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We see Ameican boys wearing knickers in the 19th century, but not very commonly. Youngr boys might wear bloomer knickers. Knee pants during the 19th century were mich more popular than knickers. American boys began commonly wearing knickers during the late 1900s and they became widespread during the 1910s. At first knickers were worn mostly with long over-the-knee stockings--usually dark, solid colored stockings as had been worn with kneepants. Boys commonly wore stockings matching their suits. As dark suits were popular for a boys best suit, this often meant dark stockinfs--often black ones. During the summer many boys went barefoot and thus did not wears shoes and stiockings, but when they did they put on long stockings. During the late 1920s, many boys begam switching from long stockings to knee socks. We see knee socks rather than long stockings being worn in the 1930s. Some younger boys wore long stockings, both with knickers and short pants. We see fewer boys wearing knickers with long stockings in the 1930s. Interestingly the old convention of matching the color of the suit with the stockings became less common in the 30s. I think this in part because bold knee sock patterns were so common. Another factor was that the beige stockings had also become very common. Thus we see boys wearing dark nickers with lighter colored knickers. The opposite convention, lihjt-colored knickers with dark stockings was not very common.
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