Figure 1.--Here we see four brothers from Johnstown, Pennsylvania. The portrait is undated, but we beloeve was taken in the 1890s. Note that by this time, boys were wearing knee-length knee pants, requiring long stockings well above the knee. We describe this length as mid-length long stockings.

The HBC categories of stocking length--(1) short, i.e. barely over the knee; (2) medium length (mid thigh); and (3) extra long (covering most of the upper thigh) are generally very useful, and, in general, the historical sequence seems pretty accurate. The general movement is obviously from shorter long stockings to longer and longer ones. But there is clearly some overlap. The key factor here appears to be the clothes that boys and girls were wearing with long stockings. Long kneepants and skirts did not require very long stockings. Short pants and shorter skirts mean that longer-length stockings were needed to cover a child's legs.

Shorter Lengths

Long stockings during much of the 19th century did not have to be very long. Boys worn knee pants that often came well below the knee, often down to the calf. We believe that long stockings during much of the 19th century kneesocks were generally made to just above the knee, in part because girls might wear dresses cut just below the knee and most long stockings were made for both boys and girls to wear. Boys long stockings could have been shorter, but girl's stockings needed to be longer. Up until World War I long stockings in America tended to be just over the knee and not much longer. An example is an advertisement is Iron Clad stockings (1904), showing knee pants and stockings just above the knee. We are not sure about the actual lengths.

Mid-lengths

We believe that until the 1890s that long stockings were mostly made to lengths just above the knee. This began to change in the 1890s when boys began to wear shorter-length pants and then by the turn of the 20th century, boys were wearing above the knee knickers or knickers just below the knee. Notice the boys at the Misses Porter's School in a photo taken about 1895. Here the boys wear long stockings with knee pants, but the knee pants are relatively short and the stockings fairly long--certainly longer than mere over-the-knee style. The seem to reach to about mid-thigh. 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. 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. 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. 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. We see both boys and girls wearing shorter length cloyhing with the relatively short long stockings that had beeen common earlier. An example is a Wards's ad for long stockings (1922) showing agirl 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.

Longer Lengths

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. 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. The stockings seem to have gotten even longer in America in the period from about 1936 to 1945. The Ward's 1936 garter waists show how the stockings worn were much longer and the supporters therefore shorter. 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.