Figure 1.--This German family had theirportrait taken in front of their family Christmas treesduring the 1930s. Two little boys about 1 and 2 years old wear long stockings. A reader tells us, "This photo gives us some interesting information about support garments. Notice that you can see that the long stockings of the older of the two boys are attached by supporters that are fixed to a Leibchen in front rather than on the sides."

We note very young children wearing long stockings. This included 1-year olds. We think it was less common for infants, but by age 1 boys were wearing long stockings. We are not entirely sure how common it was for the youngest children to wear long stockings, but we note enough examples in the photographic record to know that it was quite common. But we also see plenty of snapshots and portraits of little boys wearing socks and older brothers and sisters wearing long stockings. We note numerous family snap shots. A factor here is that while long stockings were common, boys commonly wore short psnts. Many boys did not even have long pasnts. Thus for warm in the winter we note boys wearing long stoickings, including of course 1 year old. It was especially common for young boys to wear long stockings in the colder months. We are less sure about the warm summer months.