Figure 1.--Here we see an American boy wearing suspender shorts in 1956. They are plaid shorts. We suspect that they were part of a suit. Notice the date. Younger boys were still wearing short pants suits in the winter. The boy here seems to be wearing a blouse rather than a shirt. Regular shorts were no woirn during the winter, but short pants suits were. The press captin was about the elderly musician. It read, "Fit as a Fiddle at 90: Emerging from semi-retirement on his 90th birthday, conductor violinist David Mannes entertains three budding musicians with an informal recital in New York City. Listening appreciatively at the Mannes College of Music are: (left to right) Richard Kuhn, 4; Bobby Westley, 4 1/2; and Frances Solomon, 5. Mannes, who founded the college and helped establish the Federation of Music School Settlements and the Hampton Institute in Virginia, was honored with a 'Happy Birthday' ceremony at the college. The nonagenarian, who for 20 years conducted free concerts at the Metropolitan Museum, is still fully alert and healthy." The photograph was taken February 17, 1956 and appeared in the newspaper February 23.Mannes School of Music is a music conservatory in The New School. In the fall of 2015, Mannes moved from its previous location on Manhattan's Upper West Side to join the rest of the New School campus in Arnhold Hall at 55 W. 13th Street.

Suspender shorts were short pants with straps to hold up the pants done in the same material as the shorts. The straps varied in with. We see wide and nrrow straps and every width in between. We do not yet notice any kind of pattern. Proper suspender short pants were purchased already sewn to the waistline at the back and crossed to the shoulders. Some we not sewn to the back, but this was unusual in American manufactured shorts. They then fell straight down and were buttoned to the waistine. We have seen buttons both outside and inside the waistline. The boy here has suspender shorts that button outside the waistline (figure 1). We think the inside buttoning was to hide part of the strap. These straps might have more than one button holes which can be used as the boy grows taller. There may be exceptions, especially with home sewing, but this is how almost all store-bought suspender shorts were done. This was a pratical device. Unless the straps were crossed, they too easily fell off the shoulders, a real problem for active boys. We occassionally see the straps crossed at the front, but this was a nother's trick to fit the shorts to a yunger boy. This was not how suspender shorts were meant to be worn. And the suspender shorts worn as part of suits always had the susopender straps crossed at the back and not the front. Studio portraits almost always show only the front, but amateur photograophy and the snapshot are much more varied so we have some views of the back.

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Created: 1:40 PM 1/10/2019
Last updated: 1:40 PM 1/10/2019