Can you find the leg of mutton in this scene? The turkey doesn’t seem quite big enough to feed the clan gathered on the porch for Thanksgiving. Perhaps it is just the carcass that’s proudly displayed on the platter. Father didn’t take off his apron after carving the bird but quickly donned a coat to brace against the November chill. Although we don’t know the name of the family or the date of the photograph, the leg of mutton offers an important clue. It’s not the edible kind, of course, but the name for those puffed sleeves that billow out from the shoulder and then tightly wrap the arm below the elbow, resembling in shape a leg of mutton. In the mid-1890’s “leg o’ mutton” sleeves became all the rage in women’s fashion and, as the decade progressed, grew in size and were stuffed, just like a Thanksgiving turkey.

Ann Havemeyer