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Eatons mailorder catalogs had a page with miscelaneous items whch they called furnishings. This was a common convention for mail order catalogs. The actual composition varied from catalog to catalog. Some of the ites were includedin most such catalogs. Other items were included because of space availability. The Eaton's page included: belts, bathing suits, collars, suspenders, and sweaters and jerseys. HBC has separate sections for some of these items, but others are best dealt with in a miscelaneous or furnishings page. They are very useful pages because these items provide a great deal of useful information about how children dressed at the tome. Ofen these items are hidden or covered over in photographs, thus the catalogs complement the photograhs archived on HBC.
This Canadian retailer began publishing mailorder catalogs in 1881, at least that is we begin noticing them. We have catalogs from the 1970s, although we do not know about the company's current status. The 1970s catalgs were full of clothes which look like American styles. Timothy Eaton, founder of the huge all-Canadian department store chain bearing his name, was an Irish immigrant born on a tennant farm in northern Ireland. He was born in 1834 and followed his brothers to Canada in 1854. His brothers had opened a small dty goods store in St. Marys. Timothy Eaton began his business with a small dry goods business in Toronto during 1869. He built a giant retail store in Ontario’s capital city along with a country-wide mail-order business and a big new branch store in Winnipeg, by the time of his death in 1907. The Winnipeg branch was the first of many branches. Eaton Company business establishments eventually spread all across Canada when Timothy’s family successors extended the Eaton empire. Timothy masterminded the company during the crucial period of its early development, spanning nearly 40 years. It was Timothy who implemented the concept of the "Department Store", in Canada, a concept which were already flourishing in London, Paris, and New York.
We see a variety of neckwear. The terms used are helpful, but we do not entirely undrstand them. We are unsure, for example what a "shield bow-tie" is. They are illustrated, but not wil a model that would help us to better understand them. At the time neckwear was an otional item. We see boys noth with and without neckwear. The neckwear seems to includeitems for tounger and older boys.
EIX 502: The Eaton's ad copy read, "Boys’ silk and satin Shield bow ties to wear with turn-down collar, neat and fancy patterns and stripes, as cut EIX 502 12 ½ cents." A shield was another term for a dickie, commonly wrn with sailor suits or sailor-styled tunic (Russian blouse) suits. These wereitems offered by Earons. The boiw ties, however do not seem t be items woirn with sailor-styled outfirs.
EIX 504: The Eaton's ad copy read, "Boys’ fine Buster Brown Bow ties. In plain red, white, blue and tartan plaids, as cut EIX 504. 20 cents." Buster Brown suits were a kind of tunic suits. They were commonly worn with large collars. We have noted boys wearing both bow ties and floppy bows with them.
EIX 505: The Eaton's ad copy read, "Boys’ four-in-hand neckwear, fine silk and satin qualities in neat stripes and fancy patterns, each 12 ½ cents." This was a kind of neck tie and would have been worn by older boys.
EIX 506: The Eaton's ad copy read, "Boys’ fine silk string ties, made in bows or small four-in-hand style, neat patterns in light, medium, and dark patterns, each 20 cents." The bow ties were illustrated, but I do not see an ilustration for string gties.
Boys wore separate collars with their suits and shirt waists. These were attached mostly by collar pins (in front or in back or both) like adult collars for men. Collars got dirty much more readily than the rest of a boy’s costume above the waist and were therefore made of durable and washable materials—linen, rubber, celluloid, and even paper. Paper collars would of course be discarded after use; they were throw-aways.
Eatons offered quite a variety of collars. Unfortunately Eaatons does not indicate the proper name for the various collars.
EIX 510: The Eaton's ad copy read, " Boys’ Plain White Linen Dickies 20 cents." The collar section included this dickie. Elsewhere on the page we note the term "shield". We are unsure if Eatons was using the term differently. It is not illustratd. Note the dickie was done in linnen.
EIX 512: The Eaton's ad copy read, " Boys’ White Linen Dickies, turn-down collar attached, sizes 12 to 14, at 25 cents." This was another linnen dickie. We are not sure what was mean by a turn-down collar.
