Figure 1.--Sjoirtened-length pants appeared un the mid-19th century and were at forst worn only by younger boys. Almot all studio portraits show boys wearing long stockings with knee pants. It was common at the time for boys to go barefoot, but they were rarely photographed barefoot. The portrait is undated, but looks like the 1890s to us. The studio was Nye in Plateville, Wisconsin.

At the turn of the 19th century, long pants became standard for boys, at least fashionable boys in cities. We are less sure about rural areas. The lack of photography ahd the long pant severly limits the the available imagery and our ability to assess trends and conventions. We note that white siocks of some kind weee common. We believe that American boys commonly went barefoot, especially during the summer. This means that there were reginal differences because there weemore warm-weather months in the South than North. Wearing shoes and hosiery was more common in the city. We begin to get a good fix on changing hosiery conventions with the development of photography. An photograpic industry quickly developed in America (1840s), althogh poses usually did not include footwear. This changed with the development of the CDV, but as boys almost always put on shoes for the portrait, assessing conventions is complicated. We do begin to lean more about hosiery conventions because at mid-century we begon to see shortened-length pants for boys. The basic cionvention in America is that legs, even children's legs should be covered. This appears to be a matter of modesty not warmth. Throughout the mid- and late-19th century, American children ore long stockings rather thn socks. This was true refardless of when the portaits weee taken, both winter and summer. Thus when shortened-length pants appeared, we see the children wearing long stockings, even very young children. In Europe younger children might wear socks, although this varied from country to country. This was was much less common in America. There was one major exception, however, when goiung bsrefoot, legs did not need to be covered. Thus you almost never see children wearing shoes without socks or with short socks. We do not note boys barefoot in studio portraits for most of the 19th century. Only in the late-1890s di we begin to see this. We are nor entirely sure why all of a sudden we begin to see some boys barefoot in these portraits. Usually such phortraits were taken at what look to be very basic studios.

Created: 12:59 AM 5/19/2012
Last updated: 12:59 AM 5/19/2012