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For centuries younger boys wore dresses. And for most of this oeriod, there was bnot a lot of difference between the dresses these yonger children wore. You could not determine gender by looking at the dress styles. This centuries old convention began to change in the 19th century at mid-century. The first notable change was the appearance of the kilt suit. Abnd very quickly the kilt suit became tghe primary skirted garment worn by boys outside of the toddler years. That was certainly the case by the 1880s. Two other major developments occurred during the 1880s. We begin to see dresses for boys that had destictive styles--which mean primarily, plainer, less decorative and fussy styles. Here we are not talking about mandarory stlylistic decisions, but rather decisions that more and more mothers were making. The second notanlr change was the Fauntleroy Craze which was unleased on American boys with the publication of Mrs. Burnett's book. The new style was enormously popular. And many doting mothers wanted to outfit their pre-school sons in the popular new style. This included many mothers who were determined not to breech their sons until absolutekly necessary because of social pressures. As a result, many mothers chose to breech their sons earlier thn they would normally had dine si they could outfit him a Fauntleroy suit. Fot the most opart these were decisions made by mothers without anyb input from fathers.
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