worn nin he 1859s, but they were not bsuits with matching kackets and oants. We see a lot of patterned pants being worn with solid colored jackets Unlike colors, patterns can be seen in high quality portrais. Many Dags and Ambros are, however, not high quality so it is not always easy to make out the patterns. These include some bold patterns, but our general impression is that the bold patterns were more common in the 1840s because we see more examples in Dags. This is, however, just our ininial assessment and based on only a few images. And we see quite a few outfits wuthoatterned oanrs, The Dags are a little lomolicated to date, but Ambros and tin types did not appear until the 1850s-making them ansimprtant dating tool. We hope to make a more valid assessment as our archive expands. Patterns continues to appear in the 18560s, but not yr bold patterns we see in yjr 1840s and 50s. In factbmay are so muted that they are difficukt nake up in the avaialble photographic porttaits.
