Figure 1.--This cabinet card portrait shows two brothers wearing similar knee pants suits. The boys look to be about 12-14 years old. The portrait is not dated, but was probably taken about 1890-95. The studio was the Davies Gallery in Little Rock, Arkansas.

After appearing in the mid-19th century, we at first only see younger boys, often pre-school boys, wearing knee pants suits. This was at first a style adopted by fashion-concious mothers in the big cities. The age grdually increased in the later half of the century, but knee pants were mostly worn by boys up to about 8-10 years of age for some time. This varied from family to family as well as demographically. Long pants continued to be more common in rural areas. Sudenly in the 1890s we begin to see older boys wearing knee pants and the knee pants became shorter, actually reaching knee length. This became the standard length and did not subsequently change. The length was not affected by age. Older and younger boys wore the same length of knee pants. We do not know just what to atribute this shift. We have not seen it addressed in fashion literature. Urbanization and rising affluence may be factors. We not only see younger teenagers wearing knee pants, but boys 13-14 years of age and by the end of the 1890s many older teens. This continue in the 1900s. We see teens of all ages earing knee pants. They were most common for younger teens, but we do see some older teens weating them. A good example is 14-year old G. Ward Hogan wearing a knee pants suit. And it is a brew suit that he would have worn for a year or two after purchase, meaning to age 15 or 16 byears. This included 14-years olds beginning high school. While attending high school was still for a minority of boys, it was becoming more common. Teens in rural areas were slower to adopt this fashion. Older boys always wore knee pants suits with long stockings. Younger boys might wear knee pants while going barefoot during the summer, but older boys always wore long stockings and shoes. Knee pants went out of style in the late=1900s and were replaced by knickers, but the same age conventions for kmee pants contibued for knickers. We continue to see younger teens wearing knicker suits. By the end of the 1910s, we no longer see older teens wearing knickers, but they were still common for younger teens.

Created: 5:55 AM 10/14/2013
Last updated: 10:50 AM 7/9/2019