A range of different pants types were worn in the 19th century. Long pants appeared first and latter kneepants and knickers. Most bpys wore long pants in the first half of the 19th century. Boys began wearing long pants before men as part of skeleton suits, the first dedicated boy's outfit. Fashionable men did not begin wearing long pants until the 1820s. Younger boys from fashionable families began wearing bloomer knickers with fancy suits at mid-century, but long pants after breeching were still most common. By the 1860s knee pants appeared, but were still mostly worn by younger boys, especially boys from fashionable city families. Early knee pants were quite long, often calf-length. Even in the 1870s quite young boys might still wear long pants. Knee pants gradually became increasingly common, but it was not until the 1890s that they became standard and older boys began wearing them. The length also became shorter and by the 1990s were commonly worn at knee length. Here there were important social-class differences. We also notice some boys wearing knickers, but straigh-leg knee pants weree much more common. Theu were usually worn with long stockings.

The 1800s

A range of different pants types were worn in the 19th century. Fashionable men at many boys at the turn of the 19th century were still wearing knee breches commonly worn in the 18th century. Many boys, however were already wearing long pants. The skeletion suit commonly worn with long opants was the first garment specifically designed for boys.

The 1820s

Long pants weegradually adopted by men as well and had become standard by the 1820s for males of all ages. Shortened lenhth pants (knee pants and knickers did not appear until mid-century. Boys wore long pants by the 1820s just like thei fathers. Fashionable men did not begin wearing long pants until the 1820s and we still see knee breeches for some formal occasions.

Figure 4.--This naive portrait has been attributed to Robert Peckham, probably painted in the 1830s. As far as we know, the children are not identified, but based on the hair styles and other are a girl (red dress) and boy (green dress). They certainly had a wonderful hobby horse. Notice it was a rocking horse without the safety features added in the late-19th century. Any boy would give his eye-tooth for a hobby horse like this one. Both children have lace or ruffled collars done with an open fit and wear pantalettes. This of course is how well-to do children were dressed, fmilies that could afford a painted oortrait.

The 1830s

The 1830s was the last decade without photography. As a result we know relatively little about how boys dressed compared to the decades with the subsequent photography. But there is information available. There are surviving vintage garments. And there were fashion publications, although they focused primarily on women's fashions. Fashion magazines were all European in the 1830s and American fashions were still dominated by European trends. There were also paintings. All of this, however, were a tiny fraction of the photographic record to come. What we see is that American boys virtually all wore long pants. Skeleton suits were declining in popularity, but all we see boys wearing is long pants. Wheter wearig suits or just blouses, we only see boys wearing long pants like their fathers. There was one exception for both boys and girls--pantalettes. The 1830s were very prudish era. Even small children were expected to cover their legs. This was not a problem in the early-19th century when dress skirts were often quite long, even falling below the ankle. But as dress styles became shorter--this was a problem. The fashion answer was pantalettes. Often seen as underwear, pantalettes were a form of pants for younger children and even girls as they got older. Younger boys wore them with both dresses and tunics as we see here in the Peckham hobby horse painting -- one of the great images of period hobby horses (figure 4). Here we see a very young boy wering pantalettes, but older boys also wore them with tunics. The fashion press and painted portraits show how boys from fashionable well-to-do families dressed. The small number of paintings give some idea as to how boys dressed, but painted portraits only show how well to-do-families dressed their children. A few genre paintings show how boys from ordinary families dressed. Much of this art was primitive/naive paintings. They do not provide us with great art, but were god-send for fashion historians. Primitive art may be lacking in perspective and other imprtant artistic refinements, but most of thee artists very carefully depicted the clothing in great in great detail, sometimes more accurately than the work of the great mastetrs. And with the added advantage of color which wull be lost in black and white photogrphy for a century. Robert Peckham's work is a good example. Another primitive active in the 1830s was Jefferson Gauntt. At the time Ameruca was a still mostly rural nation. Cities were still limited and only a small but slowly growing number of Americans lived in these urban areas. Rural boys did not dress fasionanly, but all we see are boys wearing long pants. Alas without photography, there are far to images to go on, specially for boys from ordinary families, especilly rural children whuch were the great bulk of the population.

Figure 5.--This Dag may have been taken in the 1840s. (We welcome dating assessments from readers.) The boy wears a tunic suit with long pants. Younger boys or boys from wealthy families may have worn pantalettes with tunics.

