U.S. Knicker Hosiery: War Years--The Early-1940s (1940-45)
Figure 1.--Here we see two boys fishing at the Tidal Basin in Washington D.C. during Wirld War II. The annual Cherry Blossom Festival was in full swing. The younger boy wears knickers with ankle socks. Notice the old-fashioned sneakers. Sneakers were hard to get because of the rubber shortage. One of ny earliest memories took place about the same spot in 1947. I was wearing a sailor suit, but don't recall any boys weraing knickers--my memories, however, are a bit hazzy. The press capotion here read, "Fish Story -- With Cherry Blossoms: Cherry blosson=ms may get other folks all excited but they don't mean a thing to thesevtwo Washingtonians. To them its just a swell day for fishing. Left to right: Bud Abbot, 15; and Douglas Hazelton, 10." The photograph is dated April 10, 1944.
American boys when knickers first appeared wore long stocling with them, the same long stockings that they wore with knee pants. For the most part they were black long stockings. This did not change until the late-1920s when knee socks became more popular. Briughtly colored patterned knee socks were popular, although flat (plain) knee socks were also worn. Around the mid-1930s knee socks for some reason began to become less popular. We begin to see boys wrearing knickers with ankle socks, especially during the summer and on casual occassions. By the 1940s most of gthe boys wearing knickers were wearing them with ankle socks. The photograohic record suggestas that most of boys wearing knickers in the 1940s were swraring them with ankle socks rather than wearing knee socks or long stockings. Ankle socks were becoming more common in general. Boys wearing short pants and long pants generally wore ankle socks, mostly colored ankle vsocks with patterns--often bands. I was born in 1943 and never had a pair of knee socks. I only wore ankle socks and don't recall seeing boys wearing knickers.
