Figure 1.--Here we have a Bremen family. The two children wear idebntical tradtional pinafores. The children are not identified, but the younger child with short hair looks to be a boy. The portrait is undated, but looks to have been made about 1900. Put the cursor on the image for a closer look.

HBC has little information at this time about German boys wearing traditionally styled pinafores. Boys may have worn them in the early and mid-19th century, but we have little information indicating that they were doing so by the late 19th century when the traditional pinafore came to be widely worn by German girls. We have found a few images of younger boys, enough to show that quite a few children wore traditionally styled pinafores. One problem here is that many images are unidentified. As a result, we are not always certain as to the gender of the child. The image here is a good example (figure 1). We do note very ypoung German boys wearing pinafores and dresses in the early 20th century. Many of the images we have found are younger boys. One such information we have noted are boys 1-2 years of age. But we have noted somewhat older boys as well, altoughh as discussed above assessing gender is a problem.

Unidentified Siblings (1890s)

A reader writes, "Last week, I bought a tremendous picture from Germany. It shows two children in beautiful "broderie anglaise". Are they boys or girls? It is a difficult question. But as it was in 1910, it happened that in studio photography, boys wore dresses that seemed to be nicer than boys' clothings. Of course, girls could have shorter hair and maybe the eldest here maybe is a girl even if I guess the youngest be a boy. I have many ambiguous photos like this one but I observed that girls wore earings and had some bracelets. Here both childen have necklaces. We don't see very often on boys at that time. Anyway, this photography is one of the most beautiful pictures I bought for my collection." The portrait is a cabinet card. I would date it a little earlier than our reader, porobably the 1890s, but of course there is no way to be sure. The clothing here is classic styles that could have been worn any time from the 1880s-1900s. he studio was N. Schneisfurth in Elberfeld. The children look to be about 2-7 years old. Gender is an open question. We would guess the older child is a girk, primarily because boys that age would be unlikely to still be wearing pinafores and dresses. It of course is not impossible, but it would be unusual. The younger child could easily be a boy.

Very Young Boy (1900s)

-This little German boy was photographed at Paunsdorf-Stüntz. We are not sure about the date, probabluy about 1905. Theboy looks to be about 1 year old and wears a dress and pinafore. Notice his toys and wonderful illustrated children's books. Some of these early books for younger children were not bound pages, but rather thick pages that opened up in a chain fashion althought they folded together in book form.

German Family (1900s)

Here we see a charming German family scene with a mother and two children (figure 1). Notice how tenderly she is holding the hand of the younger child who we suspect is a boy. Both children here wear identical pinafores. Mother apparently like to dress the two children alike. Another portrait shows them in identical dresses. One curious aspect of the other portrait is that the older girl also has short hair. This we do not fully understand.

Unidentified Girl (1900s)

Here is a CDV portrait of an unidentified child. While te child is unidentified, we think she is probably a irl. Here her hat and to a lesser extent the necklace are valuable clues. It is a little difficult to differentiate netween the dress ans pinafor because thaey both or white or a very ight color. Without the ha we would have been unsure about the gender. The pinafore has woide ruffled shoulders. The dress has large puff sleeves.

Created: 5:12 PM 12/10/2006
Last updated: 7:36 AM 4/19/2010