Figure 1.--This tintype shows a well-dressed boy in a Norfolk suit and his mother. The portrair is undated, but the boy's striped stockings and small bow suggests the 1870s to us, but the early 80s is certainly possible. A reader believes this is more likely a 1880s portrait.

Our assessment of the photographic record at this time is inconclusive concerning Norfolk suits. We have found a few studio portraits of American boys wearing Norfolk suits that may be from the 1870s. We stress, however, that they are undated images in which we are estimating the dates. This means that we have no definitive confirmation that the Norfolk suit appeared in the 1870s. This presents an element of uncertainty to our chronology. And we do not yet have many catalogs from the 1870s to confirm this. As best we can tell, Norfolk suits were not all that common in the 1870s if they existed at all. Here is a good example. While this tintype is undated, the striped stockings and small now suggests it was taken in the 1870s, but the early 70s is certainly possible. A German collector with an extensive collection of CDVs and cabinet card tells us, "I couldn't find any 1870s picture with Norfolk styling. The tin-type you show here might well be an 1880s image." The fact that neitherHBC or our German comtributor had found a Norfolk suit portrait dated to the 1870s suggest to us that the style was at the very least not very common in the 1870s and probablt that it did not appear until the early-1880s.

Created: 6:50 AM 3/22/2010
Last updated: 6:51 AM 3/22/2010