Figure 1.--A historic tradition in Germany was for children from poor families who were students or choristers to go from home to home in their districts singing hynns. The people would given them a few coins. We note a photograph from Germany, probably in the early 1930s. We see a group of German boy singers in traditional cloaks singinging in the Berlin suburbs. The portrait is undated, but looks to have been taken in the early 1930s. Click on the image to see the children lestening to them.

We have little information about scooters at this time. We have not noted them before World war I (1914-18), but have no detailed informstion at this time. They were mostly for younger children at the age that they were just beginning to ride bikes, perhaps children that did not have bikes yet. They were also cheaper than bikes. We see them in both Europe and North merica. We begin noticing them in the 1920s. I recall them as a boy in America during the 1940s. Scooters appear to have past out of favor in the early 1950s. We do not recall seeing them in the 1960s. We do notice sleeker models appearing about 2000. We do not know what countries they were popular in, but we see them in all mof the major European countries. We note scooters in France during the early-20th century. We see scooters advertized in French catalogs. Here we see them in Germany beginning in the 1920s (figure 1). We note quite a few German boys with scooters. We see another German boy with a scooter, probably in the 1950s. Interesting there was a revival of scooters in the late 1990s, but this was more of a scooter for teenagers and young adults. We are not sure what the foreign language terms were. We even see an American Amish boy using a scooter.

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Created: 6:39 PM 4/11/2006
Last updated: 3:31 AM 2/6/2012