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The earliest shirts came with front button closures and still do that extended to the neck collar. This was true for white collar office workers and blue-collar factory workers. When the shirt appeared, it was unimaginable that a person would actually walk around in public without all the buttons properly buttoned. Styles appeared for boys that were more comfortable like sailor blouses without tight collar buttons. For the most part, however, boys like their fathers were expected to button their collars even when not dressing up in a suit. It would have been seen as slovenly not to do so, especially when wearing a tie or other neck wear. We note that neck wear was optional when wearing styles like the Eton or Fauntleroy collar, but the collar was always buttoned in the 19th century. Thus was certainly true when attending school, but even when at play this was generally the case. Boys tended to wear blouses in the 19th century, but as shirts became more common in the 20th century, especially after World War I (1914-18), casual styles became increasingly popular. And one change that developed was that some boys stopped buttoning their collar buttons. We suspect that this was something they began doing on their own. Boys tended to dress up for school, commonly wearing suits and ties (19th century). This began changing after World War I. Boys began coming to school with just shirts, weather permitting. We can see this trend in 20th century school photography. Many mothers probably continued sending them their boys off to school with collars securely buttoned. But the tend toward casual wear and comfort was irresistible. By the 1940s, most boys were no longer buttoning their collars, except when dressing up with white shirts. I grew up in the late-40s-early 50s and do not recall buttoning my collars. I recall wearing unbuttoned shits with a white 'T''-shirt showing at the collar. We still see boys buttoning their collars in the 1960s, but they were by then a minority. And the custom finally faded away in the 1970s when along with pocket protectors, collar-buttoned shirts became a symbol of nerd-dom. Of course this became a non-issue as more and more boys discarded collared-shirts all together by the end of the century. And manufacturers continue to produce all collared shirts with collar buttons even though no one ever uses them The exceotion of course was forb a time dress shirts worn with suits, but today we see shirts being wornn unbuttined even with suits
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