Tusculum College - Honors English 111
Dr. Tiami Olsen
October 10, 2007

Picture courtesy of The Library Company of Philadelphia.
S arah J. Hale was one of the first women editors.
She was the editor of Ladies Magazine and Literary
Gazette later changed to American Ladies Magazine in 1834. She continued to edit the magazine even after Louis Godey bought American Literature
Magazine and combined it with his magazine
Godey’s Lady’s Book . She was the editor of this magazine until 1877 when Frank Munsey bought the magazine. Through
Godey’s Lady’s Books she urged women to read and write and obtain an education
(Greenberg). She also urged women to exercise, have property rights, and have sensible fashion. (“Portraits of American
Women”) Godey’s Lady’s Books published many different forms of American literature, art, technology, and fashion of the period.
One form of fashion published in
Godey’s Lady’s
Books was boy’s fashion. A boy’s fashion was very similar to the fashions of his sister. Both girls and boys wore dresses from infancy to the age of six or seven. Today the modern world contemplates why boys were clothed in dresses in the nineteenth century.

T he figure to the right is from Godey ’ s Lady ’ s Book 1866 page 12.
This figure shows a representation of boys ’ and girls ’ dress in the nineteenth century.
Which child is the boy and which child is the girl? According to
Historical Boys Clothing , boys wore belts to gather the waist where as girls would wear bows. The child to the right is a boy. He is wearing a belt at his waist, while the child to the left is wearing a bow. We also know this statement is true because how the children are acting. The girl is somewhat defenseless with her hands raised for surrender. The boy however, has taken the doll away from the other child, and he is threatening her with a stick. This is a good depiction of what boys and girls act like, even in the present day.
Godey’s Lady’s Book 1866 page 12

B oys wore dresses for many different reasons.
According to Jo B.
Paoletti, author of “Clothing and Gender in
America: Children's Fashions, 1890-1920”
,boys might have worn dresses because dresses were easier to make than a small pants suit, unisex clothing allowed for a pool of hand-me-downs, ease in diapering, or simply because gender differentiation in children was not important, only differentiation from child and adult.
Historical Boys Clothing also adds that boys might have worn dresses because they allowed for more movement while they were growing.
Putting a child in a dress before he or she was “trained” was practical. According to Historical Boys Clothing children and adults would relieve themselves where ever they saw fit, but an “untrained” child would soil their clothing if he or she was not wearing a garment that was unobtrusive if an emergency occurs. A dress would allow for clothing to soil less than a pants suit.
However, while ease in diapering may have held true for younger boys wearing dresses, it does not explain why older children who were
“trained” were still put in dresses.
Having unisex clothing did allow for a pool of hand-me-downs.
Clothing was expensive to buy and expensive to make, and it was also very time consuming.
According to Historical Boys Clothing families were usually large with many children, and clothing could become a major expense especially since children grow so quickly.

Picture courtesy of Hope Greenberg of the University of Vermont
DIAGRAM OF BOY’S DRESS.
(See engraving, page 543.)
H istorical Boys Clothing also goes on to say that a boy with more older sisters than brothers may stay in dresses longer. Thrift was an important value for almost everyone, even the families that could afford new clothing. Having a lot of unisex clothing, like the dress, allowed for both boy or girl to share clothing, and the mother was able to sew less clothing and save more money and time.
Another reason mentioned by
Paoletti for boys being clothed in dresses was because sewing a dress was easier than sewing a small pants suit. The figure from
Godey’s Lady’s Book
December 1859 shows a pattern for a boy’s dress. The diagram on page 544 shows the pattern that should be used to make the dress on page 543. The pattern does not seem to be too complicated.
There are only eight pieces to the pattern including the skirt, back, cuff, collar, front, side, sleeve, and waist coat.

Picture courtesy of Hope Greenberg of the University of Vermont
T he description of the dress below states that it is one of the most warm and comfortable dresses made for winter. It can also be worn year round if a lighter fabric, other than Orleans and velvet, was used.
This dress is more for boys than for girls because of the front buttons.
Historical Boys Clothing states that boys dresses had buttons in the front to promote independence where as girls dresses had buttons in the back because they were expected to rely on someone else to help them dress.
Though this style was common for boys it is probable that a girl would still wear the dress of her brother in a lower/middle class family.

The fashion we give for this month is for a little boy’s dress, and is one of the most warm and comfortable of any we have seen when made for a winter garment; and for summer wear it only requires to be made of lighter materials. Of this one, the jacket and waist-coat are made of velvet of any color, with military braid to match for the trimmings, and fancy buttons. The skirt is made of Orleans cloth, with two rows of velvet the same color as the jacket, the lower one being the broadest.
The skirt is made rather full and ample in width.
The waistcoat fastens up the front with hooks, and is finished with very narrow velvet braid. The same also goes round the collar.
The dress only requires drawers with a deep broderie edging to make it the most elegant of any out this season.

