Figure 1.--This family portrait shows the Rathchford boys from Duryea, Pennsylvania. Duryea was a town in the athracyte coal area of wesrern Pennsylvania close to Pittsburgh. It is now parrt of the greater Pittsburgh metropolitan area. We know nothing about the family, but Ratchford would seem to be a family of English origins. There are three boys who look to be about 2-11 yeats old. We do not know their Christian names. They are rather informally dressed. The younger boy wears a button-on suit. The middle boy wears a kind of rugby shirt with the buttonly only half way down the font. He has self-belted short pants. Notice how he has buttoned his collar. The older boy with combed-back hair wears a regular shirt with a tie and knickers. All three wear low-cut oxford shoes. The hosiery they wear is interesting. The portrait is undated, but we would guess was taken around 1928-32.

This family portrait shows the Rathchford boys from Duryea, Pennsylvania. Duryea was a town in the athracyte coal area of wesrern Pennsylvania close to Pittsburgh. It is now parrt of the greater Pittsburgh metropolitan area. We know nothing about the family, but Ratchford would seem to be a family of English origins. There are three boys who look to be about 2-11 yeats old. We do not know their Christian names. They are rather informally dressed. The younger boy wears a button-on suit. The middle boy wears a kind of rugby shirt with the buttons only half way down the font. He has self-belted short pants. Notice how he has buttoned his collar. The older boy with combed-back hair wears a regular shirt with a tie and knickers. All three wear low-cut oxford shoes. The portrait is undated, but we would guess was taken around 1928-32.

Ratchford Boys

This family portrait shows the Rathchford boys from Duryea, Pennsylvania. Duryea was a town in the anthracite coal area of western Pennsylvania close to Pittsburgh. It is now part of the greater Pittsburgh metropolitan area. This is an area which attracted many immigrants from central Europe, especially Poland, because of the anthracite mines in the area. This family, however, looks to be English, although we know nothing about them. There are three boys who look to be about 2-11 yeats old. We do not know their Christian names. They are rather informally dressed. The younger boy wears a button-on suit. The middle boy wears a kind of rugby shirt with the buttons only half way down the font. He has self-belted short pants. Notice how he has buttoned his collar. The older boy with combed-back hair wears a regular shirt with a tie and knickers. All three wear low-cut oxford shoes. The portrait is undated, but we would guess was taken around 1928-32. The hosiery they wear is interesting.

Garments

The boy on the left (about 8 years old) is wearing a long-sleeved shirt, buttoned at the neck, with tweed self-belted shorts with and sporty patterned long stockings (obviously worn with a garter waist). It ispossible they are knee socks pulled up, but long stockings seem more likely. The youngest boy (only about 2 03 years old) wears a button-on shorts suit with three-quarter-length socks with a diamond pattern and a large band of white at the top which could be turned over. The oldest boy (about 10-11 years old) is wearing a white shirt and pastel or matching tie with knickers of a tweedy texture but light in color (probably tan or light gray) and patterned knee socks with broad bands around the legs. He seems to be wearing long underwear the bulges of which are visible underneath the knee socks.

Patterened Long Stockings

Long stockings sone with stripped patterns were common in the 19th century, but we rarely see them in the 20th century. More complicated patterns were briefly available in the late-1920s and the early-30s. While patterned knee socks were very common in the 1930s this was not the case for patterened long stockings. They existed, but for some reasin were much less popular than patterned long stockings. Patterned long stockings had a brief vogue for children (both boys and girls) in the late 1920s and early 1930s but seem to have died out fairly quickly in favor of the more usual plain tan, beige, and brown long stockings. W note patterened long stockings o\ffered in catalogsfor only avery short period in America: Sears 1928 and Sears 1929. We also notice an unidentified Hull House boy in Chicago during the late-1920s with patterned long stockings. This would mean he came from a working-class presumably immigrahnt family.

Created: 1:59 AM 9/4/2012
Last updated: 2:00 AM 9/4/2012