Figure 1.--This cabinent card portrait was taken in Philadelphia. It is undated, but we think was probably taken in the 1890s. Both the ivory mount and style of tunic suggests the 1890s. Note how short the tunic was cut. The 20th century tunics we have seen were normnally cut at knee length.

Tunics seem less common after the 1860s, but the style became imensely popular at the turn-of-the 20th century. We see them being very commonly worn in the 1900s and the 1910s. The photographic and catalog record provides a great deal of information about tunics in the 20th century. We haven't found any images that we can definitively date to the 1890s, but we don't think that tunic suits suddenly appeard precisely in 1900. They were so popular in the 1900s that they must have appeared in the late 1890s. We note James McIntyre wearing a striped tunic suit, we think in the late-1890s. We believe that tunic suits were worn in the 1890s. The length of the tunic seems to have been shorter than the tunics that became popular in the 1900s. The sailor tunic seems to have been a popular style.

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Created: 11:50 PM 9/11/2007
Last edited: 10:06 AM 7/10/2018