Figure 1.--Here we see two German school children in April 1926 when school began in Germany at the time. I think that they are Kindergarteners about 5-6 years old. The boy looks a little older, he could be in the first year of primary school. They are probably brothers and sisters. The girl wears a plaid dress, hair bow, and long black stockings. The boy wears a pinafore. Notice the decorative trim. The snapshot has a captiom, 'Jürgens u. Sigrids erster Schulgang. April 1926.' That translates as, 'Jürgen's and Sigrid's first school year. April 1926.' Schulgang in this case actually means school walk. in other words their first day of school.

As in other countries, the pinafore was primarly a girl's school garment. In Germany it may have been exclusively a girl's school garment, at least in primary school. We do not believe that German boys wore pinafore to school to any extent. We do note that some German boys wore pinfores at home. The pinafores for boys were very basic styles, not the fancier styles will frills that girls wore. We do note boys wearing pinafores in Kindergarten. We do not know how common this was. Age was a factor here. We have only noticed Kingergaten boys wearing pinafores, but it is possible a few younger primary boys also wore them. We have a fairly extensive archive of German school photography and while girls wearing pinafores are common, this is not the case for boys. We very rarely see boys wearing pinafores to school, but it was not unknown. In addition, the pinafores the boys wore were styles differently. Theywere much more basic than the ones worn by girls and they tended to be darker colors. The girls wore the plainer styles as well, but the boys did not wear the fancier styles.

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Created: 2:26 PM 2/21/2013
Last updated: 2:26 PM 2/21/2013