Figure 1.--This card is a double image. In this image pane the Virginia brother and sister are posed together. The boy wears ringlet curls with skirted sailor kilt outfit. His sister wears a dress with bows representing leading strings. I at first thought she was wearing a pinafore, but now believe it is a dress. Notice how the girl is showing off her dress. This and the image below are from the same studio sitting. This could be the occasion of her little brother's breaching, but may be just two fashionable outfits that he wore. Clearly he had not outgrown his sailor kilt outfit. Image courtesy of the RG collection.

This card is a double image. The boy in one pane image is wearing his Sunday best outfit--presumably his first pair of pants. It is a classic Little Lord Fauntleroy suit with an unsusal bow and leggings. He also has ringlets and curled bangs. He is wearing gloves and holds a whip behind him. A sailor style cap with an anchor insignia completes his outfit. Great detail in the lace work on his cuffs and collar can be seen. In the other image pane he is posed with his older sister. In this one he has the same hairdo but is wearing a skirted sailor outfit. Both photographs are from the same sitting. This could be the occasion of his breaching, but may be just two fashionable outfits that he wore. Clearly he had not outgrown his sailor outfit. Notice that it is Christmas and not his birthday. The card reads: "Naramore, King St, Alexandria, VA". The back is plain. Handwritten in ink in old script is "Xmas 1895".

Double Card Image

HBC at first assumed that portraits of boys in skirted outfits and pants mean that the boy had just been breached. This may in fact be the case in many instances, but there are several other alternative possibilities. One of the questions HBC has is if many boys might for a while wear pants and skirts and what the convetions were for deciding what a boy would wear. It is a little difficult to tell precisely what has happened here. This card is a double image. The boy in one pane image is wearing his Sunday best outfit and in another a skirted kilt outfit. He has the same hair style in both images. It is not clear to us just what the two outfits represent or why he was photographed with his sister in his kilt outfit and by himself in his Fauntleroy outfit.

The Children

The children in these images are unidentified. They look to be about 6 and 9 years old.

Location

They presumably lived in Alexandria, Virginia a few miles south of Washington, D.C.

Chronology

While the children are unidentified, we know when the portraits were taken. The back is plain. Handwritten in ink in old script is "Xmas 1895". So we know the portrait was taken some time around Christmas 1895. Presumably the portrait was actually taken a few days before Christmas so that the cards could be sent to friends and realtives. There is no special holiday background or props to indicate this. Notice that it is Christmas and not his birthday.

Portrait

The portrairs were taken by "Naramore, King St, Alexandria, VA".

Figure 2.--The boy in this image pane is wearing his Sunday best outfit--presumably his first pair of pants. It is a classic Little Lord Fauntleroy suit with an unsusal bow and leggings. He also has ringlets and curled bangs. He is wearing gloves and holds a whip behind him. A sailor style cap with an anchor insignia completes his outfit. Great detail in the lace work on his cuffs and collar can be seen. Notice that it is Christmas and not his birthday. The card reads: "Naramore, King St, Alexandria, VA". The back is plain. Handwritten in ink in old script is "Xmas 1895". Image courtesy of the RG collection.

Clothing

Three different outfits are depicted on this card. The boy wears two outfits and the girl one. Presumably mother changed his outfits at the studio to show the difference.

Girl's dress

The girk hear wears a dress with ribbon bows representing leading strings (figure 1). For some reason the ribbons on her left shoulder are quite long. I at first thought she was wearing a pinafore, but now believe it is a dress although it is not easy to tell. Normally the hem of a girl's dress peaked out under the pinafore, but we see nothing here. Also the sleeves look too long for a pinafore. The dress itself is rather plain, but the sleeves have fancy knit and ruffled cuffs. It looks to be a pastel color and not white, but I am unsure as to just what color it was. Pinafores were normally white or stripped. I do not think pastel colored pinafores were common.