The 1840s

The first commercial phototographic process was developed in France--The Daguerreotype (1839). By 1840 photography was sweeping through America. Early 1840s Dags are rare, but the Dag process was fairly simple and very little capital was needed to set up a studio. By the end of the decade there were photographic studios in all cities and even many small towns. This was important because for the first time in human history we begin to see large numbers of images of ordinary people. Now Dags were expensive and a major purcase for low-income Americans, but a fraction of the cost of a painted portrair so we have a look at a much wider swath of the population than ever before. This is a huge boon for fashion historians and historians interested in every day common people. Not only do we have images of the great people of the day, but for the first time huge numbers of images of the common man or in the case of HBC--children. We also see naive ortraits being made. Photographic studios were putting these artists out of business, but there wee still quite a few. A good example is Robert Peckham painting of the Farwell children in 1841. We see John Farwell wearing a somber suit in contasts to this sisters bright-colored dresses. Notavkly the suit elements (jacket, vest, and pants do not match. Te images we see all show the boys wearing long pants after breeching. Almost all photographic potraits taken in the 1840s were Dags, but it is difficult to destinguish betwen 1840s and 50s Dags. Almost all Dags, however, show American boys wearing long trousers. This was true both for tunic suits and suits with trousers. As far as we can tell there were no exceptions except for pantalettes in the 1840s and we have a fairly large archives of Dags. Almost all American Dags were cased like the image here which is a good example of a tunic suit (figure 5). Younger boys or boys from wealthy families may have worn pantalettes, although this wa more common in Europe. The standard format is the subject sutting down by a cloth covered table. Commonly the image is cut off , but enough of the subject is shown to see that he is wearing long trousers. This was the case of all ages from the point of breeching.

Figure 6.--This Ambrotype is a good example of the long pants that continued to dominate boys wear in the 1850s. Click on the image to see the Ambrolelements.

The 1850s

Most American boys continued wearing long pants in the 1850s. And the growing photograph record provides a definitive view of the fashion trends. And there ws no longr just Dags. Tin-types and Ambrotypes appeared. This makes it a little easier to date the images specifically to the 1850s. The 1850s tin-types were usually cased. And Ambrotypes were most taken in the second half of the decade. We see a few in the 1860s, but only the very early-60s after which the CDV and albumen process dominated photography. Younger boys from fashionable city families apparently began wearing bloomer knickers with fancy suits at mid-century, but the growing photographic record suggests this was not very common. We find few such images. Long pants after breeching were the dominant fashion, no longer universal, but very close to it. The photographic record is a good example of how common long pants still were in the 1850s. And given the cost of Daguerreotypes and even Ambrotypes, long pants were probably even more common with the general public than indicated by the photographic record. Slow speeds meant that subjects usually were photoraphed seated. And poses usually focused on the torso. It is often difficult to make out the pants a boy was wearing or much in the way of detail. A good example of a portrait sdhoing the pants is an unidentified boy, we think in the late-1850s. He is wearing button-on pants. But many 1850s portraits just showed the torso or the top part of the pants. We this see a lot of details about the top of the pants, especially because nany biys are still not wearing suit jackets. Button-on pants were common for younger boys. Fortunately the photographic record is so large that we have a very good idea of the pants.trousers boys were wearing and they were very nearly all long pants. We note boys wearing both solid/flat colored psnts, but patterns were also very common. Loud checks were considered very stylish, but by the end of the decade were disappearing. Another trend emerging was fir more abnd miore biys wearing suits and suits where the jacket and pants matched.

Figure 7.--This CDV portrait shows a boy from Brattleboro, Vermont, probbly photographed in the late-1860s. Put your sursor on the image to see his little brother who was photographed at the same time. Both wear identical cut-away jacket suits with vests and long trousers.

