Figure 1.--This cabinent card shows two boys, presumably brothers, wearing matching knee pants sailior suits. Even the dickies are the same. Even their bangs are the same, The knee pants are below the knee. At the time knee-length was more common, perhaps the longer length is because the boys are wearing three-quarter socks rather than long stockings. Notice the sharp creases in the pants. Their soft saucer caps do not have streanmers. The portrait was taken in 1904. The boys look about 8-9 years old.

Knee pants had become standard wear for boys in the 189s, including with sailor suits. For most of the Edwardian era, most sailor suits were still most commonly worn with knee pants during the Edwardian era. This essentially meant the 1900s. We do not see bloomer knickers except with tunic suits. This only changed in the 1910s when knickers became strandard wear for American boys. Knee pants during the Edwardian era were primarly worn at knee length. They were not worn above the knee, but normally right at knee length or slightly below the knee. Actual lengths, however, might vary as boys grew in height and given mothers' tendency to but a growing boy a slightly large size that he might grow into. Many of the knee pants had the ornamental buttons at the knee. Some did not, but we are not sure that this was the definitive difference netween knee pants and short pants. We see boys wearing white sailor suits with knee pants and without long stockings, something that was not common in the 1890s. Boys almost always wore long stockings with knee pants in the 1890s and continued to do so in the winter during the 1900s. Quite a few boys wore long pants sailor suits in the 1900s, but knee pAnts were the most common. We still see some knee pants sailor suits in the 1910s, but they gradually became less common as knickers became standard wear for American boys.

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Created: 6:27 AM 8/2/2013
Last updated: 6:28 AM 8/2/2013