Figure 1.--Here we see an unidentified mother and her two children. It is the 1920s that boys began to wear short pants for seasonal summer wear and without long stockings. Girls did not yet befin to commonly wear shorts, especially in the early-20s. We do see girls wearing romper outfits kike the girl here wearing a middky blouse and romper pants. We are not sure about the setting. Mother may be visiting her childrn at some kind of summer camp.

We see a range of pants during the inter-War years as well as major changes in the conventions asociated with pants. Pants throughout the late-19th and early-20th century were largely a matter of age. In the inter-War era, other factors like seasonality, social class, and regional trends became increasingly common. Knickers were still the dominant type of pants during the 1920s. Younger boys might wear short pants and older bys might wear long pants, but knickers as in the 1910s were the dominant type of pants worn by Americab boys. They conyinued to be worn with long stockings. This shifted somewhat in the 1930s. Knickers were still worn, bur steadily declined in popularity through the 1930s. We see more boys wearing short pants. but this was complicated. Shorts became increasingly popular for summer wear. Some boys wore short pants suits when dressing up, but this tended to be boys from more affluent families. Knickers were still common at the beginning of the decade, but were worn with knee socks, usually brightly patterned knee socks rather than long stockings. Long pants became steadily more popular during the 30s and were on the way to becoming standard by the end of the decade. We still see knickers, but they were clearly a declining style. We no longer see older teenagers wearing knickers in the 30s. Another major development were the girls. Girls never wore pants in the 19th and even the early-20 century. They lways wore dresses. This began to change in the 1910s with a few girls wearing overalls. But the major change we see is in the inter-War era. We see rural girlsweatoing overalls and at first bloomer knickers. Unlike the boys in the 20s e se few girls wearing short pants. We so see girls wearing shorts in the 30s, but only for ply and outdoors activities, never to school. .

Created: 12:28 AM 5/18/2011
Last updated: 9:29 PM 11/13/2015