Children's shoes, red kidskin boots, 1860s-1890s, front view

1860s-1890s. Children's shoes. Red kidskin boots with a vamp (toe) rounded in front and extending in back to the middle of the arch of the foot. The top has a center back and a center front seam, and has a closed-tab scalloped fly on the outside of the boot made with an overlap instead of a separate tongue and closing with four painted domed buttons. The top edge is cut straight. The sole is thin leather without a heel. A double row of decorative machine-stitched zig zags follows the seam of the vamp, and the scalloped buttonhole flap is finished with top-stitching. Lined in cotton with a band of leather inside the top edge. Professionally made. Machine-sewn.

The Irma G. Bowen Historic Clothing Collection digital catalog was produced by the UNH Library Digital Collection Initiative, supported in part by a grant from the Mooseplate program and New Hampshire State Council on the Arts. Additional funding provided by the E. Ruth Buxton Stephenson Memorial Fund.

Photography copyright, Astrida Schaeffer.