These notes are the newer research pages on Gender Mystique, Jo Paoletti's record of how Americans learned gender through clothes. The older posts, the category lists, and the monthly archives remain on the home page. This page holds five essays written to be read as a set: color advice, a method for catalog garments, the 1970s unisex claim, Halloween costumes, and a short list of questions for photographs.
Each essay stands alone. They share a habit. I try to name the source, the decade, and the words printed on the page before I say what a garment "meant." Catalogs, trade papers, and family pictures answer different questions. Mixing them without a label is how a useful hunch becomes a bad citation. If you are new to the site, start with the pink essay and the romper method. If you already know the books Pink and Blue and Sex and Unisex, the Sears and Halloween notes are the pages that sit closest to those chapters.
When pink was for boys
10/1/2026
Earnshaw's Infants' Department told retailers in 1918 that pink was for boys. National catalogs took years to catch up, and then they reversed the advice. Color is a weak way to date a photograph.
10/1/2026
Earnshaw's Infants' Department told retailers in 1918 that pink was for boys. National catalogs took years to catch up, and then they reversed the advice. Color is a weak way to date a photograph.
How to read a catalog romper
10/2/2026
Caption, closure, pockets, color words, age, and price. A drawing of a creeper is the illustration, not the record.
10/2/2026
Caption, closure, pockets, color words, age, and price. A drawing of a creeper is the illustration, not the record.
Unisex at Sears in the 1970s
10/3/2026
The heading usually covers jeans and T-shirts, not the whole children's department. I mark what the word includes and what sits outside it on the same spread.
10/3/2026
The heading usually covers jeans and T-shirts, not the whole children's department. I mark what the word includes and what sits outside it on the same spread.
Halloween costumes and gender
10/6/2026
The costume counter sells roles that ordinary clothes pretend are natural. Cowboy suits, bride dresses, and the pictures that needed an explanation.
10/6/2026
The costume counter sells roles that ordinary clothes pretend are natural. Cowboy suits, bride dresses, and the pictures that needed an explanation.
Questions for an old photograph
10/8/2026
Date, who dressed the child, any writing on the object, the occasion, and the story I arrived hoping to find. Five lines before I let a picture prove anything.
10/8/2026
Date, who dressed the child, any writing on the object, the occasion, and the story I arrived hoping to find. Five lines before I let a picture prove anything.
Older work still worth reading beside these notes: white layettes, then pink and blue, playing cowboy in the 1950s, and learning to be white. Category pages such as pink for boys gather the archive by topic.
