Figure 1.--This looks like a school class, albeit a rather small class, with their teacher. And the building looks more like a home than a school. We wonder if it could be a Sunday school class. The girls look like they have made some effort to dress alike. Notice that almost all of the girls have hairbows and large dark colored bows seem to be the favorite. The boys mostly wear cardigan sweaters and a mix of knee pants and knickers. A few have small floppy bows. One boy looks to be wearing a tunic suit. The portrait is undated, but the clothes and mount style suggest the 1910s. The actual photograph is 4.3 x 6.5 in. on a 6.7 x 9.5 in. mount. The photographer is Albert E. Nye in Newburyport, Masachusettes.

Most American girls wore hair bows were white, but we also notice some colored ones as well, both light and dark colors. What we do not see very often is patterned bows. The great bulk of the bows were solid colors. And we know that pattened bows existed. Many of the floppy bows boys wore in the late-19th century were patterned or multi-colored bows. Also interestingly in the era before TV and with the movies just bginning, there does not seem to be any national pattern. In fact often in the photogrphs we have found, especially the school portraits, it was common for one color or one size, or one positoning to be very common. We do not know how to explain this. Perhaps the girls were influenced by what the other girls were wearing. But we are not at all sure. Unfortunately because of the black-and white photography of the day, we do not have any idea about the popular colors. Nor are we sure what color the bows that look like black were. They could be red or dark shades of blue, brown, or green. It is generally possible to detect white, but other colors are virtually impossible to identify. This is further complicated by the fact that different film emulsions react variously to colors. That is why U.S. flags often look strange in turn-of the 20th century photographs.

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Created: 8:07 AM 7/15/2017
Last updated: 8:07 AM 7/15/2017