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18th Century Leading Strings

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Last updated: Sep 09, 2025

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What are leading strings? As the V&A notes: “Leading strings originated in the clothing of very young children, where they helped adults to assist the child who was learning to walk. In the 18th century they also became customary for unmarried teenage girls, perhaps to symbolise the fact that they were still under parental control.”

Linda Baumgarten agrees: “The bodices [of young children’s dresses], which usually fastened at the back, often had leading strings or bands attached to the shoulders to help parents guide a young child who was learning to walk. Perhaps they also acted as a restraint on a lively youngster. Leading strings were occasionally retained on girls’ dresses as a symbol of youthfulness long after their practical functions had been outgrown.” (See also What Clothes Reveal: The Language of Clothing in Colonial and Federal America.)

Leading strings were also mentioned frequently in rhetoric as emblems for youth and metaphors for a lack of independence (e.g. “I ſhould not wonder if we were ſoon to be repreſented by School Boys, or Children in leading Strings, provided only, that they are ſupported by a Peer; but I do live in Hopes, and I don’d deſpair to ſee that Day, when the honeſt and independent Country Gentlemen will ſtand forth and ſupport their own Rights and Priveleges,” from Mr. Glover’s speech printed in The Derby Mercury, September 17, 1779; likewise “the time was come, when America ſhould caſt aſide her leading ſtrings, and take her ſtation in the rank of nation” in the Aurora General Advertiser, July 16, 1794). Some of the quotations below come from extended metaphors relating to leading strings, but establish what we can perceive to be facts about how leading strings were used in the 18th century.

Depictions of infants and toddlers with leading strings

The use of leading strings continues well after Dr. William Buchan’s Domestic Medicine (1774) warns against their use:

When children begin to walk, the ſafeſt and beſt method of leading them about, is by the hands. The common way, of ſwinging them in leading-ſtrings fixed to their backs, has ſeveral bad conſequences. It makes them throw their bodies forward, and preſs with their whole weight upon the ſtomach and breaſt; by this means the breathing is obſructed, the breaſt flattened, and the bowels compreſſed; which muſt hurt the digeſtion, and occaſion conſumptions of the lungs, and other diſeaſes.

Toddlers’ leading strings were often separate from their garments, not necessarily sewn in (the way we see with girls’ leading strings). The 1700 probate inventory of John Moore in York County, Virginia, mentions “One payre of Childrens Leading Strings,” and the Verney letters include a request in 1715: “Buy me a pair of leading strings for Jak [age 4]; there is stuff made on purpose that is very strong.”

Depictions of girls with leading strings

Extant garments with 18th century leading strings

  • GNM T2589 a sleeved bodice in silk, c. 1720
  • Met 1990.24, a wool and silk dress, British, c. 1740
  • V&A T.2-1917, a dress bodice in Spitalfields silk brocade with leading strings attached to the backs of the shoulders, England, c. 1750
  • V&A 162-1899, a girl’s dress bodice in white Spitalfields silk damask brocade, 1750-1759
  • Manchester 1980.197, a back-fastening closed dress in light blue figured silk with trained skirt and leading strings, 1760-1770

Dolls with leading strings on their gowns

  • V&A W.42:6-1922, a wooden doll made in England c. 1740
  • V&A MISC.271-1981, a wooden doll made in England 1740-1750 (“Although this 18th century doll looks looks as if she represents an adult woman, her clothing presents clues which demonstrate very clearly that she is not an adult. In the 18th century, dresses fastening at the back like this were for children, not women. Long streamers of matching fabric called 'leading strings' at the back of the dress indicate that she represents a teenage girl.”)
  • V&A W.183-1919, a doll with wax head and forearms, made in England in 1754. (“The unnecessary leading strings on the doll's dress act as a mark of independence, suggesting the doll represents a young girl rather than a fully grown lady.”)
  • Colonial Williamsburg 1958-241, an early 18th century doll in a printed gown probably 1770-1780 with leading string, England
  • Colonial Williamsburg 1971-1739,A-E, a wooden doll in a silk gown with leading strings, England or Germany, 1775-1785