The 1860s

American boys wore a variety of different pants in the 1860s. And as another result lf advances in photographic technology, we can monitor the fashion shifts in great detail. Dags and Ambros greatly increased the numbrr of images available, but the Albumen process provided a quantam leap in photography. They not only were less expensive than Dags and Ambros, but copies could be made in virtually infinite numbers. From now on because of the huge increases in numbers of images, any fashion change could be followed in great detail. And far beyond anything in Europe. The 1860s would be dominated by the CDV and the larger cabinet card also appeared. Most boys still wore long pants. By the 1860s, shortened-length pants following European fashion trends appeared in greater number and many youngrr boys wore them an in increasing numbers as the decade progressed. We see both bloomer knickers and straight-leg knee pants. We use the term knee pants, but in the 1860s, these pants mostly fell to calf level. We see this mostly in the fashionable big cities. Boys in the West (still largely east of the Mississippi) and smaller towns were slower to adopt the new fashions. The Limcoln boys for example wore long pants, despite their fashion-concious mother. We are unsure about the terms for these pants used at the time. Shortened-length pangs were still mostly worn by younger boys, especially boys from fashionable city families. They were most common in major cities. Long pants were much more common in less fashionable towns and rural areas. We see younger boys wearing a variety of fancy suits in a wide variety of styles. The fancy suits almost always had bloomer knickers or kneepants. Boys also wore cut-away jacket suits, both with knee pants and long pants. Early knee pants were quite long, often calf-length. We still see many boys wearing long pants suits. The Vermont boys here are a good example of cut-away jacket suits with knee pants (figure 7). They also show case the increasing tendency of American boys to wear suits. rather than just blouses and pants. we see a lot of boys wearing just blouses and pants in the early photgraphic formats (1840s-50s). We also see suits, but they were by no means standard. This changes drmatically in the 60s. Of course here we are talking about studio portrait. So we can assume hat the boys not wearing suits, probably did not have suits to wear. Many more boys had suits by the 60s. This we believe exemplifies the increasing economic success of the United States and the prosperity of Ameica as the industrial Revolution began to take hold. And this despite the tragedy of the Civil War (1861-65).

Figure 8.--We first see any number of shortened-lenth pants in the 1860s, but it is in he 1870s that shortened-length pants began to become standard for younger boys which was largeky the case by the end of the decade.

The 1870s

Most American boys in the 1870s wore either knee pants or long pants. We see some bloomer knickers in the 1860s, but less so in the 70s. The bloomer knickers we noted at mid-century are rarely seen in the 1870s. This contrasted with Europe where boys wore both bloomer knickers and knee pants. Knee pants continued to be worn at lengths well below the knee (Figure 1). Knee pants in America became increasingly common in the 1870s, at least among city boys. At the beginning of the decade it was just some younger boys. This trend became increasingly pronounced in the 1870s. By the end of the decade, knee pants were standard for younger boys and the age conventions increasing, although only slightly. Older boys above about 8-10 years of age still were not commonly wearing knee pants. We also see differences between rural and urban areas. City boys were far more likely to wear fashionable styles. This mean the increasingly popular shorter pants lengths for boys. These shorter lengths were less common in rural areas. Photography at the time was mostly studio photography. But by this time we begin ton see magazine illustrations. A good example is a snowball fight depicted in Harper's Weekly (January 1874). Montgomery Ward began the mail order business. His first catalog as only one page (1872), but rapidly grew providing another vluble source of information. We have some information on 1870s catalogs. Even in the 1870s quite young boys might still wear long pants, although this was becoming less common, especially by the end of the decade. Knee pants in particular were not only less common in rural areas, but also among working-class families. These boys mostly wore long pants in the 70s. While we see many portraits with pre-school boys wearing either dresses or other skirted garments like kilt suits. These younger boys after breeching mostly wore knee pants. The pattern for school age boys was substantially different, especially beyond the first few years of primary school. At rural schools even the younger boys might wear long pants, but notably we do not yet see overalls even though they were becoming increasingly common for working-class men in factories. At city schools, knee pants became increasingly common, especially for the younger boys. This can be seen in the school photography which became more common in the 70s. While knee pants were fairly standard for younger city boys by the end of the decade, we note many younger boys in rural areas and the West still weating long pants. Also notably knee pants were almost always worn with long stockings. We see that in the studio photogrphy. An exception of course were the boys going barefoot which was very common throuhout the 19th century. The striped stockings popular in the 70s help to date images.

