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The sailor suit was one of the outfits that some parents used to dress all the children in a family or at least the younger ones identically or to coordinate their outfits. We see this in America, mostly during the 1890s-1910s, although we are still building our chronology. We have begun to collect some chronological information. This convention does not appear to have been quite as common as in Germany, probably because the sailor suit was not as common as in Germany. This was especially true in the 20th century. American teenage boys rarely wore sailor suits while many younger teens did wear sailor suits in Germany. This widened the age range of the children who could be outfitted in sailor suits. The sailor suit was a flexible garment. While teen age boys did not wear sailor suits in America, girls did and this it was a style that could be used for brothers and sisters, although at this point we have only found American portraits of brothers. This changed after the turn-of-the 20th century. The sailor began to declinr in popularity for boys as it increased in popularity for girls. This trend became even more pronounced after world war I when we only see younger primary boys wearing sailor suits. And this limited the utility of the style for dressing the whole family in similar outfits. Smaller family sizes were another factor.
Sailor suits were very populr in America for boys during the 1890s. We see mail order catalogs will full pages devoted entirely to sailor suits done in different styles and material.
The sailor suit was at the height of its populrity in America during the 1900s. We note many boys and girls commonly wearing sailor suits. Youngr boys might wear sailor tunics. Many of our family sailor suit portraits come from the 1900s. So far they seem to be pre-teen bous, although som may be about 12-years of age. we have only found boys in these family dailor suit portraits. The cabinet portrait here shows three boys identified as Joe, Archie, and Alex (figure 1). all of theportraits we have found just show boys in these matched sailor suit portraits. They are all dressed in identical dark sailor suits. They seem to have a white collar junder their sailor collars. This suggests the boys were brothers, perhaps 6-12 years of age. The boys all look different, but surely must be brothers. Note the embroidered anchor symbol on their dickies. The portrait is undated, but the mount and sailor suit style suggests the 1900s.
Sailor suits continued to be very popular in the 1910s and we still see some coordunatd family photographs. We see an increasing tendency toward standardization and the use of traditional syling, Tunics continued popular with younger boys. And we see more girls wearing sailor outfits. We have found a few family images with children wearing coordinated sailor suit outfits. This is notably different than Germany where we have note family sailor suit portraits with both brothers and sisters. So far the only include boys, even though we know sailor outfits had become popular for girls. We note a portrait used for a for a 1913 calendar meaning it was made in 1912. The portrait shows three 'stair step' boys in matching white long pants sailor suits including white shoes. Knickers had become very popular fo boys in the 1910s, but long as part of sailor suits pants were a popular item even for younger boys. Presumably becuse the actual sailor uniforms they were based on included long pants. They boys lare unidentified, but look to be about 6-11 years of age. The scarves have a German touch, but we believe the portrait is American. Only their hair styles are different.
Sailor suits were no longer very common for American boys in the 1960s. Girls still did wear sailor dresses. We do still see matching outfits for specual occassions. We see two unidentified brothers dressed up fir some kind os special event in 1963 or 64. They are wearing matching blue suits with caps.nnWe notice Cecil and Laura Anna Criss wearing matching red sailor suits for a Christmas portrait in 1967.
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