Figure 1.--This CDV shows two unidentifued American children about 3-13 years old. The little boy wears a velvet tunic suit with diaginal styling and long knee pants. His curly haired big sister wears a print dress with ruffeked detailing, including an apron elelment. Both children wear white long stockings. The little boy has strap shors, his sister high-top shoes. The portrait is undated, but we would guess was taken in the 1860s, although the very early-70s is possible. The studio was Miss S. T? Speechln, Manchester, Michigan. (Lady photographers were a rarity at the time and would have specialized in portraits of other women and children. Here the ad on the back states, "Particular attention paid to children and copying old pictures.")

The hosiery American boys wore with tunic varied over time. We are not sure about the early- and mid-19th century as boys commonly wore long pants with tunics. As we begin to see shortened-length pants we know much more about hosiery. Basically what we see are the popular hosiery styles during each chronological period. We do not see any hosiery types or styles specifically worn with tunics. We do not yet have information on the hosiery worn with tunics (early-19th century). Only with the invention of photographic do we begin to see examples of the hosiery worn with tunics. We mostly see long-stockings (mid- and late-19th century). There was a degree of variety during this period, but there ere some observeble trends. We note white stockings (1860s). We commonly see striped stockings (1870s). We see a lot of dark stockings (1880s-90s). At the turn of the 20th century we still see long stockings, often white long stockings with formal outfits. We also see mostly white three-quarter socks. Here noth seasonlity and formality were factors. As the tunic suit became popular as a play outfit, we also see boys going brefoot with tunic suits. We mostly see this in the early-20th century. We are not entirely sure that it was not the case in the 19th century, but the family snapshot showing boys in informal family situations only became prevalent at the turn-of-the 20th century.

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Created: 10:37 PM 7/2/2018
Last edited: 10:37 PM 7/2/2018