1861-1865

Child's Dress

The clothes young children wear reflect the values of their family and their society. This little dress, worn by a child around three years old, was made during the Civil War (1861–65) from fabric printed with shields bearing the word Union. It clearly expresses the views of the parents who dressed their small child in it. In the 1700s and 1800s, it was not considered important that clothing distinguish the sex of a small child. The owner of the dress, who inherited it from her parents before giving it to the museum in 1973, assumed it was her mother’s, but since her mother was not born until 1870, this patriotic dress was probably worn by her older father.