Figure 1.-Here we see a cabinet card portrait of Ernst Arthur Echdahl [writung unclear see if you can dechpher the back] wearing a long pants sailor suit with ringley curls. The portrait is undated, but Ernst was born in 1890 and he looks about 6-years old. So the portait was taken about 1896. Mother had a difficult choice. She wanted both his hair syling toi show, but also wanted to complete the sailor outfit with his cap. The cap tally says 'Chicago'. The stido was L.H. Felt in Chicago. .

The chronology of ringlet curls and sailor suits is different, but the popularity of the two peaked at about the same time. And we have an excellent photographic record of this because the peak popularity occurred after the invention of photography. We see ringlet curls in the early-19th centiry. This seems to have been a spin off of the horenously elborate women's hair styles during the late-18th century, at least before the Revolution. Our information on the early-19th century is limited. We see women and gurls with ringlets, but few boys. This gradually increased, we think largely a function of the increasing prosperity created by the Industrial Revolution and expanding middle class. Thus se see more boys wearing ringlets in the second half of the 19th century, of course especially in the 1880s-early 1900s with the Fauntleroy Craze. Sailor suits for boys first appeared in the 1840s when Prince Anbert had Prince Berie wear a Royal Navy uniform for a portrait he gave to his wife Queen Victoria (1840s). It took some time for the fashion to catch on with the public, a little longer in America than England itself. But this was well established (1870s). We even see girls wearing sailor suits in the 1870s. Sailor suits were a major style by the 1880s--the same decade that the Fauntleroy Craze launched ringlet curls as a major style. We thus mostly see sailor suits and ringlet curls after the late-19th century, but also to some extent in the very early-20th century. The popularity of the sailor suit to some extent coincided with that of ringlet curls.

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Created: 4:07 AM 10/14/2013
Last edited: 6:30 AM 2/13/2015