Figure 1.-- Herw we see a grouop of English children watching a parade. Notice the girl in a broad-beimmed hat and rompers. We are not sure about the loation, but think it was a seadide town. Hopefully one of our British readers will recognize it. The snapshot is undated, but we would guess ut was taken in the 1920s.

Our chronology of English girls rompers is very limited. Amelia Jenks Bloomer was an American women's rights and temperance advocate. Even though she did not create the women's clothing reform style known as bloomers, her name became associated with it because of her early and strong advocacy (1850s). We know little about bloomers, but they were never worm to any extent by American or Europeam girls to any extent. There was one exception--girls gym suits. We begin to see a substantial expansion of girls' education. And with this came the question as to how girls should dress fot gym (physical education) and sports. The primary answer became middy bloues and bloomer pants. This evolved into romper suits. We are not sure as to the relationship between bloomers and romper suits that we see children wearing in the inter-War era, but there must be a relationship of some kind. In France only boys wore rompers. In America and Britain it seems to be more of a child'garment without any gender connotstions, at least for younger childrn. We note some English children wearing rompers in the early-20th century, after World War I. It may have begun earlier, but we hav no photographic evidence of that yet. Rompers eem to have been worn or beach play, but weare still working on usage. Rompers continued to worn after World War II into the 1950s, but we rarely see then by the 60s, although our archive is limited and we are still working on the chronology.