Figure 1.-- This unidentified postcard back portrait shows four brothers and sisters. We at first thought the children might be British, but think the building in the background identifes it as American. The younger boy appears to be celebrating his First Communion, but is dressed just like his slightly older brother. The boys wear white boaters, Peter Pan collars, scarfe-like ties, cut-away jackets, vests, shortened-length pants (we think knickers), and long stockings.

For reasons we do not understand, American boys suddenly switched from knee pants to knickers in the late-1900s. We see knickers in large numbers for the first time about 1908-09 thus for the first time we see boys wearing knicker suits. Knee pants did not entirely disappear. We see younger boys continuing to wear knee pants, sometimes with blouses and long white stockings when dressing up. First Communion suits in the 1910s mostly done with knickers and worn with long stockings. Some boys had knee pants outfits, but knickers were virtually universal in the 1910s. Boys mostly wore dark long stockings with the knickers as was the case with knee pants. The pants changed, but not the hosiery. And often the boys in the early-1920s wearing solid colored dark socks are wearing long stockings rather than knee socks. A good example here is Grant Fahvenbach about 1910. The fact that he is wearing just a blouse wihout a suit jacket may be an economy measute on mom's part. Catholic families wre mostly relatively recent immigrant families and still mostly working class, although some were beginning to enter the Americn mainstream. This was still seen in the 1930s, but was not very common. We note a lot of boys wearing blouses in the 1900s, but by the 1910s actual suits seem increasingly common. We interpret this as increasing ecinomic success of American Catholics.

Navigate the Historic Boys' Clothing Web chronological pages:
[The 1920s] [The 1930s] [The 1940s] [The 1950s] [The 1960s] [The 1970s]

Navigate the Historic Boys' Clothing Web style pages:
[Short pants suits] [Blazers] [Jackets] [Kilts]
[Sailor suits] [Sailor hats]
[Ring bearer/page costumes] [Shortalls]

Created: 5:22 PM 12/2/2017
Last edited: 5:22 PM 12/2/2017