Little Lord Fauntleroy Suits: Demographics

Figure 1.--One noteable aspect of the Fauntleroy craze is how wide spread it was, both regionally and among social class groups. Fashions are normally most prevelent in the big cities, especilaly at the time the northeastern cities. This boy was from Boston, a fashionable Northeastern city. And we see a classic Fauntleroy suit as wll as stilized hair. But we see such outfits throughout the country, although the stilized hair including ringlet curls seem more common in fashionable cities.

The photographic record does not tell us a lot about the demographics of Fautleroy outfits. During the Fautleroy era (1885-1905), Anmerica was still a majority rural country. Mist mericans lived on rarms or at least in rural asreas. The country was rapidly industralizinjg which meran jrbsnizatuin, but woukld not criss the 50 percent threahiold until the 1920s. While period photohrasphy involved studio portraits that identified the city or town where the oportrait was taken, it dies not indicate where gthey lived. And farm families woul dress up and come into towen to have their portraits taken. Thus there is no way of determining if they were farm or town families. We know that the mailorder catalogs by the time of the Fauntleroy Craze had brought big city fashion within easy reach of the most remotely located farmer in the country. We have found a few images showing that farm boys did not entirely escape the Fauntleroy Craze. Esopecuallhy prosperous farm families. A good example is an Iowa family about 1895. We are unable to quanify the relative imoprtance at this time. We believev that Fasuntleroy suits were most common in fashionable big cities, but wasc notable throughout the country, including rural areas. It shiuld be noted thatv there were not only proper Fauntleroy suits, but regular suits for which Fauntleroy trim or a Fauntleroy blouse was added.

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Created: 12:50 AM 5/17/2023
Last updated: 12:50 AM 5/17/2023