Pink is for Boys...

Guess who?

An interesting article that traces the history of gender specific colors, including a period in the early 1900s when pink was the generally accepted color for boys and blue for girls.

A few excerpts from Smithsonian Magazine...

We find the look unsettling today, yet social convention of 1884, when FDR was photographed at age 2 1/2 [pictured above], dictated that boys wore dresses until age 6 or 7, also the time of their first haircut. Franklin’s outfit was considered gender-neutral.

A 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.”

Prenatal testing was a big reason for the change. Expectant parents learned the sex of their unborn baby and then went shopping for “girl” or “boy” merchandise. (“The more you individualize clothing, the more you can sell,” Paoletti says.) The pink fad spread from sleepers and crib sheets to big-ticket items such as strollers, car seats and riding toys.

The driver for the shift way from gender neutral clothing, prenatal testing, makes perfect sense but it's still surprising.