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Many American boys and girls wore long stockings throughout the 1920s. This meant that stocking supporters were needed to hold them up. There were quite a varirty of available products to do so, incliding garters, garter waists, underwaists, union waists suits, waists, waist suits,and other garments. The terms used for the garments could be a little confusing. These garments had a range of purposes, including posture correction, but the primary purpose was to hold up long stockings. The number of such garments and the prevalence of the advertising is a good indicator of how common long stockings still were in 1925. We note mail-order catalogs, magazines, and newspapers which offered a variety of stocking supporters.
Sears offered "Hose Supporters" in the Spring catalog for 1925, p. 143. These are really "garter waists" for both boys and girls but are here referred to simply as hose supporters. Three models are shown and are arranged in the ascending order of their price and quality. It is worth noticing that these waists were advertised in the Sears Spring catalog and would therefore be sold during the warmer months of the year. Long stockings were widely worn even in the summer for reasons of dressiness and formality and were not considered merely cold-weather wear.
This R & J West came in two styles--one for girls and one for boys. The Sears ad appeared very prominently in the Fall and Winter catalog for 1925-26, p. 416. I do not know what the initials stand for and can't discover the origin of the name. The waist is made of muslin, and, in the boy's model, buttons down the front (which boys greatly preferred to the back-buttoning style). It has waist buttons around the middle for attaching short pants or knickers (knee pants weren't worn in America this late), and the hose supporters are attached to a strip of reinforced cloth that comes down over the hips to prevent the supporters from rubbing against the skin.
The E-Z Waists were a popular brand that was extensively advertized in the 1910s and 20s. The E-Z Waists Company used popular ladies magazines. This advertisement appeared in the Ladies' Home Journal May, 1925 (p. 130).
The ad is extremely useful because it contains a detailed description of the individual features of E-Z Waist Suits with information about sizing, fabric, reinforcement straps, taped on buttons, garter attachments, and seat construction.
We note a newspaper ad for Dr. Parker's Waist and Garters from the Ogden, Utah Standard Examiner for June 14, 1925. An illustration shows a boy and a girl both wearing the Dr. Parker garter waist. The girl is buttoning the chest strap that keeps the shoulder straps in place. The waist consists of white suspenders of white webbing which cross in back and attach to a waistband equipped with waist buttons for buttoning on skirts and trousers. On each side the waist has white Hickory supporters that pin onto the the waistband through metal pinning tubes sewn on tabs and fastened to the waist.
This Dr. Parker Garter Waist ad appeared in a prominent advertisement with other Hickory products (manufactured by Stein of Chicago and New York). It was in The Wisconsin Rapids Daily Tribune (September 24. 1925). It was an issue that included advertising for various school needs at the start of a new school year. This ad differs from some of the other Dr. Parker ads in offering the waist with a choice of white or black supporters. Most of the others offered only white. Also note that the boy is fastening the chest strap of his garter waist (figure 1). This was an important feature emphasized by the makers because active children had trouble with shoulder straps slipping off and the chest chap kept the shoulder straps in place.
The Wisconsin Rapids Daily Tribune in the same back to school issue (September 24. 1925) also an ad for the famous Hickory underwaist, This was almost as popular in the 1920s as the Dr. Parker Garter Waists. This was for boys and girls up to the age of 14, but was mostly worn by boys of 12 or younger. The illustration shows a boy about 7 or 8 years old. The waist is cut in athletic style with wide openings for the arms and is low-cut so that it won't show under open-necked shirts or dresses. It has tape-on buttons around the waist for the attachment of trousers or skirts and metal pinning tubes at the sides for the attachment of supporters for long stockings.
This ad for children's garter waists appeared in the Hutchinson News, Hutchinson, Kansas, April 15, 1925, page 3. This advertisement offers three different brands of garter waists, which seem to be of the Dr.
Parker style, although this term is not used. The illustration shows a boy and a girl both wearing garter waists made of white webbing with suspenders and a strap across the chest to keep the shoulder straps from slipping off. The suspenders are attached to a belt with waist buttons for attaching trousers (either knickers or shorts) and skirts. A little extension over the hips is also shown with pinning tubes to which the safety-pins of hose supporters are attached. This kind of garter waist seems to have the most common means of supporting long stockings for boys and girls from age 2 to 14, although regular underwaists with supporter attachments were also much in demand.
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