Figure 1.--The children here are Annie Ellen and Richard Wallis Mason. The CDV portrait was taken in July 2, 1872. They look to be about 5-10 years of age, Both have fancy hair styles, especially Annie. Richard wears a sailor suit with boater hat nd streamer with striped long stockings. Annie wears a fabcy dress with white long stockings. The studio was Oldham & Cooper in Birmingham.

We see more boys with striped stockings in the 1870s. This continued throughout the decade. Most of the boys wearing striped stockings wore them with suits. We do not, however, see large numbers of children wearing striped long stockings. This may reflect our still limited 19th century archive. So this is a topic we are still developing. So far the great majority of the portraits we have found with striped stockings from the 1870s. Well more than half the boys we have noted wore the striped long stockings. They seem to have been seen as very fashionable. We see boys with obviously stylish outfits wearing them with striped stockings. A good example is dashionable Lomdon Boy, Osborn Ruchards. in 1876. We think this was primarily a fashion for affluent families, in part because working-class boys were more likely to wear long pants. We also see white stockings, especially during the early part of the decade. The age of boys wearing long stickings is basically the same age of the boys wearing shortened-length pants, bith knee pnts and bloomer knickers. Both boys and girls wore them. There may have been an age differential here, but we are still assessing that. We have no color information. We are guessing mothers coordinated the stripe colors with the suits.

Created: 8:42 PM 12/16/2012
Last updated: 3:24 PM 3/31/2022