Figure 1.-- This cabinet card portait shows Grettie on August 13, 1886. He was 9 years old, turning 10 on December 6. He wears a collar buttoning jacket with vertical Norfolk elements. He has what looks like a small Eton collar an small bow. Notice how he wears it ooen like a cut-away jacket. He holds a rounded crown straw hat, dark long stockings and high-top shoes. The studio was Feton & Andruss in Jamestown, New York.

Knee pants appeared in the mid-19th century. They were at first worn by younger boys in fashionable city families. They become somewhay more popular in the 1870s, but still by mostly younger boys. We see a lot more boys wearing knee pants in the 1880s as they were becoming standard boys wear. We are just beginning to assess age trends at this time. There are a lot of 1880s images archived on HBC and we need to assess those pages to gain a full understanding of age trends. Our ininital assessment is that boys began wearing them up to about 10-years of age. The 9-year old boy n the previous page is a good example. And the New York boy here is another good example (figure 1). We also see a number of 10-year olds wearing knee pants suits. And boys pehaps a little older were wearing knee pants by the end of the decade. Knee pants were at first worn by boys from fashion concious city families, but by the end of the decade they were becoming increashing standard wear even in rural areas. There must have been instance in which a boy who had neen wearing long aonts suddenly began wearing knee pants to keep up with fashions. We are not enirely sur what he must have thoughtabout this. By the end of the century we begin to see even teenagers wearing knee pants suits as well.

Created: 10:52 PM 12/5/2013
Last updated: 10:52 PM 12/5/2013