Figure 1.--This CDV portrait of an unidentyified boy is undated. We would guess it was taken in the 1870s. The boys looks to be about 5 years old, but he seems not at all pleased about having his portrait taken. He wears a kilt suit with a small ruffled collar and matching wrist ruffles. While small, the collar is larger than those we see in the 1860s. The boy holds a straw rounded crown hat, although the crown had been truncated. It appears there may be a hat band round the hat and streamers or a bow. This detail, however, is out of picture. at the bottom. The studio ws C.C. Johns in Marshall, Missouri.

We see these these rounded-crown hat done in a variety of material, both straw and fabric hats. Some were done in felt. Some seem to be the same fabric as the suit, suiting material matching the suit. This mean thst were soth soft and fully shaped hard hats. Both felt and straw could be shaoped in a hard style. It is not always easy to determine the material involved from the photograph. The easiest to spot are straw hats. Straw hats were introduced a decade or more before kilts suits became an important style. Straw hats were worn by the 1830s, but did not became a fashionable mainstay until the really well made Ecuadorean straw hats (called Panamas) were popularized by the 49ers headed to califiornia to hunt for gold. Straw hats persisted even when the kilt suit disappeared after the turn-of-the 20th centuty. The most common hat style for straw was the rounded crown hat. There were also flat topped boaters, but this was a style less common for boys--especially during th 1870-90s. And the same general trend is the case for rounded-crown hats in general made of the other materials. The choce of material affected both the hat band and the stremers (figure 1).

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Created: 1:58 AM 4/16/2012
Last updated: 6:11 AM 4/16/2012