EIX 514: The Eaton's ad copy read, " Boys’ Opera Paper Collars, 16 in each box, sizes 12 to 13 ½, at, per box, 10 cents." We are not sure just what an opera collar was and unfortunately it is not illustrated. We ote reference to opera collrs in women's fashions, but are unsure what was meant here in connection with collrs for men and boys.
EIX 516: The Eaton's ad copy read, " Boys’ Plain Turn-down Linen collars, as cut EIX 516, sizes 12 to 14, 3 for 25 cents, or each, 9 cents." This collar is illustrated, providing a indication of what was meant by a "turn-down collar", although the illustratin is quite small. It looks somewhat like a wing collar, but it is difficut to tell. We note turn-down collars being used as a formal collar style. The term encompases the standard collared shirt collar now used. It is also called the "straight point collar". There are both short and long versions. The Eaton's turn-down collars seem to be more formal detachable collars.
EIX 518: The Eaton's ad copy read, " Boys’ 4-ply Linen High Turn-down Collars, depth 1 ½ to 2, in box, as cut EIX 518, sizes from 12 to 14, each 12 ½ cents." This collar is illustrated and looks to us like a high, stiff collar. It does not appear to have collar points like an Eton collar. It is not clear to us why this would be called a turn-down collar.
EIX 520: The Eaton's ad copy read, "Boys’ 4-ply collars, stand up with turn points, 1 ¾ inches deep, as cut EIX 520, sizes 12 to 14, 3 for 25 cents, or each, 9 cents." A stand-up collar rises from the neckline to form a narrow, circular strip or band around the neck. This one has a "v"-shaped cut out.
EIX 522 The Eaton's ad copy read, " Boys’ Buster Brown Linen collars, as cut EIX 522, Sizes 11 to 13 ½, each 12 ½ cents." Some Buster Brown collars were quite large. This seems a more modeltly sized one. Buster Brown outfits were a basically Amercan style.
EIX 524: The Eaton's ad copy read, " Boys’ Eton 4-Ply Linen Collars, 2 ½ and 3 inches deep, as cut EIX 524, Sizes 11 to 13 ½, each 12 ½ cents." The Eton collar is illustrated. It does not sem to have the sharp points of a classic Eton collar. Curiously it and the Buster Brown collar were done in r=the same size. We woud have thought that the Eton collar would have been done in larger sizes. We note Etn collars worn with Buster Brown suits, but also with suits fr oldr boys.
EIX 525: The Eaton's ad copy read, " Eton 4-ply Collars, 2 ½ inches deep, as cut EIX 524, only square corners, sizes 11 to 13 ½, 12 ½ cents." This was another Eton collar done in the same sizes as the other one. We are not sure what square corner was.
Eatons listed rubbercollars separately. We have not noted rubber collars previously and are unsure how common they were. It seems to us a material that would not be very comfortable at the neck. Eatons offered four of them. They seem to be standard collar types only made in rubber.
Rubber collars had the advantage of being washable with a sponge or a cloth and could be cleaned by just wiping them off the way today we would wipe off a counter top. White collars were the most easily soiled of any item in a boy's dress--at least his visible dress--and the laundering of linen collars was expensive and
time-consuming because of the process of heavy starching. Hence manufacturers developed all sorts of non-cloth collars that could be either cheaply replaced (like paper collars) or else efficiently wiped
off (such as rubber and celuloild collars). It is true that rubber collars couldn't have been very comfortable to wear, but they had a certain practicality. A reader tells us, "Remember that in 1907 the air in most cities was very dirty because of the coal fires and furnaces that people burned in houses and places of business. There was constant soot to make collars get dirty fast. And of course there was no air cnditioning. My father, for instance, used to change his linen
collar at the office in the middle of the day because his office was in Pittsburgh, the steel city, where the pollution of the air in the 1930s was a real problem. One of the reasons that most shirt collars were
detachable in the early decades of the 20th century was that the collars got dirty much more quickly than the rest of the shirt. There were also detachable shirt cuffs. These were perhaps less commonly
worn, but the white cuffs got soiled readily also. In offices boys and men sometimes wore "sleeve protectors", which were coverings that office workers put on while working at their desks to protect their shirt cuffs from getting soiled. This practice began in the 19th century, I believe."
EIX 526: The Eaton's ad copy read, " Boys’ Rubber Collars, high turn-down style, 1 ¾ inches deep, as cut EIX 518, sizes 12 to 14, at 12 ½ cents."
