Figure 1.--This Daguerrotype portrait shows a boy named Cuthbert and his babby brother or sister, He looks to be about 7 years old. He wears a cut-away jacket with wide sleeves. The jacket also seems to be longer than those we note in the 1860s. The portrait is undated, but we suspect the 1850s. Put your cursor on the image for an enlargement.

Cut-away jackets seems to have been an upper-/middle-class style. Most of the images we have found show boys that look like they are from fashionable, afflunt families. These of course are the children most likely to be photographed. Photography was not cheap. It was a lot cheaperr than a painted portrait, but still not cheap. Ambros were a little cheaper than Dags, but the price did not really began to come down until the CDV (1860s). Now the Industrial Revolution was just beginning tom impact America significantly (1850s). And Americans were moving into the growing cities and experiencing real success. America was still a very rural area, but a far wider share of the population was reaching a reasonable level of prosperity than any where in Europe. But we do not see how working-class boys were dressed because they were not having their portraits taken. We can only guess about the social background about the boys in the images, but our impression is that most of the boys we see in these cut-away jackets are nboy being raised in comfortable conditions.

Created: 1:36 AM 4/28/2023
Last updated: 1:36 AM 4/28/2023