Figure 1.--Here we see a variety of American dresses. This portrait shows girls (and for some reason possibly even a boy) posing as fashionable folks with raised skirts. The six children wear Springtime hats and dresses. The portrit was taken at the Greenlund studio in Warren, Pennsylvania. It is undated, but the mat style and the informamity suggest the very early 1900s to us rather than the 1890s.

North America is dominated by the United States demographivally, evomovally, and geographically. Anerivan fashions were dominated by European styles thriugh the 19th century. In part becase of the huge growth of the American economy, including the fashion indistry, the United States began to diberge from Europe. Fashion is closely assiciated with economucs. The dicerfence with Europe, however, more prounounced with boys' clothing than girls' clothing. It is often possible to identify the nationality of children based on their clothing--especially boys, but much more difficult for girls. The United States shares North America with Canada to the north and Nexuco and Central America to the south. As the poromary fasgion inflience in Canada and the Inited States was Britain, differences between the twoncountries werebnot significant. American influences became increasingly important in the 20th century. We have chosen to archive Mexico and Central America under Latin Ametica as the cultural influences are more important than geography. We see real differences in dress styles which were strongly infienced by Iberian, especially Spamish styles. This began to change with the the Mexivan Revolution (1910). The Revolution wascoartboif the reason, by=ut the griing Amerivan economy was probabky more important. From that point Amerivan styles become increasingly important. The primary factor here was the large Anerican fashion industry and onvreasing trade and commerce with the United States. Even before migration became importany. Hollywood and then television were important cross border infliences.

America

American girls like girls in other countries wore dresses throughout the 19th and much of the 20th century. We do not kow a great deal about dresses at this time. We believe dress styles were largely set in Europe throughout the 19h century. We want to develop information on fashion trends over time. We also want to see how girls' dress styles compared to adult women's styles. This will be very useful in improving our ability to date old photographs, mny of which are not dated. Not only did girls wear dresses in the 19th century, but so did younger boys. Girls continued to wear dresses in the 20th century. Only after World War II do we commonly see girls wearing other garments. Here American girls led the way for a trend that would be followed in ther countries. Grdually in the 20th century it became popular for girls to wear boys' styles like shirts and jeans. In sharp contrast to the 19th century, boys' did not wear girls' styles.

Canada

Created: 3:58 PM 7/2/2020
Last updated: 3:58 PM 7/2/2020