Figure 1.-- Here we see three brothers outsude their home. Apparently street photgraohers went door to door seeking business. The boys look to be about 5-13 years of age. It was a postcard-back oportrait and there is infirmarin associated with the boys. We divuded-back postcard neabs yhat it had to hsve been taken n 1903 or later. We wiould guess it wa ken in the 1900s, but the ealy-10s is possible. The two younger bots wear identival sailor suits. Note the younger boy has sicks nd the oldr boys long tovkings. Their lolder bother wars a sack suit, but we can nkt sea his pants and hosiery.

British children extensively wore long stockings in the 19th century. Some younger children wore socks, mostly three-quarter socks, but most school-age boys and girls wore long stockings. This basic styles and conventions from the 19th century continued, but we begin to see more three-quarter socks in the summer, especially with younger children. Long stockings were never as common as in America and Germany, but they were widely worn. Even the youngest American chikdren, at least in studio portraits, wore long stovkings. This was not the case in America. Knee socks were not yet common. Actually it is a little difficult to tell because boys tended to wear knee pants or long short pants and often had their long turn-over top socks pulled up. We do see boys wearing three-quarter socks. Baden Powell when he created the uniform for the new Boy Scout movement helped popularize both short pants and knee socks for boys. Socks were much more practical for active outdoors activities than long stockings which required some kind of bothersome support to keep up. The photographic record provides considerable detail about the clothing, but little detail about the convetions. We can only infer these from the images.

Created: 9:50 AM 7/27/2014
Last updated: 9:50 AM 7/27/2014