Figure 1.--This unidentified English boy wears a fashionable knee pants sailor suit with striped long stockings. He is holding a whip. A reader tells us it was for a top. He looks to be about 8-9 years old. The CDV portrait is undated, but we would guess was taken in the 1870s. The studio was T. Edge in Preston, Lancashire.

We note a lot of illustrations suggesting children wore striped long stockings in the mid-19th century. We do not note striped stockings in paintings during the early-19th century. Long pants and white hosiery seem common, but when shortened-length pants appeared we do not see many striped stockings. A factor here may be that iot is tedioys to paint striped stockings, so there was an enducement to verge away from relaism if striped stockings were worn. Many of the illustratios come from English sources . We were a little surprised by this because our archive of American images does not how this fashion in the 1840s and 50s and in the 60s we mostly see white long stockings. As there are few English Dags and Ambros, we are unable to assess hosiery trends at mid-century with any validity during the 1850s and very early-60s. We do note a Lewis Carol portrait of the Cameron boys (late-1850s). The older boy, charles, is wearing striped long stockings with some kind of a skirted outfit. We do begin to see large numbers of portraits with the appearance of the CDV (1860s). We see more boys with striped stockings in the 1870s. 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. We are not yet sure about the 1880s, but we no longer see striped stockings in the 1890s.

The 1850s

We note a lot of illustrations suggesting children wore striped long stockings in the mid-19th century. We do not note striped stockings in paintings during the early-19th century. Long pants and white hiosiery seem common, but when shortened-length pants appeared we do not see many striped stockings. A factor here may be that it is tediouys to paint striped stockings, so there was an enducement to verge away from relaism if striped stockings were worn. Many of the illustratios come from English sources. We were a little surprised by this because our archive of American images does not show this fashion in the 1840s and 50s. As there are few English Dags and Ambros, we are unable to assess hosiery trends at mid-century with any validity during the 1850s and very early-60s. We do note a Lewis Carol portrait of the Cameron boys on the previous page (late-1850s). The older boy, charles, is wearing striped long stockings with some kind of a skirted outfit.

The 1860s

We do begin to see large numbers of portraits with the appearance of the CDV (1860s). This for the first time provides a suffienctly large sampling to give a valid assessment of popular styles. We do see some boys wearing striped stockings, but they do not seem very prevalent. We see far more Americn boys wearing white long stockings in America than striped stockings in the 1860s. We are not yet entirely sure about English trends. We do see striped long stocking in England during the 1860s, something we rarely see in America. The Watson boys in 1863 are a good example. Long pants were still very common, but white stockings seem the most common hosiery for the younger boys wearing shortened length pants (knee pants or bloomer knickers). Our 19th century English archive is still very limited so we can not yet make any determintion about the relative prevlence of white and stripped stockings. A lot of the images we have found show uniform width narrow bands.

The 1870s

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 outfirs wearing them with striped stockings. We think this was primarily a fashion for affluent families, in part because wirking-class boys were more likely to wear long pants. 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.

The 1880s

We are not yet sure about the 1880s.

The 1890s

We no longer see striped stockings in the 1890s.

Created: 8:42 PM 12/16/2012
Last updated: 5:07 PM 7/20/2016