Figure 1.--These German children have their first day of school gift cones in 2005. They all wear open-toe sandals without socks. We begin to see German children wearing open-toe sandals in the 1960s. Sandals are popular with younger children who do not yet know how to tie shoe laces. German children almost always wore them without socks.

We notice children who came to school with footwear, but no socks. This commonly meant wearing sandals. We see sandals appering after the turn-of-the 20th century. Popularity varied from country to country. Sandals were not very common in America during the 20th century, but wee in England and other European sandls. We see many English boys wearing school sandals, although they declined in popularity as snekers became more popular. There we diffeent styles of sandals. Before World War II we generally see closed-toe sandals. Open-toe (often called Roman sndals) became more popular in the late-20th century. Closed-toe sadals were often worn with socks, although we see this choice varying seasonally. Also countries had varrying popular conventions about hosiery and sandals. Open-toe sandals were often worn without socks. In some countries (England, New Zealand, and South Africa) this was part of the unifom at individual schools. We also see children wearing shoes without socks, this was most common with sneakers. This seems most common with teenagers during warm weather. Mothers often insisted that younger children wear hoisiery of some kind. There were also gender differnces. Girls more commonly wore shoes without socks, including strap shoes, pumps, and sneakers. We are not sure why this gender difference exist, perhaps because boys were more active and tge socks helped cushion the foot when running, jumping, ad kicking.

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Created: 9:28 AM 3/30/2012
Last updated: 9:29 AM 3/30/2012