Figure 1.--This CDV has no identifucation, although the dealer believes it us from Pembroke in Wales. It was aklso unated. but we believe it was probably taken in the early-1870s. Notice that almost all of the girls wear pinafores. The mixed gender suggests a small village school.

Welsh girls commonly wore pinafores over their dresses in the 19th century. Younger pre-school boys also for a time also might wear pinafores. As far as we can tell, this was common among all social classes. One might think that it would have been lower income parents most concerned with a protective garnment like a pinafore, but there does not seem to have been any class dustinction. And the pinafore as not distunctive to Wales. The pinafore was common throughout Europe and America in the 19th century. We do not have full information on the 19th century. Britain lagged behind many countries in building a state education system. Even after the invention of photography (1839), school photography was not feasible until the albumen process made it possible to make multiple copies of the same image. Thus we do not have many school images until the CDV became popular (1860s). And when these photographic images appear at mid-century, pinafores appear to be very common. Available images show pinafores, usually white, to be be very common. The Welsh village school image here about 1870 is a good example (figure 1) . We are not sure if they were more common in Wales than England. Pinafores continued to be widely won in Wakes until after the turn-of-the 20th century. This meant the primary schools. We are not sure about the secondary schools. Only a few British children in the 19th century continued their education on to secondary schools, and even fewer girls. But teen age girls commonly wore pinafores in the 19th century even when not attending school.

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Created: 1:05 AM 4/3/2024
Last updated: 1:05 AM 4/3/2024