Who Were They?

This little boy looks a lot like the son of a friend of mine. He has kind of a funny expression, like “ok, whatever you say Ma…” You can see he is wearing a dress with a wide lace collar, as was traditional for all children in the 19th century. At around the age of 4 or 5, boys would be breached with their first pair of pants. Some were given shorts and some were given long pants, but all were given something when they were fully toilet trained and ready to move on from dresses.