History Hare 4/26/12

Infants and Mourning Dress
By footnoteMaven

The custom of putting mourning garments on small children
is a barbarous one, and should be tabooed.

~ Godey's Magazine 1896 ~

For several years I have looked for cabinet cards and carte-de-visites showing infants in mourning dress. Such photographs have been extremely difficult to find and if found anything but affordable.

Victorians had elaborate sets of rules concerning mourning. Those rules included the dress of infants during the period of mourning. From the beginning of the dictates of mourning etiquette, black was always considered far too severe for infants and children. The mourning for children under twelve years of age was white in summer and gray in winter, with black trimmings, belt, sleeve-ruffles or bonnet-ribbons.

Albert de la Nux
Aged 7 months - 1890
S. Williams
102 FortStreet, Honolulu
Albert wears a white dress indicative of summer
with black ribbons at the sleeves.

Children under twelve were not required to be dressed in mourning, though they often were. When children were required to observe the mourning period, parents would sometimes shortened the time considerably for the very young.

Children wore mourning garments for a year when they had lost a father, mother, brother, or sister; but white and black were so combined in their costumes that the little ones were not too deeply saddened by their attire.

"Little Warren Mather"
H.L. Bingham Photographer

Warren wears a white dress of summer and
a white bonnet with black mourning ribbons.

Six months was the correct period of mourning for a grandparent; three months for an uncle or aunt, although some felt that mourning was "not obligatory except for nearest relatives." Much depended, however, on the degree of intimacy or affection that had existed.

Neither children nor dogs were taken out when making formal calls. Mourning calls were against the rules of strict etiquette, therefore it was not proper etiquette to take a child to a funeral, to the house of mourning, or to the cemetery.

Today it is believed that very young children do not understand death, and will not derive any comfort from attending the funeral, nor should they be able to participate in the mourning of a loved one. Children do not wear black as a sign of mourning. They wear their regular clothes, or white ones. For funeral services, they should be dressed in the kind of clothes they would wear to any religious service.

Sources:

Duffey, E. B. The Ladies' and Gentelemen's Etiquette: 'A Complete Manual of the Manners
and Dress of American Society. New York : Henry B. Ashmead, 1877.

Green, Walter Cox. A Dictionary of Etiquette: A Guide to Polite Usage For All Social Functions. New York : Brentanos, 1902.

Learned, Ellin Craven. The Etiquette of New York Today. New York : Frederick A. Stokes, 1906.

Ruth, John A. Decorum: A Practical Treatise On Etiquette and Dress Of The Best American. Chicago : Union Publishing House, 1883.

Longstreet, Abby Buchanan. Social Etiquette of New York. New York : D. Appleton and Company, 1883.

Photographs:

Mather, Little Warren. H.L. Bingham. Photograph (Cart de visite). Unknown. Privately held by the footnoteMaven, Preston, Washington. 2009.

de la Nux, Albert. S. Williams. Photograph (Cabinet card). 1890. Privately held by the footnoteMaven, Preston, Washington. 2009.