The 1880s

Knee pants became increasingly common for Ameican boys in the 1880s. This is notable in the increasing offerings of mail order and store catalogs in the 1880s. We begin to see knee pants being done for ages over 10 years and the age level sizes gradually crept up as the decade progressed. We see knee pants in the 1870s, especially by the end of the decasde, but they were by no means standard. We do not see bloomer knickers to any extent, unlike Europe where we see both knee pants and bloomer knickers. We do still see older boys wearing long pants. Some younger boys wore long pants, but it was increasingly less common. This can be followed in school photography. Education for most boys was still limited to primary schools whuich had 8 year ptrograms. Knee oants were common in prinaries, but the older boys often wore long pants. Secondary education was still limited. And for the most part high school boys wore long pants. We now see younger boys wearing knee pants in rural areas, but this was much less common for older boys. And we also do not see rural boys wearing overalls. The 1880s was notable for the Fauntleroy Craze. The Fauntleroy Craze makes the 1880s one ofthe most notable decades in the history of boys clothing. This satorial overkill for boys was one side affect of the rpidly growing American economy. Many Americans ho grew up under modest circumstance found themselves benefitting from the country dynmic economy. Proper velvet Fauntleroy suits were for pre-school and younger primary boys. Older boys wore standard suits, but often wuth a range of Funtleroy trim like a large ruffled collar and/or a large floopy bow. But in virtually all cases with knee pants. W do not see the Fauntleroy look with long pants. Not only did knee pants became standard fior American boys during the 80s, but we begin to see some older boys wearing them, including older primary boys. Schools systems varied somewhat from state to state, but by the 1880s mostly involved a eighy-year orogram, mainly children uo to about 13-14 years of age, at least in city schools. We rarely see bloomer knickers. Almost all merican shortened-length pants in the 1880s were knee pants. And by the late-1880s we begin seeing the pants being cut at knee level unlike the longer lengths worn earlier. They continued to be worn with long stockings, except boys going barefoot. Wearing long stockings included all age levels wearing knee pants. We still see striped long stiockings in the early-80s, but they had declines in popularity by mid-decade. And we still do not see overalls in schools, including rural schools. Overalls were commonly being worn by men in the work place, but we do notbsee boys wearing them to anyexent. America was still a majority rural ciuntry, but cities were rapuidly growing.

The 1890s

Knee pants gradually became increasingly common, but it was not until the 1890s that they became standard for American boys. And we no longer see only younger boys wearing them. By the 1890s older boys began wearing knee pants as well. In the early-90s we begin to see younger teens wearing knee pants and by the end of the decade even older teens. Most American children finished their education with primary school in the 8thb grade, meaning 13-14 years of age. But secondary education was expanding along with rising affluence and the expanding middle class.This was not the case in Europe where we do not see such old boys wearing knee pants. And we begin seeing high school boys wearing knee pants, especially by the end of the decade. The final shift to long pants usually occurred by about 15-16 years of age, but some even older teens continued wearing knee pants. It was for the most part all up to the discretion of their parents. This is notable in the increasing offerings of mail order and store catalogs in the 1890s. Sears joined Montgomery Wards in the mail order business (1892). So there is a very substantial record of clothing offerings including the sizes. This can also be followed in school photography which was by the 1980s a well-established tradition. School photography is especially important because we see large groups of ordinary boys and not just individual portraits. The length of knee pants also became shorter and by the 1890s were commonly worn at knee length. This would become fixed and when knickers began replacing knee pants in the 20th century, the cut at first was the same as knee pants. The Fauntleroy Craze continued into the 1890s, but had begun to peter out by the end of the decade. Also notable in the 1890s was decline of the centuries old tendency to dress younger boys in skirted garments before breeching. We are not sure what caused the decline of this convention, but it rapidly disappeared after the turn-of-the-20th century. We suspect that the advent of Muscular Christianity was a factor. The Fauntleroy Craze may have also been a factor. Thus we see see more younger boys wearing pants, mostly knee pants. Here there were important social-class differences. Younger working-class boys wore knee pants, but not older working-class boys. Apparently once the boys left school and began working, they wanted to wear long pants. We notice a few boys wearing knickers, but straight-leg knee pants were the standard and what the over whelming majority of American boys wore. They were usually worn with long stockings. There were colored stockings for children not picked up by the black and white photography of the day, but black long stockings were especially common. There continue to be differences between city and rural schools. We only see younger boys wearing knee pants in rural schools, but we still do not see boys wearing overalls in the rural schools. There was a continued tendency to dress up children for school even in rural areas.

Created: 12:41 AM 4/24/2007
Last updated: 11:40 PM 11/20/2023