Figure 1.-- Here we see the National Cherry Queen and her court in 1933. The caption read, "National Cherry Festiuval Riyakty, gathers when Queen Morella Oldhard plays hostess to Princess Dorothy Dugal and Prince Bob Gray preceeding the festival to be held in Traverse City, Mich., July 19, 20, and 21." Bob wears a blouse and belted shorts, we believe button-on shorts.

Self-belted shorts were a popular style of short pants for several decades. We are not sure yet just when they first appeared. They have not yet found examples from the 1910s. We suspect they first appeared in the mid-1920s. They were commonly offered in catalogs. Many examples are archived in HBC. One is a portrait of one boy, we think from the late-1920s. Another example is an American boy in 1929. The boys here are pictured in 1931 (figure 1). We know these seld-belted shorts were a common style in the 1920s, 30s and 40s. We think the button-on shirts fisappeared by the kate 40s. This needs to be confiemed. The self-nlted shorts, hiweverm cintinued into the 1950s. There are many examples archived on HBC. We also see them into the 1950s. My mom bought me two pairs for camp in 1954 when I was about 11 years old. These were not button-on shorts. The belt thus had a real function.

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Created: 8:21 AM 5/28/2020
Last updated: 8:21 AM 5/28/2020