Figure 1.--After World War I we see American girls wearing rompers and short pants and not just for gum. They became popular casual wear by the 1930s. This snpshot is undated, but looks to have been taken about 1940.

We do know that rompers/bloomers worn with long stockings were a standard by the 1910s. A good example is the Coalinga High School girls basketball team in 1916. Notice the long stockings. I am not sure if they were called rompers or bloomers or if this changed over time. They continued to be worn after World War I, but gradually the long stockings were dispensed with. These bloomer gym outfits continued to be commonly worn at school through the 1920s and 30s. As far as we can tell at school, they were strictly for gym. We rarely see the girls wearing them outside of gym. We do see a few exceptions such as an unidentfied American school in the 1920s. We are nit sure, hiwever, if the girls wore them to class. There are othee possivilities such as not hving time to chnge for the photograph. We also see these outfits being worn at summer camps, at least in the 1930s and 30s. Here we see them being used as a camp uniform about 1934 (figure 1). The camp uniform here was a two piece outfit, a top worn with bloomer pants. By the 1940s, bloomer outfits were still being used as a girls gym outfit in secondary schools. I can remember as a Virginia high school student in 1958 that the girls wore rompers rather than shorts for gym. They were light blue rompers and as short as shorts would have been. I rememember when I was in highschool (1957-61) that the girls thought that they were terribly old fashioned and some girls also complained that they were childish. Other readers have mentoned wearing them throughout the 1960s. We believe, however, that by the 1970s that they were no longer common.

Created: 8:13 PM 5/18/2010
Last updated: 11:11 PM 1/1/2016