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American boys in 1912 were wearing both knee pants and knickers. but knickers were dominant. Knickers which appeared a few years earlier seem to have been become dominant for older boys. We see catalog offerings, although the photographic record shows boys wearing mostly knickers with the exception of pre-school boys and the younger primary boys. They were done in sizes up to 17 years of age. We also see both knickerbocker and bloomer styles. Most of the choice, kowever, was in the masterial. We see many catalog pages with many different knicker offerings and just only type of straight-leg knee pants for older boys. We also notice long pants, but mostly for older teenagers. We also see overalls on offer. We notice them bring widely worn in rural schoolsfor over 3 decades. Knee pants were quite common in the 1900s. By the 1910s, knickers had become the dominant style for boys. A National 1912 catalog page provides a good indication. ASeaerscatalog provides many different choices. These oldcataslogspriovides a much greater number of options than modern catalogs. Long pants and knee pants were available, but the emphasis was already on knickers. We do see a varierty of knee pants ouitfits on offer for younger boys. We do not yet notice short pants being offered. A complication here is that shorts were not always referre to as short pants whhen they first appeared.
Although not well known today, the National Cloak & Suit Company was an important catalog company in the early-20th century. One 1912 catalog page offered knickers, knee pants, and long pants in 1912. Note that there were no short pants.
Here are the knickers and knee pantsoffered by Sears in 1912. Ucanttear was a Searsbrandstressing hardwearing boys' clothes. Sears used the term knee pasnts to include knickers, probably because American boys had been wearing straight-leg knee pants for several decades. The sizes varies, but the overall range was 3-17 years of age. There were 16 different choices, mostly differnt material. The different styles were Knickerbocker, bloomer, and straight-leg style. Blouses were offered on the same page. Sears had a rather rare ad copy, mostly foicused on why the pants were so inexpensiver. One pait only cost 15 cents. We were alittle surprised to find so many offerings for straight-leg knee pants. The photographic record shows American boys quickly adopting knickers after about 1908.
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