Since the NCOWS period goes to 1899, I'm going to add an 1886 picture from the Butcher Collection, I've done a lot of work with it on shirts but have a lot more to do because of the vastness of it.
First one for discussion is the old man with the beard, one will note it appears the shirt is full button as the placket seems to go down into his pants, 3 buttons are visable, but there are more likely 2 more under his beard. I found far more full button shirts or what seem to be full button shirts in this collection than what I expected. One reason is many of the subjects are not wearing vests that would hide this fact, you see more of them on younger kids, but few of them have vests on.
Also note the rolled up sleeves, you see a few of these photos, but this is the first I've ever seen that wasn't a blacksmith or someone branding or doing another job where the sleeves would get in the way.
The second fella has waht appears to be a button up the back shirt, a common item in these pictures. Note the lack of buttons, but more telling, no break in the collar.
One must also give thought to the fact that here are not one but two shirts that many would consider unusual and on two homesteaders out in central Nebraska, not consider a leading center of modern fashion at the time, perhaps they are not as unusual as many would think.
This is pictue 13554 in the collection.
Also not visable in the crop, is the first picture of a hat with the brim laced to hold it up that I've ever fould. It is not a neat job like you see on some hats today, but it is there.
To those new to these discussions, the Solomon Butcher photos were taken in Central Nebraska in the middle 1880's to about 1910, the collection can be searched at:
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/award98/nbhihtml/pshome.htmlThe site does not allow direct linking though.
The Butcher collection is very valuble because almost all of the 3000+ pictures exist as 6X8 glass plate negative and has been scanned at very high resaloution. This keeps the picturres honest because many you see in books and such have been touched up and alterered.
Sadly few photographers back then kept their negatives, many in far flung areas cleaned them and reused them as happened with LA Huffmans from Miles City. Also the ones in large towns often sold them and they were used to make green houses, a common item with rich folks in cities in the time period, even the White House had one in the time period.