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Little Lord Fauntleroy suits: American garments blouses Fauntleroy blouse features wrist cuffs
American Fauntleroy Blouses: Nebraska Family (1890s)
Figure 1.--Here we see five children of an unidentified family. There are two girls and three boys. The two boys wearing Fauntleroy blouses and bows look to be avout 10-13 years old. Notice that the blouses have large frilled collars, but no wrist cuffs. The boys wear regular double-breasted knee pants suits with black long stockings. The cabinent card portraits are undated, but look like the late-1890s. The studio was G.C. Ragan in Hastings, Nebraska. A reader has provided a detailed assessment of this Nebraska family portrait.
Here we see five children of an unidentified family. There are two girls and three boys. The two boys wearing Fauntleroy blouses and bows look to be avout 10-13 years old. Notice that the blouses have large frilled collars, but no wrist cuffs. The boys wear regular double-breasted knee pants suits with black long stockings. The cabinent card portraits are undated, but look like the late-1890s. The studio was G.C. Ragan in Hastings, Nebraska.
Reader Assessment
A reader has provuded an excellenbt assessment of this image. "One of the items I have noticed from catalogs of the period is that collars and cuffs were attached to blouses and shirts. It seems to me from the image here that the mother (assuming she was the parent who chose the children's clothes) chose identical ruffled (not lace) which are less expensive fancy collars for the two younger boys. Notice that the cuffs are not fancy and seem to be button on (hard to tell from image but I think I see an overlap that indicates a button). That suggests the blouse may have given the parent the choice to use the attached fastener or attach a fancy cuff overlay. Just and observation. I noticed that often catalogs in the 1890s allowed for parents to purchase collars and or collars and cuffs as a set. She then dressed them in identical except for the color, knee pants double breasted suits). The two boys are wearing floppy bow ties with the youngest son wearing a plaid tie and the slightly older boy wearing a solid color tie (my guess some shade of red). I can make out the decorative buttons on the knee trousers of both boys. They both seem to wear very heavy ribbed long stockings. They both also wear identical high top button shoes. Note that they are not patent leather but regular what I would label as everyday shoes. The other notable item is that the two boys are wearing different colored suits. The older one in either dark gray (a guess) or black and the younger one in a similar color but lighter shade (also a guess). Both boys appear to wear their hair identically. My guess is that their mother cut it herself and had one style (a total guess here). I am also guessing that this family was middle class rather than affluent due to the touches such as fancy collars but not fancy cuffs, regular shoes not patent leather and everyday stockings not special occasion stockings. And from the background, it appears the photograph was taken at a studio. "
Button-on Collars and Cuffs
The one disagreenent we have with this assessment is the idea of bytton-on collars and cuffs. We see no indication of button-on cuffa or overlap indicating a button. As far as we know, cuffs and collars dis not button on. There were detachable collars and cuffs, but I am not sure they buttoned on to the blouse. Are there catalog examples? That would be useful to present. Here we not only need to confirm that such itemsd existed and how commion they were.
