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long stockings: country trends United States lengths
U.S. Long Stocking Lengths: 20th Century Chronology
Figure 1.--Knee pants had been dominant in the 19th century for American boys. After the turn of the 20th century, knickers became much more common. Like knee pants, knickers were worn with long stockings. Knee socks gradually replced the long stockings, especially by the 1930s. It is somewhat difficult to assess the length of these stockings from the portaits, although until the 1930s knickers were worn at or in some cases above the knee. This snapshot is undated, but we would estimate was taken about 1920.
Knee pants were still common in the early 20th century. Knickers gradually began to replace them. Up until World War I long stockings in America tended to be just over the knee and not much longer. Short pants also began to be worn in the early 20th century and became widely worn after World war I in the 1920s. Early short pants were made knee length like kneepants. Gradually they became shorter. This required even longer length long stockings. Long stockings began to appear at very long lengths, covering almost the entire leg. There was some overlap. During some era only one basic length was available. At other times, parents had a choice of lengths to purchase.
The 1900s
Long stockings in 1900s were made at lengths above the knee to accomodate the knee-length kneepants worn at the time. An example is an advertisement is Iron Clad stockings (1904), showing knee pants and stockings just above the knee. An ad for Rugby waists (1903) gives a good idea of average stocking length in the 1900s. It is true that some boys wore there stockings much longer than this, but we think the illustration is very telling on stocking length at this period. We note the Spencer family, of Pittsburgh, about 1900. Mark, the oldest boy is wearing quite long black stockings with short knee pants. The stockings reach at least to mid-thigh. Notice the Pittsburgh boy in 1906 who wears black long stockings with either short knee pants or unusually high above-the=knee knickers. These stockings obviously come up to at least mid thigh. For him, just over-the-knee stockings wouldn't have been long enough. Perhaps we can explain the longer length of the stockings in these photos by supposing that they were not standard purchase in a store but home-knit. However, in the case of the Spencer family, we know that the family tended to purchase such items as stockings. Middle-class and upper-class American families at the turn of the 20th century and afterwards tended to buy stockings rather than knit them at home.
The 1910s
Compare these American photos showing very long long stockings with an American boy wearing above the knee knickers in the 1910s where the stockings are so short that the clasps of the hose supporters are visible. During the 1920s and 1930s there seems to have been some variety of length. We see images of boys with longish short knee pants and medium-length stockings in the early 20th century. Stockings did not have to be very long in the 1910s. Nist biys wore knickersm usuallym, but not always woen below the knee. Thus knee length was all that was needed. Short pants did appear in the 1910s as knee pants vegan to reansuitiin to shorts. Greatly increased stocking length was not necessary as both knee pants and shirts tended to be long. And dresses for the girls were rarely shorter than knee length.
Most Amerivan noyd comntinued ti wear knickers in the 1920s. The kength of knickers changed slightly. They were almost always wiorn bekoe the knee. This of coirse dud bni require a change in the length oi long stockings. It did permit knickers to be worn with knee sovks. And by the end off the decade, we see more and more boys wearing knickerd with knee soivks rather than long stockings. We see both boys and girls to some extent wearing shorter length clothing with the relatively short long stockings that had beeen common earlier. An example is a Wards's ad for long stockings (1922) showing a girl with short long stockings, just over the knee. Boys wore long stockings with both kneepants and knickers--both ablove and below the knee knickers. We note an American boy (1921-22) wearing above-the-knee knickers with medium length long stockings. We begin after World War I to see boys wearing very long-length long stockings. We note a First Communion suit worn by a Brooklyn boy (dated during the same period--i.e., the 1920s) showing extremely long white stockings worn with quite short, short pants. But the advertisements for long stockings during the 1920s and early 1930s often don't say anything about extra length although the pictures shown in the catalog make the stockings look somewhat longer. Lmee pants were disappearing and shirt pants replacing them. The shirts, however comtinued toi be relatively long, but shorter tha was cimmion fir knee pants. The same trend was esentially the same for girls skirts. We see girls with skirts above the knee, but not much higher. This mran longer stockings lngrghs wre needed, but generally not much longer. This began to change at the end of the decade when we begin to see shorter lengths, but was most motable in the 1930s.
The 1930s
When shorter skirts and pants started to be popular in the late 1920s and 1930s, the stockings seem to have become longer but still probably not extremely long. The first ad for "extra long" stockings I have found is Ward's 1933 add for "Extra Long Playhards". We note Ward's Playhard long stockings--made extra long so garters won't show under shorter trousers and skirts, 1933) Of course "Extra Long" is a relative term. A Ward's 1936 garter waists shows the the stockings worn much longer and the supporters therefore shorter.
The 1940s
The stockings seem to have gotten even longer in America in the period from about 1936 to 1945. The Sears ads for long stockings in 1940-41 and 1943-44 show boys wearing stockings that cover almost the entire thigh and being worn with quite short shorts. We notice Sears offering >very long stocking which they refer to as "full-length" stockings--long enough to be worn with shorter short pants (1940-41). Another Sears catalog showed very long stockings worn with short pants (1943). A HBC reader writes, "It is these extra long stockings that I remember wearing myself during that period." We have testimony from several American readers who complain that the boys' stockings were shorter than the girls' stockings and that therefore the garters tended to be exposed. But the catalogs of the period show no difference at all between stockings for boys and girls--at least in terms of length. If there was a difference, it was a difference of color and weight rather than of length.
The 1950s
By the 1950s we rarely see American boys wearing long stockings.
