Figure 1.-- The father and son in the ad here are both wearing the same style of underwear—white cotton t-shirts and colored boxer shorts with elasticized waists. By the end of the 1950s boxer shorts were beginning to compete to some degree with knitted cotton briefs.

Boxers are a modern style of underwear oants. Boxer shorts derived their name because they from bocxing trunks, because noth were short pants style underwear, elasticied at the waist like boxing trunks. We are not sure just when they first appeared or when the term "boxer" was first used. We do note them in the 1930s. Haines marketed a similar style of underpants in 1930 (figure 1) which they called shorts. I am not sure if they were elasticized like boxers. Some boys wore boxers, but they were more common with men. Boys more commonly wore briefs. We note more boys beginning to wear boxers in the 1990s.

Created: 10:51 PM 10/15/2004
Last updated: 10:51 PM 10/15/2004