Figure 1.--This tin-type shows an unidentified broter and sister, e believe in the late0-1870s. Note both are wearing lonf stockings, in his case striped long stocvkings in bright colors.

Both boys and girls wore the same long stockings. Of course this was only the boys wearing knee pants. We are not sure if there were color differences. Many children wore white long stockings in the 1860s, but this rapidly changed in the early 1870s with boys and girls commonly switched to dark long stockings. White stockings for whatever reason virtually disappeared. The black and white photography of the day. All we see are dark long stockings. May were black, but there were also darblues, browns, birgundy, gray, and green. his is impssoble to deter,ine by the photograpic record. So we do not know if gender differences determined the choices, although lighter dark colors suggest they were colored. We also see many children, both boys and girls, wearing striped long stockings, especially in the 1870s. The striped stockinmgs were not unique to the 1870s, we also see striped stockings in the early-1880s, but they were most common in the 70s. We believe the stripped socks were more common for boys, but both boys and girls were wearing them. And they see more brighter colors with the boys striped stockings. They were done in an amazing array aof colors and striped patterns. But because of the black and white photography we can not derermine if there were gender differences. We are not sure if there were other gender distinctions.

Created: 4:02 AM 9/16/2023
Last updated: 4:02 AM 9/16/2023