Figure 1.--This unidentified boy looks to be wearing a dress. The cabinet card is undated, but looks to have been taken in the 1890s. By this time the centuries old convention of younger boys wearing dresses was disappearing. The studio was W.H. Ernsberger in Auburn, New York.

The United States dominates the North American market, but Canada is of some interest. While we have only limited information on the early-19th century, the advent of photography at mid-century meant that there is an enormous photographic record for the late-19th century. This makes it possible to follow clothing/fasg=hion trends in some detail. And the trend we derect is fewer boys wearing dresses in America. We do not have a large enough Canadian archive to make any definative state ment on Canada, but the same trend seems to be the case there as well. Canadian trends were influebced by American trends, but not totally determined. One complication here is that many boys even not wearing dresses were not breeched. For centuries there was only one garment for women and younger boys--the dress or to a lesser extentb skirts. Then a new garment appeared after mid-19th century, driven by the Beritsh Royal Family introducung the kilt as a boy's garment. American boys of course did not begin weraring Scottish kilts, but many boys began wearing kilt suits. Another development was the appearance of Fauntleroy suits (1885). Many fashion-concious mothers decided to breech their sons earlier because they so they coul sport Fauntleroy suits. Many mothers were enamored with the Fauntleroy Craze which swept the nation. As a result, the centuries old convention of younger boys wearing dresses by the turn-of-the 20th century was going out of style even with fashion-concious mothers.

Canada

Canadian boys like boys in America and Europe wore dressed when they were young during the 19th and early 20th century. We have few specific details on this convention in Canada. It was, however, a very common convention throughout Europe in the 19th century as well as the United States. We suspect that the conventions as well as the styles in Canada were little different than the practice in America and Britain. As far as we know the chronology, styles, and ages as well as social class conventions were comparable. We do not know if there were any differences among the French community. The image here shows a Montreal boy, probably in the 1880s. We note another impage of a Toronto child, but we are not sure if the child is a boy or girl. Our archive is still very limite, but we hope to develop the topic as our archive expands.

United States

As in Europe, it was very common for American boys to wear dresses when young, although conventios varied greatly from family to family. Much of the HBC overall discussion of dresses and other skirted garments has dealt primarily with America. This is due primarily on HBC's greater access to information and images about America. Thus much of our information on American dresses worn by boys is in the overall dress section. One important development in America was the appearance of boy-styled dresses in the late 19th century, especially by the 1880s. HBC assumes that similar developments occurred in European countries, but can not conform this at this time. We have only begun to archive some specifically American information here.

Created: 6:17 PM 4/20/2023
Last updated: 6:17 PM 4/20/2023