Figure 1.--Wards in its 1922 catalog offered this Dr. Parker's gartwer waistt. The illusion to a doctor was meant to give the waist a kind of medical endorsement.
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Figure 1.--Wards in its 1922 catalog offered this Dr. Parker's gartwer waistt. The illusion to a doctor was meant to give the waist a kind of medical endorsement. |
We notice Dr. Parker waist offered by Montgomery Ward. Dr. Parker waists were an important type of garter waists, although often the term Dr. Parker's was not used. It is worth noticing that the model shown seems to be an older boy, perhaps 11 or 12, although it is hard to be sure of his age.
Although the word "consumerism" has a modern ring, it was personal concern for an early consumer movement, the "National Grange of the Patrons of Husbandry". That inspired a young traveling salesman named Aaron Montgomery Ward to start the world's first general merchandise mail-order company in 1872. Aaron
Montgomery Ward was born on February 17, 1844, in Chatham, New Jersey, to a family whose forebears had served as officers in the French and Indian Wars as well as in the American Revolution. Looking for something more compatible, Monty left home and followed the river to Lake Michigan and the town of St. Joseph,
county seat and market for outlying fruit orchards. Chicago was the center of the wholesale dry goods trade and in the 1860s Ward joined the leading dry goods house, Field Palmer & Leiter. As a retailer, Potter Palmer had previously built a reputation for fair dealing. Ward absorbed these principles while working as a clerk
for $5. The Chicago City Directories for 1868 through 1870 listed Ward as a salesman for Wills, Greg & Co. and later for Stetthauers & Wineman, both dry goods houses. In 1870, after canvassing territory in Illinois, Iowa, Missouri, Ward was again footloose. The plan shaping in Ward's mind was to buy goods at low cost for
cash. By eliminating intermediaries, with their markups and commissions, and cutting selling costs to the bone, he could offer goods to people, however remote, at appealing prices - for cash. Since its founding in 1872, the company has literally "grown up with America" and has had a major impact on the shopping habits of a
nation of consumers. Montgomery Ward & Co. discontinued its catalog operations in 1985 as part of its restructuring effort to change itself into a modern, competitive chain of value-driven specialty stores, a move which for a time saved the company. week.
This category applies to a broad variety of devices for holding up long stockings. Theoretically it would apply to any garment worn on the upper body used for this purpose (including underwaists, pantywaists, and suspender waists). But HBC uses the term to apply specifically to waists with hose supporters already attached,
even though in some cases these supporters are detachable. Most of these garments are designed to have the strain of the garters carried by the child’s shoulders. Some have waistbands and some do not, but all are worn under the outer clothing and therefore as a species of children’s underwear. One of the first such garments
we notice was in the Sears 1902 catalog Sears refers to a "combination belt and supporter, but the garment was essentially a garter waist. The use of different terms somewhat complicates the assessment if the garments. Interestingly, even when the wearing of long stockings was supposedly declining in the late 1930s and early
1940s, a proliferation of styles of garter waist became very prominent in the Sears and Wards catalogs of this period. We have more different styles for this period than for any other on HBC. A good example is the Sears 1939 garter waists.
We notice Dr. Parker waist offered by Montgomery Ward. Dr. Parker waists were an important type of garter waists, although often the term Dr. Parker's was not used.
As we have noted elsewhere, this style of garter waist remained popular from at least as early
as 1902 (see the belt with hose supporters ad for this year) until the early
1940s.
The image here comes from the Montgomery Ward catalog for
1922. It is worth noticing that the model shown seems to be an older boy, perhaps 11 or 12, although it is hard to be sure of his age.
The Ward's ad is labeled, "Dr. Parker's Shoulder Brace Belt and Hose Supporter." The ad copy read, "Waist band is made of sateen with adjustable, non-elastic shoulder strap and wide elastic piece in back. Good quality white hose supporters with rubber
cushion fasteners. Buttons on band for adjusting. Size, 2 to 12 years. Mention size wanted. 20 E 4507 49 cents. Postage, 3 c. extra."