DRESS FOR A CHILD – See Description.
P aoletti stated that differentiation in gender was not as important as differentiation from child to adult. In this plate from Godey’s Lady’s Book 1851 page 145, the boy is dressed in a way as to differentiate him from an adult. He, in many ways, is still dressed in smaller versions of adult wear. He is wearing a black velvet jacket, and a skirt that is meant to fit closely at the back.
He is wearing a hat with decorative feathers and red velvet binding. A lot of these styles were worn by the adults as well.
However, he is wearing a skirt.
According to Paoletti, boys would wear dresses until about the age of seven and then they would be
Godey’s Lady’s Book 1851 page 145 placed in short trousers. After the age of twelve a boy was then allowed to wear long trousers.
In this way parents differentiated adult from boy by keeping them in dresses for as long as possible and then only allow them to wear short trousers.

Fashions.
Description of Dress For a Child
Fig. 1. – Dress suitable for a Little Boy from three to six years of age. – Frock of crimson French merino, richly ornamented with Russia silk braid. A jacket of black velvet, with rather a deep skirt; it is shaped as to fit closely at the back, and in front it merely meets at the waist; the angles of the skirt being rounded off. The sleeves are close, and quite plain. Hat of gray felt; the brim, which is circular and slightly turned up all round, is edged with a binding of crimson velvet. The hat is trimmed with a plume of crimson feathers, and with satin ribbon of the same color.
Round the neck is a linen collar, with an edging of tapework now so fashionable for children; but the colar may be of cambric edge with needlework, or even plain linen, according to taste. Boots of gray cashmere tipped with black leather.
Fig. 2. – this figure, it will be observed represents the back view of the costume represented in Fig. 1.
It may be mentioned that the ribbon which trims the hat is passed round the lower part of the crown in the form of a band, and fastened behind in a small cockade with long ends. A cockade of ribbon fixes the feathers on one side of the hat, and the strings are fastened by small cockades at each ear.

A nother reason both boys and girls were clothed in dresses was because they increase their mobility.
According to Historical Boys
Clothing a few expert of the time thought that long pants might stop or slow the growth of a child. Others just believed that a child should be free to move especially when learning to walk.
The image to the right was taken from the June
1858 Godey’s Lady’s Book .
The image depicts a child taking what appears to be its first steps. This child could be either a boy or a girl. The child is in a small plain white dress and is being coaxed by his
Picture courtesy of Hope Greenberg of the University of Vermont his mother and father to take his first steps. The child is able to freely move in the dress while learning to walk.

Pictures courtesy of Lisa Goss and Melinda Stewart
T here are many different reasons that boys could have been clothed in dresses.
They could have worn dresses for ease in diapering, to allow for a pool of hand-medowns, ease of making, to differentiate boy from man, or for better mobility.
But is there one specific reason?
No, probably not.
Historical Boys
Clothing states that “ our ancestors would probably answer the question of why [boys were clothed] in dresses with a simply, why not?
They probably would not understand our modern puzzlement over this practice.
” Our ancestors did find uses in both genders being clothed in dresses, but they did not have the same needs to differentiate gender like we do today.

Work Cited
“Boy’s Dress.” .” Godey’s Lady’s Book at University of Vermont. Ed. Hope Greenberg. 12 October 2001. 5 October 2007. http://www.uvm.edu/~hag/godey/images/s5912543.jpg
.
“Boy’s Dress Pattern.” .” Godey’s Lady’s Book at University of Vermont. Ed. Hope Greenberg. 12 October 2001. 5 October 2007. www.uvm.edu/~hag/godey/images/s5912544.jpg
.
“First Step, The.” Godey’s Lady’s Book at University of Vermont. Ed. Hope Greenberg. 16 November 1995. 5 October 2007 www.uvm.edu/~hag/godey/images/glb6-58se.jpeg
.
Goss, Lisa, and Melinda Stewart. “Rockabye Baby: Raising Babies in the Early 1900’s.” Bittersweet. Spring 1983. 5 October 2007. http://thelibrary.springfield.missouri.org/lochist/periodicals/bittersweet/sp83d.htm
.
Greenberg, Hope. “Sarah Josepha Hale.” University of Vermont. Ed. Hope Greenberg. September 2001. 5 October 2007. http://www.uvm.edu/~hag/godey/hale.html
.
Historical Boys Clothing. 18 March 2007. 4 October 2007. http://histclo.com/ /
Paoletti, Jo B. “Clothing and Gender in America: Children’s Fashions, 1890-1920 (in revisions/Reports).” Signs 13.1 (Autumn 1987): 136-143. JSTOR.
Tusculum College, Greeneville, TN. 22 September 2007. http://www.jstor.org
.
“Portraits of American Women Writers” Library Company. 2005. 5 October 2007. http://www.librarycompany.org/women/portraits/hale.htm
.
“Sarah Josepha Hale Godey’s Lady’s Book 1850.” Portraits of American women Writers. Ed. Nicole Scalessa. 5 October 2007. www.librarycompany.org/women/portraits/hale.htm
.
For more information on boys clothing in the nineteenth century read:
The Nineteenth Century: History of Costume and Fashion by. Philip Steele
The Well Dressed Child: Children’s Clothing, 1820-1940 by. Anna Macphail
Material Strategies: Dress and Gender in Historical Perspective by. Carole Turbin and Barbara Burman
The Study of Dress History by. Lou Taylor
Centuries of Childhood: a social history of Family Life by. Philippe Aries