Figure 1.--This portrait looks like a small cabinet card (4 12/16" x 3 2/16"). We see three boys about 2-8 years old. The two oldest boys wear stocking caps with matching short pants play outfits with colored three-quarter socks (white were more common) and strap shoes. The stocking caps seem an unusual combination withh a summer play outfit. The portrait is undated. The dealer dates it to the 1910s. The clothes seem to confirm that, but the early-20s is possible.

Short pants continued to be realitively uncommon in America during the 1910s. we do see some younger boys wearing them, but not older boys. The shorts we see are essentially knee pants without the decorative hem buttons. They were done in the same knee length that had become standard for knee pants. A good example is 5-year old Garland Miller Heck, we think in the 1910s. Shorts as far as we can tell evolved from knee pants. Here Europe, especially Britain was an influence. Gradually we begin to see shorter lengths by the end of the decade. Knee pants were ever done in lenhths much above the knee. Knee pants declined in popularity, but few boys switched to short pants. We can see that in the school photography that had become coomonplace. Mostly boys switched to knickers. We see some exceptions in the very early primary years. Unfortunately many photographs were undated. Thanks to the explosion of family snap shots, there are a lot of images, but amall percentafe are dated. Given that we see short pants in the 1920s, it is likely that they were being worn by the late-10s. We can make some estimates as to the dates, but of course that is not as definitive as a dated image.

Created: 11:08 PM 3/7/2018
Last updated: 11:08 PM 3/7/2018