Figure 1.--This cabinent card portrait shows dresses being worn by teenage American girls in 1882. Long hair was very popular for girls, but we see some girls with very short hair. A reader asks, "How do you know the teen on the left is a girl? There are some attributes to the dress along with the short hair and boyish face that made me uncertain? Explaining how you know would be an interesting addition to the page."

This cabinent card portrait shows dresses being worn by teenage American girls in 1882. Long hair was very popular for girls, but we see some girls with very short hair. A reader asks, "How do you know the teen on the left is a girl? There are some attributes to the dress along with the short hair and boyish face that made me uncertain? Explaining how you know would be an interesting addition to the page." It is true that many younger boys wore dresses in the 19th century. The vast majority of thse boys were breeched between the age of 3-5 years. This was especially the case after the Civil War whe the publc education system became increasingly established and boys tended to begin school at age 6 years. It is true that some mothers delayed breeching and we see some boys still wearing dresses, tunics and kilt suits even at age 5-8 years and occassinaly even older. Because this was a reklatively small proprtion of boys, we generally do not identify them as boys unless the individual is identified by bame. (Here we make some excptions if there are props or other cluses suggestin the indivisual is a boy.) These instances were a small part of boys even in the 19th century and the proportion became even smaller with each age category. I any case all boys would have been breeched well before they reached their teens as is the case here. And in this instance we have the further conformation of an inscription on the back. The hand written inscription on the back is hard to read but may be "May (or Mary) and Linda 1882". Facial characteristics can be used to assess unidentified old photographs, but such assessments should be used cautiously. We have found many instances in the photographic record of boys who look like girls and girls that look like boys. The one girl's hair here does look abnormally short. I am unsure why she would have cut it so short. I don't think it would have been seen as fashionable in 1882, but I am not sure just wht the reason may have been. A reader writes, "About the girl with such a short hair, I remember that when I was 5 years old, I saw a litle girl hving shaved hair. I asked my aunt if the child was a boy or a girl an she replied that the girl needs to get her hair cut because she had lice. Maybe it is the same here. There were other reasons such as cancer." Well, a range of medical reasons is certainly a possibility, but I tend to associate the lice problem with younger children and not teenagers.

Created: 12:43 AM 9/18/2007
Last updated: 5:49 PM 9/18/2007