Figure 1.--American boys in the early 20th century mostly wore knee pants and knickers, commonly with black long stockings. The boys here are unidentified.

American boys in the early 20th century mostly wore knee pants and knickers, commonly with black long stockings. This snapshot is a good example of how ordinary boys dressed at the time. The boys here are unidentified. As they are close in age, we would guess they are chums and not brothers. Nor do we know where they lived. They look to be sitting on a family porch banister. I'd guess they are 8-9 years old. Its a little difficult to make out their outfits.

The Boys

The boys here are unidentified. As they are close in age, we would guess they are chums and not brothers. Nor do we know where they lived. I'd guess they are 8-9 years old.

Location

We have no idea where this portrait was taken. Te only clue is the brick home in the background. I thinks this makes the Midwest ler likely. We would guess a northeastern or mid-Atlantic state, but there is no way of being sure.

Porches

They look to be sitting on a family porch banister. Porches were very common on American houses built before World war II. It was a place before air conditioning to get out of the hot house as well as a place to socialize with neighbors. I remember as a child that they were a great place to play with friends.

Chronology

The chronology here is somewhat difficult to figure out. We at first guessed about 1920. after thining it over and receiving reader comments, we woyld say probably the 1910s. A HBC reader suggests the 1900s. The black stockings could have been any time in the early 20th century. The knickers the one boy is wearing suggest the 1910s. Younger boys still wore knee pants in the 1910s, although older boys wore knickers. Note that the ne boy does not have ornametal buttons on his knee pants which suggests the 1910s to us. The button shoes the one boy is wearing suggest that the snap shot was probably not taken in the 1920s. A HBC reader believes that the snapshot looks more like the 1900s. "Is there a slight mistake in the paragraph I submitted about the date? I thought that that button shoes would indicate the "first" decade of the 20th century, not the second. I realize there is some ambiguity about the date, but the shoes and stockings of the boy on the left suggest to me a date of about 1909. Of course it could be as late as 1916."

Clothing

American boys in the early 20th century mostly wore knee pants and knickers, commonly with black long stockings. This snapshot is a good example of how ordinary boys dressed in the ealy 20th century. Its a little difficult to make out their outfits. This snapshot throws a bit of light on two points with which HBC has been concerned in the past: stocking length and the necessary hose supporters for keeping the stockings neatly in place.

Shirts

The snapshot is a little light and it is difficult to make out thedetails of the shirts. One boy appears to be wearing some kind of button-on blouse ourfits, perhaps shorts set or Oliver Twist suit. His collar seems to be in a light color, contrasting with a white shirt. The other boy appears to be wearing a shirt wih a sports collar.

Pants

One boys is wearing knee pants. The other boy dark above-the-knee knickers. A reader asks, "Would you say that the boy on the left is wearing short trousers or knee pants? The line between the two gets a bit hazy during the middle and late 1910s, doesn't it? The absence of ornamental buttons, as you point out, does make the traousers look more like short pants than knee pants. But I'm not sure that knee pants inevitably had ornamental buttons on them." Yes, this is a coninuing problem. To discuss fashions, HBC needs to categorize garmdents and styles, even though at the time, such categories did not exist. We note in the early 20th cetury, terms like short pants, knickers, and knee pants being used, often interchangeably. This varied by catalog and time. Thus it is difficult go say if he is wearing knee pants or shorts and what he and his mother would have called them. Even without the ornamental buttons, we would tend to call them knee pants, but the destinction between the two is a modern exercise to crate some order that did not exist at the time.

Long stockings

The boy on the left obviously wears stockings that reach quite high up on his leg. Since the date seems to be quite early (probably the second decade of the 20th century--note the button closure on the high top shoes), the photo helps make the point that long stockings were often worn quite long, even early in the century. (It has sometimes been asserted that long stockings tended to be short--coming just above the knees--during this period. Obviously this was not always the case.)

Stocking supporters

It is also clear that the boy on the left is wearing double-pendant, Y-shaped supporters, probably pinned onto the tabs of an underwaist. You can see a little hint of the rubber buttons where the clasps attach to the stocking tops. Most American boys of this period wore underwaists with detachable supporters pinned on or else skeleton waists (an early form of garter waist) with shoulder straps, a belt, and supporters already attached. Stocking length and garter attachments are obscured in the case of the boy on the right because he is wearing above-the-knee knickers, but both boys very likely wear similar support garments.

Shoes

Both boys are wearing high-top shoes. One boy wear button shoes, the other lace-up shoes.

Created: 8:23 PM 2/17/2008
Last updated: 8:23 PM 2/17/2008