Here is a newspaper from San Francisco in 1913. An image of the many new boxing styles that emerged in the sport's rich history.
Captions read from left to right as:
"Jem Mace was one of the first to establish a scientific style of boxing"
"John L. Sullivan brought slugging into favor"
"Jim Corbett had everybody imitating his jab and jump style"
"After Fitzsimmons knocked Corbett out fighters tried to use his 'shift' and his hard hooks"
"Some of the crouches worked wonders"
"Jeffries started the crouching style"
"Champion Ritchie has brought the straight-standing style in again"
http://i.imgur.com/bAvZYKt.png
Original source: http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn85066387/1913-08-01/ed-1/seq-10/
The basic forms have always existed (the human body can only really lean in so many directions while remaining standing) but they were definitely less polished back in the day.
Everyone is more of an "all-arounder" nowadays. Just like in MMA where they started out trying pure karate vs pure wrestling and realized neither was very reliable.
Now everyone has a clone style with only slight differences in timing and direction of movement.
Man, those early fighters would get clobbered today. Those styles depend entirely on your opponent following suit and "respecting" your style. Wouldn't even make it out of the first round today.
Boxing skills/tactics/methods etc. have evolved over the course of a century. I was watching Rocky Marciano vids the other day and his stance and offense are nothing what you would see nowadays