Figure 1.-- Here we see four unidentified American brothers, all wearing white tunics and black long stockings. The boys ;ook to us abour 3-9 years old. This image is rare in that we have never seen four boys from the same family all dressed in tunics. Usually in large families we only see two boys wearing tunics, with the older boys wearing more mature outfits. Here both their height and faces suggest this age range as well as the biological limitations about having children close in age. The tunics are not identical. One of the two older boys wear a sailor tunic and the other a tunic with an Eton collar and floppy bow. They seem to be pictured in an outdoor outing, not in their back yard or a park, although white tuinics seem an unusual outfit for a backwoods outing. Notice the overcoat with a velvet collar, suggesting the boys camf freom a family in comfortable circumstances. The snapshot is not dated, but we would guess was taken in the 1900s, although the early 10s is possible.

The age of boys wearing tunics has clearly varied over time. We are not sure about age trends in the early-19th century. We suspect that boys may have worn tunics upt to 9-10 years of age, although we can not yet substantiate this in the era before photograpy. Tunics were not yet yet, hiwever, widely worn in the wide population beyond the fashiobable urban centers. By the mid-19th century we note boys up to about 9-years old wearing tunics. A good example is 9-year old Tom K. Christie. Notice the diagonal styling that became popular in the mid-1860s. We have found few tunics seized for size 9s in the early-20th century. We have found only one wholesaler who offered tunic suits in size 9s. Actually the sizes went up to 10s. We do note family portraits showing a few boys at the upper end if the age range wearing tunic suits. We have not found many, but we have found a few. We think that tunics were a rather middle- or uper-class outfir, less commonly worn by boys from working class families. And this was especially the case for the older boys wearing the garment. This can sometimes be determined by the context of the photographs even if the boys are unidentified.

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Created: 11:39 PM 5/20/2011
Last edited: 4:35 AM 7/25/2016