Figure 1.--This American painting is undated. We believe it was painted in the 1830s, primarily because of the defined waist is quite different from the straight-line Empire dresses of the early 19th century. Also note the coral necklass which we believe were popular in the 1830s-40s. Note that the ankles are covered.

We do not yet have any images of boys wearing pantalettes in the 1830s. Images of girls can be used to help date stylistic conventions. Girls wearing pantalettes show them wearing them quite long, even covering their ankles. We assume the same was true of younger boys not yet breached wearing dresses. Some boys may have also worn pantalettes with tunics. Here plain pantalettes were essentially the same as the drawers worn with tunics. There may have been differences in the material and styling, here we are not yet sure. Our efforts here are complicated by the fact that several available images are undated. Note that the girl here has pantalettes which covered her ankles (figure 1). We believe that this was common in 1830s, but need to confirm this with additional images. One such image shows German children wearing very similar pantalettes in 1838.

Created: 6:10 PM 9/21/2004
Last updated: 6:11 PM 9/21/2004