Figure 1.--Long stockings were commonly worn by American boys from the 1870s to the 1910s. They begab to deckine in popularity duriung the 1920s, but were still being worn in the 1930s. Here we see a New York boy waring long stockings with short pants in 1935.

A HBC reader provided us this image. He wsrites, " A somewhat depressing but interesting image of a New York City boy in the midst of the Great Depression (1935). He is sitting on some old mattresses on a fire escape in New York, probably in one of the many tenement districts of the city. The photo appears to have been taken during one of the chillier seasons--perhaps in November--since the boy is wearing an outdoor jacket, apparently with a zipper front, over his dark short pants. He wears tan long stockings held up with supporters (maybe over long underwear) and hightop shoes or boots. He wears a stocking cap on his head. He appears to be about 9-10 years old--perhaps a third or fourth grader if he attends elementary school. One wonders if the boy had to sleep outside his living quarters in the tenement since he seems to be sitting on a couple of discarded bedroom mattresses. His facial expression looks sad and resigned to poverty." We do not know quite how to access this image. We know that children did sleep outdoors on the tenament fire escapes in the warm summer weather. The winter is another matter. Perhaps this is somekind of temporary matter. Obviously the mattresses can not be permanely kept on the fore escape.

Created: 9:51 PM 9/19/2004br> Last updated: 9:51 PM 9/19/2004