German Schoolwear:  Hosiery Types--Socks


Figure 1.--Here we see Herman school boys wearing boy knee socks and ankle socks, we think in the earlly 1860s. Notice the boys are wearing sweters and jackers meaning the weather was beginning to turn cool. After the 60s we see fewer boys wearing knee socks as long pants were becomoing more common.

We see German school children wearing socks of all lengths. We see ankle socks, three-quarter socks, and knee-socks. German children also commonly wore knee socks, Both boys and girls wore the different types of socks. We do not have a lot of information about the 18th- and 19th-century yet. Knee breeches werecommonly worn in the 18th century. They were worn with long stockings. We begin to see socks in the 19th century. This is alittle complicated as in the early-19th century boys wore long pants and photography sid not yet existed which meant the number of images was limited. We see socks being worn, often white socks, but we have no way of knowing what the length was. We do not have a good idea about the hosiery until mid-century and the appearance of shortened-length pants. Long pants continued to worn at school, bit gardually we younger school boys wearing knickers or short pants, mostly with long stockings. Socks as far as we can tell were mostly three-quater length in the 19th century. Initially we mostly see them with boys wearing long pants. Eventually we see socks with shortend length pants, mostly three quarter socks worn by pre-school boys. Knee socks seem to be mostly a 20th century hosiery type, although boys' knee pants and girls' skirts tended to be so long in the 19th century that it is difficult to tell. And our archive of 19th century German school images is very limited. We know much more about the 20th century as school photography becomes well established. Hosiery choice was seasonal. Boys and girls wore long stockings in the cool and warm weather. They then swiched to socks. We see white three-quarter socks at the turn-of-the century. They often had colored bands at the top. Knee socks seem more common, especially after World War I. . We think the first knee socks were rolled down long stockings. Gradually actual knee socks appeared and became very common. They were commonly worn to school in ythe unter-War and early-post-War ea. We see a lot of children wearing knee socks. They might also be worn during the winter, but were less seasonal than long stockings. Ankle socks began to ppear in the 1930s, but wee no common until the 1950. Solid colored socks were popular. Patterened knee socks became popular in the 1940s, espcially after the War. We continue to see knee socks into the 1970s. By then ankle socks were common nd fwer boys were wearing short pants to school. More and more boys were wering long pants to school.







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Created: 5:55 PM 2/18/2018
Last updated: 5:55 PM 2/18/2018