Figure 1.-- This undated cabinet card portrit features two intense looking boys dressed in matching sailor suits. The unidentified boy look to be aboutv407 years old. Note the button dickey. Mother had addedca double set of ruffles to the sailor collar. One of the more interesting elements is this image is the framing and matting. The back of the card has a snow flake and spiral design that is very unusual. The actual portrait is circular and framed with a 3-D style ornate background. The boys are obviously brothers with similar eyes and features. The studio looks to be Comrad in Manistique, Michigan .

Some mothers decided to add decuative touches to sailor collars. We see this more in Europe than America, but we have found a few Ameriacan examples as well. We note American boys in the 1860s with various small collars peeking out from collar-buttoning jackets. The collars included ruffled and Eton collars among other styles. Sailor suits were, however very rare in America during the 60s. We begin to see more sailor outfits in the 1870s and some mother continued the practice of having fancy collars peek out even with sailor suits. The whole idea of sailor suits of course was a smart, but realtively simple dress for boys. Some mothers could not help but add some decorative touches to their sons' sailor suits. The most popular touch here was to add a narriow band of ruffles, presumably attached to a shirt-waist wirn under the sailor blouse. The outfits the boys wear here has a double ruffle at the collar (figure 1). We have only a few examples of this from undated cabinet cards. We believe this occurred mostly in the 1879s, but have not yet been able to confirm this with dated portraits.

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Created: 10:45 PM 11/25/2013
Last updated: 10:45 PM 11/25/2013