Sailor kilted suit

The boy in the first image is posed with his older sister (figure 1). In this one he has the same hairdo, but is wearing a skirted sailor outfit--another popular style of the day. It is an all white outfit with no detailing that we can detect. Even the sailor scarfe, presumably silk, is white. He wears it, however, with contrasting black long stockings. Presumably he also wore these long stockings with his new Fauntleroy suit under the leggings. We are not sure that he always wore dark long stockings when he wore his sailor kilt. He may well have worn white stockings. The dark long stockings may have been selected more to go with the Fauntleroy suit than the white kilt outfit. Clearly he has worn his kilt outfit for a while. Note the sleeves are at his wrist but he has not yet outgrown it. We are not sure what kind of cap or hat he wore with this outfit. For some reason with his kilt outfit, he has no cap, riding whip, or leggings.

Boy's Fauntleroy suit

The boy in the second image wears a classic Little Lord Fauntleroy suit (figure 2). It looks to be a balck suit. This short jacket is cut away to display his frilly Fauntleroy blouse. His lace and ruffled collar, however, is largely hidden by a rather unsusal and very large bow--looking more like a bib than a bow. The bow looks to be white. He wears leggings. I am not sure if these leggings along with the whip he holds behind his back is is an affectation of Little Lord Fauntleroy outfitted to ride his pony or for cold weather wear. Perhaps the children had ponies. We note quite a few portraits of boy wearing leggings with their Faubntleroy suit. Often they were leather, but this boy looks to be wearing cloth leggings. The boy also wears dark gloves. A sailor style cap with an anchor insignia completes his outfit. Almost surely the cap had streamers in the back. The lace work can best be seen on his cuffs, but the same lace is repeated on his large collar as well.

Hair Style

Both children have long curled hair, but it is done differently on each. This was a common pattern for mothers who curled their sons' hair. It was the boy who almpost always got the long clearly defined ringlets. The girls hair, when she had a brother in ringlets, was almost always done differently with less prominent and defined ringlets. We have noted very few images where brothers and sisters had their hair done identically and noe where both wore identiacl ringlet cuirls. The boy has an especially elaborate hair style in that his bangs are also curled. His sister's hair is drawn back at the forehead with a top curl and two side parts.

Interpretation

We have no written information about these children, so there is no way of knowing for sure what is represented here. Both photographs are clearly from the same sitting.

Poses

As far as we can tell, these two portraits were taken at the same time. Mother presumably changed the boy's outfits at the studio to show the contrast. It is interesting that in one of these images he is with his sister and in the other by himself. We suspect that dressed in a skirted garment, mother must have seen it appropriate to photograph him with his sister. After breaching him with a Fauntleroy suit, she may have seen him as entering the world of men and wanted a portrait of him alone. This isust conjecture of course, but such matters are not random as money is involved in taking portraits and thus mother must have given it some thought.

Clothing

This could be the occasion of his breaching, but may be just two fashionable outfits that he wore. I do think that the Fauntleroy was the boy's first suit with pants. Clearly he has been wearing his white kilt suit for some time, the portrait suggests that it was his Sunday best outfit up until his new Fauntleoy suit was purchased--presumably especially for Chisustmas. What we do not know is if he on some occassions still wore his kilt suit and if so on what basis mother decided what he should wear for which occassion. And of course what about his other clothes. What did he wear around the house and for play? He must have had some good outfits that were not for Sunday best. Here we just do not know. It seems likely that for a while he may have had only one pants outfit--his Sunday best Fauntleroy suit, but we are still unsure how mothers handled this transition from skirts to pants. Some mothers may have brought a whole new set of clothes, but we suspect that many thrifty mothers insisted on their sons getting the good out of many of their skirted outfits.

Ringlet curls

While we have many questions about the breaching process and the boy's clothes, we are sure about one aspect of these portraits. Mother has no intention of cutting the boy's glorious ringlet curls yet. How liong after his breaching he continued to wear these ringlets, we do not know.

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Created: December 23, 2002
Last updated: December 23, 2002