Figure 1.--The American boys from San Faranciso wear both long pants and short/knee pants with their tunics. The image was probably taken in the late 1850s. Click on the image for a fuller discussion.

We notice boys wearing kneepants looking rather like short pants in the mid-19th century. The ealiest image we have looks to be dated from the mid-late 1850s. We are unsure when wearing shortened length pants with tunics first became fashionable. Certainly younger boys wearing long pantalettes with tunics was prevalent un the early 1800s. We are unsure when they began wearing shorter-length pantalettes. Our images at this time are too limited to make any firm judgement, but we believe that long pants and long panalettes were still common in the 1830s. We are not yet sure about the 1840s. Many of the yunics we have noted were tunic suits with the pants matching the tunic. Some boys, however, wore pants that did not match. We are unsure as to the conventions involved here. These outfits that did not match would not theoretically be called a tunic suit.

Created: December 22, 2002
Last updated: December 22, 2002