Figure 1.--We have no information about this rural school. The age rnge tlls us that it is a smlll rural school. We suspect it was a school in the upper Mid-West proudabout bing Americans. The 44 star flag dates the potarit to the mid-1880s. Notice that most of the younger boys in the front are wearing knee pants. As is the case for most of these school portraits, we can't tell what kind of pants that the older boys in the back row are wearing. Small schools couldn;t be expected to get new flags every time a star was added.) The school may hve been using an old flag. (The girls' dressess seem to display 1890s styles.)

American boys mostly wore long pants suits to school in the 19th century. We first see shortned-length pants at mid century, but not yet many at schools (1860s). This was especially the case for rural areas where most boys lived and attended school (1860s). This began to change in the 1870s. This was only a minority of boys and for the most part only the younger boys. By the 1880s, however, knee pants were becoming standard for younger boys. And thanks to the developing tadition of school photography we ahve a substabtial numbrb of images making vali assssments popular. They tended to be cut long at calf level. We only see the actual knee level pants becoming common by the late-1880s. American knee pants were commonly done with three decorative buttons atthe knee hem--an artifact of 18th century knee breeches. We see younger boys, especially in the city, wearing knee pants. The 2nd or 3rd graders here at a town school look to be wearing knee pants (figure 1). Unlike Europe, they were all straight-leg knee pants. We rarely see American boys wearing knickers. As the century developed we see older boys wearing knee pants. By the end of the 1880s decade knee pants had become standard for younger boys. While they were not yet standard for teenagers, we begin to see some younger teens wearing them. Knee pants were not as common in rural areas, especially for older boys. But we see the younger boys in rural areas beginning to wear them. We can see some of these tends in the 1880s individual school page.

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Created: 1:35 AM 4/21/2025
Last updated: 1:35 AM 4/21/2025