It might be worthwhile cross-posting your query to the H-Childhood list.My father, born and raised on a small farm just outside of Atlanta, grew up wearing 'loose shifts' as a boy.  There's a bit of folklore he used to tell about this (he was a folklorist himself, but this was a story he heard as a kid).  I don't remember the details, but it goes something like this:'In the old days, both boys and girls used to wear loose-fitting gowns or skirts.  When they got older, the boys got pants and the girls wore dresses.  Sometimes, when people were poor, the kids stayed in the gowns longer than they would have otherwise.  Farmer Jones had a large family and they were sitting down one day for the big breakfast after early morning chores, with everyone eagerly reaching for and passing the bowl of grits, the plate of sausages, the biscuits, and so forth.  The youngest boy, who was still wearing a shift, jumped up and grabbed a biscuit as the plate went by.  Farmer Jones turned to his wife and said:  "Ma, we need to get that boy some long pants.  Did you see what he just dragged through the gravy?"There's a variant of this story, "That Boy Needs Pants," in Vance Randolph's _Pissing in the Snow and Other Ozark Folktales_ (Urbana, IL: Univ. of Illinois Press, 1976).Good luck!Martin [log in to unmask]

----- Original Message -----From: Susan Walter <[log in to unmask]>To: [log in to unmask]: Tue, 07 Jul 2015 15:02:37 -0000 (UTC)Subject: Re: skirts on little boys

My Bloomingdales catalog (1886, page 17) shows 4 illustrations of "children's suits" for boys aged 2 to 5 years. One of the lads is holding a small rifle. All have cropped hair.

-----Original Message----- From: Robert LeavittSent: Friday, July 03, 2015 2:39 PMTo: [log in to unmask]: Re: skirts on little boys

Susan: I have biographies of a few westernmining men: one has a picture of the subject, age5 in 1898, informally dressed in trousers,another has the subject, age 4 in 1892, more formally dressed in a dress/kilt.

I suspect that the decision as to when to switchboys into trousers was more aplace/financial/personal decision: place becauseready-made children's' clothing was not readilyavailable in all places; financial becauseready-mades cost more to buy than the materialfor home-mades: personal on two counts 1)children's dresses/kilts were easier to make thantrousers; 2) At what age would a boy suddenlyrealize that boys/men didn't wear dresses? Andstart complaining? For diaper-age children, theease of changing would be a definiteconsideration - snaps weren't in use andpins/buttons took more effort to use. Looking atmy family pictures, my parents seem to havebegged the question - at least outdoors in goodweather. I have pictures of my brother and merunning around in neither. Of course, forneonates there was the practicality - with no wayto determine the sex of a child before birth, runoff several dresses/kilts to start with, thenworry about possibly changing later.

For dating, try to find a time series ofSears/Wards catalogues. My 1892 Wards shows avariety of "children's" skirts/dresses with theonly size information being the length, the restof the children's department is missing.

Robert

>On Fri, Jul 3, 2015 at 2:16 PM, Susan Walter <[log in to unmask]> wrote:>> > July 3, 2015> > Hi All,> >> > I have a project luckily augmented with the family&acirc;&euro;&trade;s photos. My male> > subject was born in 1881, and the first photos of him depict him wearing> > little kilts / dresses.> >> > Has anyone got good references about the gender neutral dresses for > > young> > children that was common up even until the 1930s? I&acirc;&euro;&trade;m not finding > > much> > written at all, except that that both boys & girls wore the same type of> > garments up to about the age of 5.> >> > I&acirc;&euro;&trade;m positing these open bottomed garments were helpful for diaper> > changing...> >> > I used to have a book &shy; it was called something like When Boys Woore> > Dresses &shy; and it showed a young boy (the author&acirc;&euro;&trade;s son) onn the cover > > in a> > short dress. I cannot find the darned thing, either here in my office > > nor> > trolling around amazon. Anyone recognize that? Or know of other> > references?> >> > I appreciate any help!> > S. Walter> >>>>>-->kevin m. donaghy>graduate student>Temple University>Department of Anthropology