![[Studio portrait of Franklin Roosevelt, 1884, who “like other boys of his era … wears a dress.”]
(I haven’t posted in about a month due to my laptop having gone kaput, but I have a satisfactory temporary solution involving a bootable Linux Live-CD, so I intend to try and change that presently…)
The following article has come up in conversation several times of late, and frequently led to amusing follow-up discussion:
When Did Girls Start Wearing Pink?
It appears that well into the 20th century, children’s fashion was essentially gender-neutral (likely paralleling a perception of children younger than 6 or 7 as essentially un-sexed, themselves). Boys and girls, regardless, both wore dresses and long hair (no doubt due to practical considerations on the part of their parents). When color-coding did catch on, like so many other things in our contemporary culture it was largely the result of marketing and merchandising (“The more you individualize clothing, the more you can sell,” according to Jo B. Paoletti, a historian at the University of Maryland). Interestingly, however, much of that marketing was not what we would expect today:
“The generally accepted rule is pink for the boys, and blue for the girls. The reason is that pink, being a more decided and stronger color, is more suitable for the boy, while blue, which is more delicate and dainty, is prettier for the girl.” [according to a June 1918 article from the trade publication Earnshaw’s Infants’ Department].
In 1927, Time magazine printed a chart showing sex-appropriate colors for girls and boys according to leading U.S. stores. In Boston, Filene’s told parents to dress boys in pink. So did Best & Co. in New York City, Halle’s in Cleveland and Marshall Field in Chicago.](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lm3c9smVt91qzbccbo1_500.jpg)
[Studio portrait of Franklin Roosevelt, 1884, who “like other boys of his era … wears a dress.”]
(I haven’t posted in about a month due to my laptop having gone kaput, but I have a satisfactory temporary solution involving a bootable Linux Live-CD, so I intend to try and change that presently…)
The following article has come up in conversation several times of late, and frequently led to amusing follow-up discussion:
When Did Girls Start Wearing Pink?
It appears that well into the 20th century, children’s fashion was essentially gender-neutral (likely paralleling a perception of children younger than 6 or 7 as essentially un-sexed, themselves). Boys and girls, regardless, both wore dresses and long hair (no doubt due to practical considerations on the part of their parents). When color-coding did catch on, like so many other things in our contemporary culture it was largely the result of marketing and merchandising (“The more you individualize clothing, the more you can sell,” according to Jo B. Paoletti, a historian at the University of Maryland). Interestingly, however, much of that marketing was not what we would expect today:
“The generally accepted rule is pink for the boys, and blue for the girls. The reason is that pink, being a more decided and stronger color, is more suitable for the boy, while blue, which is more delicate and dainty, is prettier for the girl.” [according to a June 1918 article from the trade publication Earnshaw’s Infants’ Department].
In 1927, Time magazine printed a chart showing sex-appropriate colors for girls and boys according to leading U.S. stores. In Boston, Filene’s told parents to dress boys in pink. So did Best & Co. in New York City, Halle’s in Cleveland and Marshall Field in Chicago.