Features of the Dr. Parker waist shown here are worth noting. First of all there were no buttons which were often included in these waists. Also notice that there is a chest strap between the two shoulder straps so that the suspenders will not slip off during a boy's active play. A reader tells us, "I remember this as an important feature. This strap functions exactly like the cross strap on boys' H-bar pans and Lederhosen in Germany, although of course it is hidden under outer clothing."
The purpose of these waists is often no apparent to modern readers. Ward's advertises this waist as having a dual purpose--posture control and the support of long stockings.
During the 1920s and 1930s there was a great deal of emphasis on boys' posture, the desirability of keeping one's shoulders back so that a boy didn't slump. This waist is supposed to help the boy maintain something like a military bearing. But I think the claim is largely unwaranted. I do not think that the waist would have significantly affected a child's posture. The shoulder straps are really just like trousers suspenders to support the waist band. They wouldn't do much more for a boy's posture than ordinary trousers suspenders would do. But the claim appears to be part of an appeal to mothers that they should buy underwear garments for their sons that had scientific backing by experts in children's clothing design and who took the general health and development of a boy's body into consideration. This seems to be the marketing value of the "Dr. Parker" name. The Dr. in the name was of couse meant to provide a kind of endorsement of thge mediucal claims. We do not know just who this Dr. Parker was or in fact if there was a Dr. Parker.
The major purpose of these under waists were to hild up long stockings. Long stockings were widely worn in the late 19th and early 20th century. They were still very common in the 1920s, especially the early 1920s.
This waist has no additional buttons for the attachment of trousers or other outer clothing. The clothing function in this case is simply to hold up long stockings neatly and to distribute the pull of the garters to the shoulders for comfort and greater efficiency. The waist band has buttons for adjustment, but these buttons are simply for sizing purposes and have nothing
to do with the support of other garments.
I think both bpys and girls may have worn the same kind of waist, although only a boy model is shown in this particular advertisement.) Garter waists, generally speaking, were non-gender specific--at least until the mid-1940s. By 1950 the garter waist for children had almost disappeared, and after 1949 boys are never shown in the catalog ads.
The model wears this garter waist over long underwear. But notice the buttons on the undershirt which come only half way down his chest. This is obviously not a union suit--the most common type of long underwear worn in the early 1920s. Rather it is a separate shirt worn with drawers. The drawers could be either knee length or ankle length, but I suspect the latter. A reader writes, "Although I wore exactly the same kind of garter waist in the late 1930s and early 1940s, I always wore mine over a short-legged union suit, not over long underwear. Long underwear tended to make the stockings look too lumpy, and, in any case, the extra warmth was by the mid-1930s unnecessary. This is a difference, I believe, that distinguishes the early 1920s from the later 1930s and early 1940s."
This boy would be wearing his long stockings either with short pants or with knickers, probably above-the-knee knickers in 1922. A boy of about 11 or 12 would almost certainly wear knickers although short pants might be a possibility for especially dressy occasions (church, funerals, weddings, etc.). Long stockings continued to be worn with knickers even as late as 1944 although patterned knee socks had become much more common and didn't of course
require supporters or garter waists. By the 1940s, however, long stockings were mainly worn with short pants and mostly by younger boys (up to about age 10). A few boys wore long stockings with knickers (parental pressure was a factor here) because mothers didn't approve of the rather sporty appearance of the patterned knee socks for formal occasions and also because the knee socks
had a way of constantly falling down.
A reader writes, "This is exactly the style of waist I wore at about age 11 or 12 as late as 1940-41. It did the job of holding up my long stockings very efficiently and comfortably, but there was no effect on my posture as far as I can remember. But I do recall that my father was always telling me to keep my shoulders back and not to slump. (Girls of the same period sometimes carried books on their head as an exercise in posture development."
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