Story: Clothes

This family portrait is a good example of the ways children dressed at different ages in the early 1900s. The youngest child is clothed in a sailor suit, a classic item for little boys in the 19th and early 20th centuries. His sister (centre) is wearing the short, high-waisted dress of young girlhood, whereas the eldest girl has graduated to a bodice like her mother's. The older boy at the back is a small replica of his father. They would all have been wearing their best clothes for the photograph.