Figure 1.--Here we see two brothers wearing identical knee pants suits. The boys look to be about 11-14 years old. The cabinet card portrait was taken by Scharff in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The portrait is undated, but the styles and mount looks to be from the 1890s.

Almost all portraits of boys show them wearing suits. The same is true in school portraits. The primary exception is boys who just wore blouses during hot summer weather, but they mostly put on jackets for formal portaits. Almost all boys wote knee poahnts suits in the 1890s. Knee pants were somewhat less common in rural areas. An exception is boys wearing sailir suits. Some sailor suits were done with long pants. There were also knickers, but they were not very common in America. We see them more commonly in Europe. It was knee pants that were standard wear for American boys in the 90s. Not only do we see more boys wearing knee pants, bur we so older boys as well. The age of boys wearing knee pants also changed in the 1890s, we begin to see older boys wearing knee pants, including tennagers. Knee pants were fairly common for younger teenagers, but by the end of the decade we also see older teens wearing knee pants. While knee pants were almost universal for younger boys, the pattern was more varied with teenagers, especially older teens. The conventions varied from family to family. Boys of all ages were wearing knee pants by the late-1890s. There was some difference between urban and rural areas. American boys almost always wore dark long stockings with knee pants suits.

Created: 8:28 AM 2/19/2012
Last updated: 8:28 AM 2/19/2012