Figure 1.--This American boy wears an especially large white hair bow, one of the largest we have noted. The boy is Janes Martin. This portarit appears to have been taken on the day that he was breeched, perhaps his birthday. Click on the image for more information about James and his breeching. |
The bows worn by boys were usually relatively small, basically only a narrow ribbon. A good example is the ribbons worn by an unidentified American boy in the 1890s. Sizes did vary, both in the whith of the ribbon and the length. Some were so small that they are hard to detect in photographs. This was sometimes the poor quality of the photography, but also reflected the small size of the bows. Some bows were just small little ribbons, usually tied to one side. This small size appears to have been realtively constant over time. We have not noted any detectable chronological trens here. It also appdears to have been realtively similar acrros different countries. Other ribbons might extend all the way to the boy's forehead. While most were quite small, HBC has noted a few boys wearing quite large hair bows. While these were not nearly as common as the narrow ribbon type they were worn. The large hair bows appear to have been usually used for boys who were not yet breeched.
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