It comes from the painting "Little Boy Blue" and the other lesser known one of "Little Hussy in a Naughty Nightie."

Check dis yo... http://www.trendhunter.com/trends/pink-shotgun-remington According to the website "Gender Specific Colors," it would seem that assigning color to gender is mostly a 20th century trait. It would also seem that at one time, the color associations were reversed when color first came into use as a gender identifier. In fact, this reversal of what we consider "normal" was considered conventional, even in the early 20th century. "At one point pink was considered more of a boy's color, (as a watered-down red, which is a fierce color) and blue was more for girls. The associate of pink with bold, dramatic red clearly affected its use for boys. An American newspaper in 1914 advised mothers, "If you like the color note on the little one's garments, use pink for the boy and blue for the girl, if you are a follower of convention." [The Sunday Sentinal, March 29, 1914.] "There has been a great diversity of opinion on the subject, but the generally accepted rule is pink for the boy and blue for the girl. 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." [Ladies Home Journal, June, 1918] http://histclo.hispeed.com/gender/color.html - "Gender Specific Colors" According to Jo B. Paoletti and Carol Kregloh, "The Children's Department," in Claudia Brush Kidwell and Valerie Steele, ed., Men and Women: Dressing the Part, (Smithsonian Institution Press, 1989). - In the United States: "The current pink for girls and blue for boys wasn't uniform until the 1950's. It would also seem that Nazi Germany had something to do with the association of pink with femininity: "Catholic traditions in Germany and neighboring countries reverse the current color coding, because of the strong association of blue with the Virgin Mary...the NAZIs in their concentration camps use a pink triangle to identify homosexuals. (The yellow star of David is the best known symbol, used of course to identify Jews. The German system was quite complicated, using various symbols an colors to identify criminals, political prisinors, an a whole range of other groups). The NAZI's choice of pink suggests that it by the 1930s was a color that in Germany had become associate with girls." - "Gender Specific Colors" Here is another site backing the same color history. "The preferred color to dress young boys in was pink! Blue was reserved for girls as it was considered the paler, more dainty of the two colors, and pink was thought to be the stronger (akin to red). It was not until WWII that the colors were reversed and pink was used for girls and blue for boys..." - Quote from Dress Maker Magazine http://www.dressmaker.com/ezine0200.shtml "Jo B. Paoletti concludes that the effect of color-coded gender differences (pink for girls, blue for boys) existed oppositely initially..." - Quote from book review "The Material Culture of Gender, the Gender of Material Culture" - Winterthur, Del.: Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum, 1997 - From the Journal of American History - Please note that this is a cached page as the current page is different: http://tinyurl.com/iy31 While there are also myths and legends supporting both or either color for gender identification, those resources dealing with straight history date the identification of pink with femininity to the period of World War II or later. http://answers.google.com/answers/ratings?user=4471105753175883022

I knew I was having a boy, and I painted his room yellow with a nautical theme, the room was already painted as soon as I found out I was pregnant, and would have been the same with a girl. (My daughter can enjoy sailing!) However, with clothing, for some reason, I had to have VERY boyish clothes. All of the yellow clothes given to me earlier in the pregnancy were given to a friend who had a little girl. I have another friend who had a daughter, and gave me all of her gender neutral clothing in exchange for a barrage of pink. Now that I have told my story, I have no idea why. I think some people use clothing colors to show others the babies gender. As for their room, well, I would hope the parents would know...:~}

Lack of imagination.