When cotton fabrics from Oriental countries became everywhere and every time worn, children's dress, as likewise that of grown folk, was much reduced in elegance as it was in warmth. Hoops disappeared and heavy petticoats also; the soft slimsy clinging stuffs, suitable only for summer wear, were not discarded in winter. Boys wore nankeen suits the entire year. Calico and chintz were fashioned into trousers and jackets. A little suit is shown, facing page 60, made of figured calico of high colors, which it is stated was worn in 1784. The labels are very exact and the labellers very cautious of the Deerfield Memorial Hall collection, else I should assign this suit to a ten or even twenty years' later date. Children must have suffered sadly with the cold in this age of cotton. Girls' dresses were half low-necked, and were filled in with a thin tucker; separate sleeves were tied in at the arm size, and often long-armed mitts of nankeen or linen took the place of the sleeves.
Boy's Suit of Clothing, 1784
A family of Cary children had several charming portraits painted in London. Two of them are given opposite pages 240 and 246. They note the transitions of costume which came at the approach of the close of the century. The portrait of the boy is interesting in a special point of costume; it shows the abandonment of the cocked hat and adoption of the simpler modern form of head-covering. The little girl, Margaret, has a most roguish expression, which is suggestive of Sir Joshua Reynolds' Girl with the Mouse Trap. The resemblance is even more marked in the portrait of the same child at the age of six, wherein the eyes and half-smile are charmingly engaging; unfortunately the photograph from that portrait is not clear enough for satisfactory reproduction.
A demure little brother and sister were the children of General Stephen Rowe Bradley of Westminster, Vermont, whose portraits face pages 356 and 378. These were painted soon after the Revolution, and show the definite changes in dress which set in with other Republican institutions. At this date there began to be worn a special dress for both boys and girls. Until then, as soon as a boy put on breeches he dressed precisely like his father—in miniature. By tradition Marie Antoinette was the first who had a special dress made for her young son. And sadly was she reviled for dressing her poor little Dauphin in jacket and trousers instead of flapped coat, waistcoat, and knee-breeches.