Figure 1.--Here we see a young, unidentfied German family. Baed on the way the father isdressed, they seem to be aprosperous middle-class family, perhaps a bit conseravtive. The snapshot is undated, but looks like the early 1930s to us. Mother has dressed the two boys in matching rompers. The boys look to be about 3-5 yeas old.

We see quite a few images of German boys wearing romper in the 1930s, but often not very stylish ones. And the baloon pants do notseem as well defined s the ones we see in France. We mostly see non-desicript play garment, but some whatmore fashionable than ha we see in the 20s. Romprs were were worn by pre-school boys. We do not see them being worn to school. We are not yet sure about Kindergarten. Nor do we see motghers dressing boys up in romperoutfits like we see in Frace.. We have noted photographs of German boys wearing rompers. We seem to note rompers more commonly in the 20s, but we are not yet entirely sure about the relative popularity. The prevalence in the photographic record suggests that they were not the primary play outfit for younger boys, but not by any means unusual or rare. We notice some mothers dressing younger boys in identifical romper outfits. Some German rompers are styled like the play pinafores some boys wearing in the early-20th century to protect their clothing. The images we have found show a smaller conentrationn ion rural ares compared go the 20s.

A reader writes, about the image, "These almost look like smocks for play, although they are nt skirted. Some of the images from Belgian Congo and other French speaking colonies show boys wearing similar outfits."

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Created: 1:56 PM 11/3/2012
Last updated: 7:21 PM 11/5/2012