Figure 1.-- |
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Experimentation in the method of long stocking support seems to have begun about a decade earlier in the 1900s. This may have been inspired by the older boys that were wearing knee pants and lng stockings by the turb of the 20th century. It is clear that the manufacturers were trying to convince mothers to buy them for their sons--especially their teenage sons. HBC has already recorded ads for the Wilson garter, for the Kazoo suspender waist, and for a similar product made by the Harris Suspender Co., the same companies as those represented in these three advertisements. We note different competing companies and products. We notice products from both the A.M. Wilson Company, the Harris Suspender Company, and the Kazoo Suspender Company. We note these harments being called suspender and skeleton waists.
Warner was one of several compnies that began offering the new Skeleton waists in 1911-12 as a new type of hose supporter. They used the term skeleton waist. Suspender waist became more common, but both terms were ued. Warner had six different styles for boys and girls 2-14 years of age, most of which are illustrated. This looks to be from a trade publication entitles 'Fabrics, Fancy Goods and Notions'. Such publications were destributed to merchants. The ad copy read, "Warner's Quality. The same quality found in Warner's rust-proof corsets. The Skeleton wist is now at of every active boy's ordinary wardrobe. Perfection skeleton waists are made by the originators of the skeleton waist, the largest makers. While designed orimarily for boys, hosts of mothers purchase them for their girls. They have been tested by millions of boys and girls for more than a score of years."
The first major innovator in stocking supporters was the A. M. Wilson Company of Cherokee, Iowa, which designed and sold the well-known "Wilson garter"--a system of tapes and cords supported from a child's shoulders with the hose supporters attached to the cords in a manner that allowed them to slide or shift position according to the movements of the body. The hose supporters of the Wilson garter, not anchored to a specific location on the upper leg, worked on a sort of pulley principle. There were two different types. The Wilson Garter, strickly speaking, was not a suspender waist at all. It was not specific to boys (girls are also shown wearing it in the ads), and although one of the two styles uses shoulder straps and functions somewhat like suspenders, the straps do not hold up outer clothing. The Wilson Garter is designed only for stockings. It is included in this discussion simply to illustrate an early stage of innovation in children's stocking support. Although the Wilson Garter continued to be regularly advertised throughout the 1910s and even into the 1920s, this rather complex style of hose supporter never seems to have garnered as much popularity with mothers and children as other styles such as the Kazoo suspender waist.
The Harris Suspender Company, the manufacturers of "Whiz" suspenders for men and boys, came out in 1912 with what they referred to as the "Two-In-One"--a garment combining boys' suspenders and garters and thus offering "double value" since the combined suspenders and garters were cheaper than the items purchased individually. The ad in our HBC example appeared in the Ladies' Home Journal for March, 1912. The Two-in-One is made for boys from 4 to 16 years of age. The illustration in this ad shows very clearly how the suspenders and garters are worn--both underneath the outer clothing. The white suspender straps are worn over the underwear (apparently in this case a union suit) and continue downward over the upper thigh to end in the familiar Y-shaped, double pendant, supporters for the stockings. Note that this style of suspender waist can only be worn with a blouse. If the boy wore an ordinary shirt, he could not tuck it inside his pants because the suspender attachment would obstruct. The ad cleverly allows us to see how the layering of the boy's dress works. His blouse is unbuttoned and untied in front so that we can see the suspender straps and union suit underneath; and there is a window through his knickers so that we can see how the supporters attach to his stockings. The radiant face of the boy, who seems to be about 13, shows how happy he is to be rid of the kind of underwaist and garters that he has had to endure in the past and that distinguishes him from his sister and perhaps younger brother.
An improvement on the Harris Company's "Two-In-One" appeared just a month later in the same magazine--Ladies Home Journal (April 1912, p. 72). This is the Kazoo "Athletic Suspender Waist" that also combines suspenders for trousers and hose supporters for long stockings but that allows the suspenders to be worn in full view on top of a boy's shirt (unlike the Harris garment where the suspenders for the trousers are concealed beneath a blouse). The Kazoo was made in sizes to accommodate boys as old as 18, after which boys would probably be wearing long trousers rather than knee pants or knickers. Again the illustration shows how the garment functions. The boy wears a regular dress shirt and tie with the striped suspenders worn on top in normal fashion. His
knickers or knee pants are around his ankles in order to show how the supporters attach to the stockings. He is adjusting the buckle of one supporter so as to tighten the strap for appropriate tautness. There are side straps that reach around from the back under the boy's arms so that the shoulder straps remain secure, and there is a buttoned loop on each suspender strap just above the waistline that can be fastened to the suspender attachments on the trousers. These suspenders can thus be unfastened from the little leather ends that attach to waist buttons on the trousers. The great advantage of the Kazoo is that when the boy
is fully clothed, he appears to be wearing suspenders just like those his father would wear, and the mechanism for holding up his stockings is entirely hidden from view. There is also a Kazoo waist for younger boys, illustrated in the diagram at the bottom of the ad. This waist functions like the one for older boys but provides an actual waist band with buttons for boys who wear button-on trousers with waists or blouses. The Kazoo seems to have become the most popular form of hose supporter for boys during the 1910s--so popular, in fact, that the firm began to produce other models suitable for girls. We know that the Kazoo was highly successful from the fact that Sears catalogs began to advertise them for the mass market. If the Kazoo took America by storm
during the decade of the 1910s, it seems to have disappeared almost as suddenly by the early 1920s as it arrived in the late 1900s. We see no Kazoo ads in magazines or catalogs after about 1922. Long stockings continued to be worn, of course, but there seems to have been a reversion to the more standard underwaist with pin-on supporters and now the development of more varied kinds of garter waists. Perhaps the suspender waist died out when boys no longer wanted to wear suspenders to hold up their trousers and wished to switch to belts with knickers or short pants. If a boy insisted on wearing a belt with his trousers,
he needed to use the more old-fashioned underwaist for long stockings or else adopt a garter waist which would have the shoulder straps concealed under his shirt.
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