Figure 1.--These German brothers wear clothes they probably wore to school. The two younger boys wear soft sailor caps. Note there is no writing on the tallies. The older brother wears more of an army styled cap. Notice how the bill (peak) is polisghed. The photographer was Atelier Born in Kamenz i./S. The pportrait was probably taken about 1900-05. Image courtesy of the BP collection.

Sailor headwear were commonly worn by younger German school boys. The age varied somewhat based on the varying conventuions for sailor suits over time. We note even younger teenagers at times wearing sailor suits. It was the younger boys, however, that were most likely to wear the sailor headwearto school. We do not yet have much information on the 19th century. We see quite a few boys wearing sailor headwear to school in the early 20th century. The sailor suit and sailor headwear is often seen in the first day portraits commonly taken. We often notice sailor suits in class portraits, but here the boys are not commonly wearing their caps. Sailor headwear was commonly worn with sailor suits, but this was not always the case. And in some instances we note sailor headwear without saiilor suits. We have noted both broad-brimmed hats and the floppy soft caps. Both might have streamers, but streamers were most common with the wide-brimmed hats. The wide brimmed hats were worn by younger boys before World War I (1914-18). The soft caps were worn before and after the War. The boys here look to be wearing a uniform style worn before the War. The photograph looks to have been taken about 1900-05 (figure 1). After the War sailor suits continued to be worn, but with soft caps. After the War the styles worn were almostly exclusively the styles actually worn by German sailors. We note both white and dark caps. We assume the dark caps were navy blue.

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Created: 1:15 AM 8/6/2004
Last updated: 6:41 PM 7/23/2007