Was pink a feminine colour in 1807?

Here's an blog with advertisements for some beauty products in 1807, including a new pink dye for silk stockings and gloves for ladies. So I would say yes.

I have no idea how common or fashionable it was, but you can find paintings from the late 1700s and early 1800s of women wearing pink.

Such as this one from 1775: http://hoocher.com/Joshua_Reynolds/Lady_in_Pink_%20said_to_be_Mrs_Elizabeth_Sheridan.jpg

And this from 1794: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinkie_(Lawrence_painting)

Pink was originally thought of as a strong colour and boys were dressed in pink. Blue was associated with the virgin Mary, and was used as a feminine colour for girls.

There is an excerpt from Time magazine from 1927 when Princess Astrid gave birth to her child, it was reported that the nursery had been hopefully decorated in pink, for a boy.

You may have heard of Gainsborough's 'Blue Boy', he also painted a companion piece called 'Pink Boy'

It is only during the 20th century that pink has changed to being associated with girls.


Ladies' Home Journal article in June 1918 said, "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." Other sources said blue was flattering for blonds, pink for brunettes; or blue was for blue-eyed babies, pink for brown-eyed babies, according to Paoletti. (Pink and Blue: Telling the Boys from the Girls in America - Jo Paoletti)

From Smithsonian.com
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.

Hope this helps.

Here's a piece from the Smithsonian Magazine that suggests colours (in children's clothing, at least) were gender neutral until the early 20th century. Pastels for kid's clothing was a mid-19th century innovation and, as we've established, were assigned as pink for boys and blue for girls.

On that basis (and extrapolating wildly), I guess that in the early 1800s pink might not have been considered an exclusively feminine hue. Maybe you could get around the conundrum by referring to the colour as soft or gentle or refined or something like that. (If that's the issue.)

I just heard this transcript on NPR the other morning about pink:

http://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=297159948

According to the interview:

It's so deeply entrenched in us and our culture. We think of pink as such a girlish color, but it's really a post-World War II phenomenon.

*snip*

When the war ended and the men came home, Rosie the Riveter traded in her factory blues for June Cleaver's pink apron. In the post-war ideal, men reclaimed the workplace, and women stayed home with babies and shiny appliances. Femininity got wrapped in pink. So did products, from shampoos to fancy fashion. In 1947, after the shortages and rationing and straight skirts of war, Christian Dior introduced the new look.

Click to expand...

There are mentions of how in the 1700's and 1800's, pink was considered a more harsh, masculine color; whereas, blue was considered a softer color more suited for girls.

In the late 1770s, I've seen men's suits in bright, rose colored pinks.

I don't think you could call it a feminine color back then, though I'm not an expert. My grandmother even mentions her father saying that they weren't going to need any blue because the baby she was pregnant with at the time was definitely a boy, and thus would be wearing pink.

I think Little Women is usually cited as the first mainstream pop culture usage of pink/blue for girls/boys in infancy. The twins are marked with colored ribbons in the "French Style."

That's about 60 years after your target, so the early 19th century may have seen the beginnings of the colors being seen as female/male specific.

Pink was a division of the red family, so a powerful color "meant" for men. Blue was soft / feminine, and the color of virginity (ie wedding dresses) before Queen Victoria married Prince Albert and made the white gown "a thing." However, lavender was generally the effeminate color for men.

Colors were not strongly gendered in 1807 the way they became in the 20th c. Pink was a feminine color in that it was perfectly acceptable for women to wear it; likewise it might be considered masculine if worn by a man.

If you are specifically referring to pink as a feminine color (as opposed to just having some women wear pink) then I agree with your editor.

If it's just women wearing pink, go for it. Both men and women wore pink in 1807. Though, if this is in Britain, Beau Brummel's influence was felt then and darker colors were becoming more fashionable for men.

My ex-marine, veteran of Iwo Jima dad had pink baby clothes when he was a baby in 1924. I inherited a box of baby clothes that belonged to my dad and my uncle when my uncle went into a nursing home. They were identical --my uncle and my dad were only 11 months apart--but one set was pink and the other blue-green. They were pretty girly--especially a couple of baby bonnets with satin rosettes and a couple of Spanky MacFarland tams, complete with pompons in blue green and rose pink. I thought they were my aunts but my aunt was eight years younger and her baby clothes were in another box--more Shirley Temple.
I was flabbergasted when dad told me the pink clothes were his. He laughed and showed me baby pictures of him and Uncle George. The pictures were black and white but I recognized the clothes. I had always assumed that the babies in the picture were girls but no. It was kind of a relief to find out those babies were boys because they were two of the ugliest little girls I had ever seen. --s6

Strange coincidence that this would be a thread when I just ran across this article:

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/ist/?...-did-girls-start-wearing-pink-1370097/?page=1

Here is a painting from circa 1780 of a boy in a pink skeleton suit and a girl in a blue hat drinking milk in St James's Park.

The little one on the lap of the woman could be either a boy or a girl.

In this picture, there are two girls in blue. There's another child wearing blue who's fallen while riding a hobby horse. I think that's a boy because when I zoom in he appears to be wearing pants and not a skirt.

I think this is a useful thread for future writers and am glad people are adding to it and that you're updating your blog post!

Purple was considered a male colour back in the medieval era.

In the case of your question, it did in fact become popular in the 1800's for females.

I'm reading Little Women and have come across the following when Laurie remarks that he can't tell Jo's newborn niece from her newborn nephew.

"Amy put a blue ribbon on the boy, a pink ribbon on the girl, French Fashion, so you can always tell..."

The novel takes place during the civil war, but is copyrighted 1947. Also Amy is a bit hoity-toity, so even if this was a practice in 1807, it might not have been wellknown to English speakers.

Still, the reference to this being a French custom might be a clue to follow up on.

What was copyrighted 1947?? Alcott's original Little Women was published in 1868.

Ha, yeah, I was just coming to correct that. The edition I had was copyrighted in the 40's since they added illustrations. The story was written in 1868.

So, yes, pink for girls and blue for boys was a real thing in the 1800's, despite the evidence to the contrary.