Figure 1.--This cabinet card portrait shows an unidentified American boy with long ringlet curls a wearing a long-pants white sailor suit. Unusually he is weaing a cap. Mother has carefully positioned the long curls.The set is a classical balistrade with a bucolic background. The portrait is undated. It looks like a 1900s card to us, but it also has 1890s features. So we would guess that the portrait was dated about 1900. The portrait was taken at the Roshon Studio taken by P.M. Goettel in Sunburg, Pennsylvania.

Ringlet curls in thev1900s were worn with a varirty of outfits. We see boys wearing ringlets with stykes thatg were going out of style as well as some new styles of clothing. -The best known of course were Fauntleroy-style outfits, but Fauntleroy suits were going out of style by the turn-of-the 20th century. We still see, however, Fauntleroy blouses. We note an unidentified boy wearing a Fauntleroy blouse and white floppy bow with shortish ringlets, probably about 1905. The same chronological trends seem true for associated styles like Fauntleroy suits, kilt suits, and other popular 1890s garmrents. These were all still worn in the early-1900s, but no longer commonly worn by the end of the decade. Sailor suits were still popular. We mostly see ringlets being worn with sailor suits and tunic suits by the end of the decade. We note an unidentified American boy wearing ringlets about 1905. Notably he seems to be wearing casual outdoor play clothes rather than a dressy outfit. And we see some boys wearing ringlets with the newly popular tunic suit outfits.

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Created: 8:07 AM 9/13/2015
Last edited: 8:07 AM 9/13/20155