Figure 1.--This wonderful American Daguerreotype is undated, but we would guess the early-1850s. The unidenhtified boy wears a collar-buttoning jacket with a pointed white collar abnd what looks like brass buttons. The jackjets seems to have embroidery or some kind of design feature not often seen with these jackets. It is work with non-matching long pants done in a loud check pattern. Also notice the hair covering parts of his ears. He looks to be about 9 years old.

Another variation with collar buttoning jackets was matching or not matching the jackets and pants. We note that in the early- and mid-19th century, the jackets and pants did not match. We often see pants done in rather loud patterns. The loud patterns were not common with the jackets, but we often see rather loud pants. After mid-century we see boys mostly wear suits with matching jackets and pants. We note skeleton suits in the early-19th century with both matching and non-matching pants, but they were often worn with open collars. The Eton suits appearing in the early-19th century first in Britain did have collar-buttoning jackets and were worn with jacket and pants done in non-matching colors and fabrics, We tend to see mostly collar buttoning jackets by the 1840s and non-matching pants seem to be the primary convention. This was the case during the 1850s as well, This did not change until the 1860s. It is a little difficult to establish the time line here as many Dags and Ambros are not dated. It is realtively easy, however, to date the CDVs which appeared in the 1860s.

Created: 8:29 PM 8/2/2013
Last updated: 8:29 PM 8/2/2013