EIX 528: The Eaton's ad copy read, " Boys’ Arlington Rubber collars, high turn-down, 1 ½ inches deep, as cut EIX 518, sizes 12 to 14, at 20 cents." We are not sure what Arlington rubber meant. It may refer to a Texas company, Arlington Rubber.
EIX 530: The Eaton's ad copy read, " Children’s Arlington Rubber Eton Collars, 2 ½ inches deep, as cut EIX 526, sizes 11 to 13 ½, at 20 cents."
EIX 532: The Eaton's ad copy read, " Boys’ American inter-lined Celluloid collars, turn down, as cut EIX 516, Sizes 12 to 14, at 18 cents."
Boys, like their fathers, often wore elastic suspenders with their knee pants. Suspenders had the advantage of being able to hold up knee pants that were a bit loose, trousers that a boy had perhaps not quite grown into as yet. And one style imitates the suspenders worn by boy role- models such as policemen and firemen. Suspenders also gave boys a little more freedom of movement during play because there was no tight restriction at the waist. Also (although these are shown on a separate page) boys wore suspender waists that combined suspenders for trousers with hose supporters for long stockings, so it is not surprising that suspenders figure prominently in boys’ clothing in 1907. Boys were accustomed to garments that supported clothing from the shoulders (underwaists, suspender waists for trousers and stockings, braces for trousers, and the like). Belts are also shown as an alternative way of keeping up knee trousers. Many younger boys wore underwaists with hose supporters attached as part of their underwear. These could obviously be worn with either normal trousers suspenders or belts.
EIX 532: The Eaton's ad copy read, " Boys’ Elastic Web Suspenders, mohair or leather ends, 25 and 30 inches long, as cut EIX 532, per pair 15 cents." Suspenders seem to have been the primary means of trouser suspnsion.
EIX 533: The Eaton's ad copy read, " Cheaper quality, wire buckles, 24 and 27 inches long, pair 10 cents." This was another pair of suspenders.
EIX 534: The Eaton's ad copy read, " Boys’ Brownie Police and Fireman Style, elastic web, leather ends, as cut EIX 534, 27 and 30 inches long, as cut EIX 534, 27 and 30 inches long, per pair, 15 cents. Better quality, per pair 25 cents." We have no idea what a "Brownie Police means.
EIX 536: The Eaton's ad copy read, " Boy’ Fine Elastic Web Suspenders, Cross-back style, cast off kid ends, 27 inches and 3o0 inches long, as cut EIX 536, per pair 25 cents. Better quality Crown make, per pair 50 cents."
EIX 538: The Eaton's ad copy read, " Boys’ Leather Belts, with ring slides, 1 1/8 inches wide, nickel buckle, tan shades, as cut EIX 538, sizes 28 to 30, at 25 cents."
EIX 540: The Eaton's ad copy read, " Boys’ Elastic Web Belts, adjustable slide buckles, stripes. 10 cents. Better quality, 15 cents."
EIX 542: The Eaton's ad copy read, " Children’s Buster Brown Belts, double patent leather dip front. In plain black, white, and red, as cut EIX 542. Sizes 28 ti 34, at 15 cents." Notice that these belt were patent leather. Buster Brown belts mean tht they were worn on tunic suits meaning that they were etirely ornamental.
Sweaters were garments not commonly included on the furnishing pages in catalogs. Eatons did include them. The illustrations suggest that they were all pullovers, but there were buttoning sweaters as well. We are unsure what the destinction with jerseys was. The sweaters seem heavier weight. The jerseys seem lightweight collrless shirts, including short sleeves.
EIX 544: The Eaton's ad copy read, " Boys’ Heavy Wool Sweaters, deep roll collar, double cuffs and skirt in plain navy blue and cardinal, with stripes on collar, also plain white as cut EIX 544, sizes to fit boys 5 to 14 years, each 50 cents." These roll collar sweaters were very popular in the early 20th century.
EIX 545: The Eaton's ad copy read, " Boys’ Heavy Wool Sweaters, deep roll collar, stripes on collar, cuffs, and skirt, in navy blue, cardinal and grey, sizes to fit boys 5 to 15 years, each $1.00.'
