American Romper Chronology: The 1930s


Figure 1.--This family snapshot shows an unidentified boy in the family garden wearing H-bar rompers during 1939. He looks to be about 2 years old. We do not see see many older American boys wearing rompers. We see he and his sister waring similar H-bar rompers in 1941.

The French romper or 'barboteuse' was becoming a standard garment for pre-school French boys in the 1930s. In America the romper was worn by both boys and girls. We see rompers declininged in popularity during the 1930s, especially for boys. We find fewer examples in the photographic record. We do note one HBC reader who recalls wearing rompers in the late-1930s and early-40s. They were wool rompers knitted by his grandmother. And we see examples of infant and todler boys wearing rompers. They were nuch less common than in the 1920s and we see younger boys wearing them. This was different fo girls. We note school age girls wearing them. They seem popular for girls at summer camp. We also see Girl Scouts wearing them. Middy blouses and bloomers continued to be worn by high school girls in school gym classes. This varied somewhat from chool to chppl, but it was very common. We belive this is one reason that unlike cFrabce, Rompers becme seen as a girls' garment.






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Created: 8:36 PM 6/15/2016
Last updated: 7:17 PM 7/22/2022