The standardisation of political colours is relatively recent. The Conservative
Party used red as its dominant colour until it was hijacked by the nascent
Labour party. The Republican Party originally used blue, as that was the colour
of Union uniforms in the civil war. It wasn't until the mid 20th century that
colours began to be consistently aligned along party lines.
The reason it took so long is that, prior to mass-market colour printing and
colour TV, political campaigning via the media was in monochrome. Logos and
slogans were much more relevant to national politics. Colour really only matterd
locally, where in-person campaigning meant that voters could see what the
candidates were wearing. And colour choices, therefore, also tended to be local,
with candidates often picking a colour scheme which related to local issues
rather than national.
>Reminds me that in days gone by, blue was for little girls and pink was
>for little boys. Or so I read somewhere.
That's true. Originally, young children (up to around 5 or 6) tended to wear
gender neutral white clothing - gender neutral because that way it could be
handed down through the family over the years irrespective of the sex of the
child, and white because white needs no dye to make and can be cheaply cleaned
with bleach rather than needing more espensive detergent.
When colours became more affordable, it became fashionable to dress children in
pastel shades, but that was still partly a question of cost - a pastel colour
requires less dye and, being pastel to begin with, doesn't visibly fade so much
with repeated washing. And pink, at the time, wasn't considered a separate
colour, it was considered to be pastel red.
So pink was the colour for boys, because red is a commmon military colour (which
in turn is because of its association with blood) and therefore associated with
masculinity, while pastel blue was for girls because darker blue was associated
with purity and femininity - it was common for the Virgin Mary to be depicted
wearing blue in paintings, for example. And, like political colours, it wasn't
until the mid 20th century when this flipped and the current fashion for pink
girls and blue boys was established.
Mark