We notice a boy wearing an Eton collar in a Sears catalog offering Pilgrim long stockings. Both garments were rapidly going out of fashion in 1945. I'm not sure if Sears was still offering Eton collars. This was another garment that we notice in the 1930s before the War, but much less common after the War. The only long stockings we notice to any extent by 1945 were those worn by small boys and to a greater extent girls. We believe that they were worn in thelate 1940s by children in the northern states as part f winterwear. We know girls wore them, we are less sure about boys as they were mostly wearing long pants.
The Sears, Roebuck and Co., huge merchandising firm centered in Chicago was
founded by Richard W. Sears (1863-1914) and A.C. Roebuck (1864-1948). Sears had begun a career in mail-order business in Minnesota 1886. In Chicago he and Roebuck joined resources and formed a corporation in 1893 as a mail-order business under title Sears, Roebuck and Company. In 1895 Julius Rosenwald
(1862-1932) bought Roebuck's interest in firm and became president on Sears's retirement 1908. A retail-store system was added 1925. The first foreign store added in Havana, Cuba during 1945 and becane te first expropriated store in 1960. The Sears-Roebuck brought the production of industry to the fartherest corner of rural America, opening the cornucopia of the consumer age to rural America. All the new things that were changing American life danced
across their pages. Through it, a huge Chicago warehouse offers to modernize the farms and small towns of the Midwest.
We notice ads in Sears for long stockings throught the 1940s. I'm not sure about the early 50s. After 1945, however, the ads become increasingly less prominent, reflecting the declining popularity of long stockings.
The only long stockings we notice to any extent by 1945 were those worn by small boys and to a greater extent girls. We believe that they were worn in thelate 1940s by children in the northern states as part f winterwear. We know girls wore them, we are less sure about boys as they were mostly wearing long pants. Sears commonly shows boys wearing long stockings with short pants, as with the image here (figure 1). I do not think that this is a good reflection of boys clothing conventions. Rather it was the only way that Sears could use boy models. If the boys wore long pants you could not see the stockings.
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