EIX 546: The Eaton's ad copy read, " Children’s Buster Brown Wool Sweaters, buttoned down front with belt in navy blue and cardinal, as cut EIX 545, sizes to fit children 2 to 5 years, at 75 cents." We are mistified as to just what a Buster Brown sweater was.
EIX 548: This outfit is pictured, but does not look like a sweater.
EIX 550: The Eaton's ad copy read, " Boys’ imported Fancy Wool Sweaters, buttoned on shoulder, in navy blue, cardinal, and black, as cut EIX 550, sizes to fit boys 3 to 10 years, at 75 cents." Note the shoulder buttoing arrangement.
EIX 552: The Eaton's ad copy read, " Boys’ Fancy Wool Imported Sweaters, buttoned on shoulder, close ribbed cuffs and skirt, rolled collar in navy, cardinal, and black, as cut EIX 552, sizes to fit boys 3 to 12 years, at $1.00."
EIX 554: The Eaton's ad copy read, " Boys’ fine Imported Worsted Jerseys, stripes on collars and cuffs, in plain navy blue and cardinal, as cut EIX 554, sizes 22 to 32, each 75 cents." The ad copy refers to a collar, but this was not a collar in the sence of a neck opening and fold down points. Rather it was jyst a built up area around the neck opening tht could be accented with colot detailing.
EIX 556: The Eaton's ad copy read, " Boys’ Fine Imported Cashmere Jerseys, stripes on collars and cuffs, in nay blue and black, sizes 22 to 32, as cut EIX 554, each $1.00."
EIX 558: The Eaton's ad copy read, " Boys’ Fine Imported Cashmere Jerseys, fast color, 2-inch collar, colors are plain navy blue, and navy blue with striped collar and cuffs, also navy and white, and navy and cardinal, ½ inch striped bodies, sizes 22 to 32, each $1.25."
EIX 568: The Eaton's ad copy read, " Boys’ cotton Short-sleeve Jerseys, striped bodies, navy and cardinal and navy and white, sizes 22 to 32, each 35 cents." Note the short sleeves.
Most of the bathing suits advertised on this page resemble union suits (or “combinations” as they were called in Canada and Great Britain). And some boys did swim in their union suits. These are one-piece garments that button down the front and that are of knitted fabric and form-fitting, typically wool. Most had short sleeves, but one model is described as sleeveless. There were also two-piece bathing suits, but these seem to have been much less popular. Interestingly, boys did not swim in public with bare chests, which was considered immodest and improper. This applied also to adult men. The attitude that mandated the covering of male chests in public, even for quite young boys, resembles the attitude that required long stockings for most older boys so that no bare knees were exposed. Later, when knee socks became popular for boys (during the 1920s and 1930s) attitudes moderated somewhat. But bathing suits continued to cover boys’ chest well into the 1930s. Many bathing clubs and public swimming pools, for instance, had strict regulations about covered chests until at least the mid-1930s.
Buster Brown items. Some of the items for sale on this page draw on the popular comic strip character, Buster Brown. A whole line of clothing for children with Buster Brown labels and associations was developed in the early decades of the twentieth century—both in the United States and Canada. These included shoes, stockings, hose supporters, suits, belts, and various other items of clothing.
EIX 562: The Eaton's ad copy read, "Boys’ Bathing Trunks, Fancy stripes, elastic around top, to fit boys 4 to 12, each 10 cents." These bathing suits were commonly done in stripes.
EIX 554: The Eaton's ad copy read, " Boys’ Combination Bathing Suits, short sleeves, low neck, button down front, fancy stripes, sizes 22 to 32, as cut EIX 564, each 35 cents."
EIX 556: The Eaton's ad copy read, " Boys’ Combination Bathing Suits, plain navy blue, short sleeves, buttoned down front, low neck, as cut EIX 556, sizes 22 to 32, each 60 cents."
EIX 558: The Eaton's ad copy read, "Boys’ Two-Piece Cashmere Bathing Suits, plain navy blue, short sleeves, low neck, as cut EIX 558, sizes 22 to 32, per suit $1.00."
EIX 570: The Eaton's ad copy read, "Boys’ Combination Bathings Suits, without sleeves, low neck, buttoned on shoulder, sizes 22 to 32, plain navy blue, each suit 75 cents."
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