Figure 1.--This CDV shows two brothers wearing matching cut-away jacket suits. Notice the rounded-crown hats, checked shirt without a collar, and button-on trouser suspension. Many suits had vests. The fact that the suits here did not have a vest gives us a good view of the shirts. And notice that the white collar bas nothing to do with the shirt. No photographer or location is indicated. The portrait is undated, but looks like the late-1860s. Notice how many boysm even younger boys, wore long pants in the 1860s. In this case button-on pants.

We note a range of garments being worn with suits during the 1860s. This was affected by the type of suit wjich in part was a function of age. We notice a variety of headweae. The most common type of weadwear was the rounded crown hat. We are not sure how common these hats were, but we see them throughout the late-19th century. We note both plain shierts and shirts with patterns. They were all long sleeves. Most seem to have small vollars or no collars at all. Our information om shirts is limited because so many were covered by suit jackets. We know the most about the shirts worn with cut-away jackets because some were worn without vests and we can see many of vthe shirts. Many of these shirts were button-on shirts which held up the trousers. This was common with cut-away jackets. We are less sure about trouser suspension with other types of suits. We notice boys mostly wearing long stockings with knee pants and other shortened-length pants. The lnee pants tended to be calf length so the long stockings did not have to be very long. Many of the shoes were low-cut shoes.

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Created: 8:45 PM 3/15/2010
Last updated: 8:45 PM 3/15/2010