Figure 1.--This is the Kazoo "Athletic Suspender Waist" that also combines suspenders for trousers and hose supporters for long stockings but that allows the suspenders to be worn in full view on top of a boy's shirt (unlike the Harris garment where the suspenders for the trousers are concealed beneath a blouse). The Kazoo was made in sizes to accommodate boys as old as 18. |
An improvement on the Harris Company's "Two-In-One" appeared just a month later in the same magazine--Ladies Home Journal (April 1912). This is the Kazoo "Athletic Suspender Waist" that also combines suspenders for trousers and hose supporters for long stockings but that allows the suspenders to be worn in full view on top of a boy's shirt (unlike the Harris garment where the suspenders for the trousers are concealed beneath a blouse). The Kazoo was made in sizes to accommodate boys as old as 18, after which boys would probably be wearing long trousers rather than knee pants or knickers. The great advantage of the Kazoo is that when the boy is fully clothed, he appears to be wearing suspenders just like those his father would wear, and the mechanism for holding up his stockings is entirely hidden from view. There is also a Kazoo waist for younger boys. The Kazoo seems to have become the most popular form of hose supporter for boys during the 1910s--so popular, in fact, that the firm began to produce other models suitable for girls. We know that the Kazoo was highly successful from the fact that Sears catalogs began to advertise them for the mass market. If the Kazoo took America by storm during the decade of the 1910s, it seems to have disappeared almost as suddenly by the early 1920s as it arrived in the late 1900s.
As the oldest still publishing, most respected women's service magazine in the country, The Ladies' Home Journal has always focused on issues of crucial importance to millions of women. Since its first issue in December 1883. This long history make The Ladies Home Journal and invaluable source of information on American fashion trends. Its covered an incredibly wide range of topics beyond just fashion, from the latest medical research and consumer news to parenting know-how, workplace survival, good skincare, nutrition facts and much, much more. It was The Ladies Home Journal who sucessfully merged the elements and produced the right formula, becoming the top ladies magazine in America. The Journal both empowered women and applauded their growing power. We also notice patterns offered in the magazine.
We were unsure where the idea for the Kazoo brand name came from. A kazoo is a type child's mouth organ, but were are not sure if it came before or after the Kazoo suspender waist brand. An example is a Kazoo suspender waist 1916 advertisement. A reader explains, "I can explain the trade term Kazoo. Before Harris took over the manufacture of this suspender waist, it was produced (for a year or two) in Kalamazoo, Michigan. "Kazoo" is a slang abbreviation for the town of Kalamazoo, hence the name. But then,somehow, Harris began making the garment, probably because the patent for it was sold to Harris." Latter ads for Kazoo Suspender Waists indicate the manufacturer as the Harris Suspender Company.
This category applies to a broad variety of devices for holding up long stockings. Theoretically it would apply to any garment worn on the upper body used for this purpose (including underwaists, pantywaists, and suspender waists). But HBC uses the term to apply specifically to waists with hose supporters already attached, even though in some cases these supporters are detachable. Most of these garments are designed to have the strain of the garters carried by the child’s shoulders. Some have waistbands and some do not, but all are worn under the outer clothing and therefore as a species of children’s underwear. One of the first such garments we notice was in the Sears 1902 catalog Sears refers to a "combination belt and supporter, but the garment was essentially a garter waist. The use of different terms somewhat complicates the assessment if the garments. Interestingly, even when the wearing of long stockings was supposedly declining in the late 1930s and early 1940s, a proliferation of styles of garter waist became very prominent in the Sears and Wards catalogs of this period. We have more different styles for this period than for any other on HBC. A good example is the Sears 1939 garter waists.
There were actually two Kazoo Atletic Waists with slightly differerent features.
An improvement on the Harris Company's "Two-In-One" appeared just a month later in the same magazine--Ladies Home Journal (April 1912, p.72). This is the Kazoo "Athletic Suspender Waist" that also combines suspenders for trousers and hose supporters for long stockings but that
allows the suspenders to be worn in full view on top of a boy's shirt
(unlike the Harris garment where the suspenders for the trousers are
concealed beneath a blouse).
There is also a Kazoo waist for younger boys, illustrated in the diagram at the bottom of the ad. This waist functions like the one for older boys but provides an actual waist band with buttons for boys who wear button-on trousers with waists or blouses.
The Kazoo was made in sizes to accommodate boys as old as 18, after which boys would probably be wearing long trousers rather than knee pants or knickers.
Again the illustration shows how the garment functions. The boy wears a regular dress shirt and tie with the striped suspenders worn on top in normal fashion. His
knickers or knee pants are around his ankles in order to show how the
supporters attach to the stockings. He is adjusting the buckle of one
supporter so as to tighten the strap for appropriate tautness. There
are side straps that reach around from the back under the boy's arms so
that the shoulder straps remain secure, and there is a buttoned loop on
each suspender strap just above the waistline that can be fastened to
the suspender attachments on the trousers. These suspenders can thus
be unfastened from the little leather ends that attach to waist buttons
on the trousers.
The great advantage of the Kazoo, from the boy's point of view, is that when the boy
is fully clothed, he appears to be wearing suspenders just like those
his father would wear, and the mechanism for holding up his stockings
is entirely hidden from view.
The Kazoo seems to have become the most popular form of hose
supporter for boys during the 1910s--so popular, in fact, that the firm
began to produce other models suitable for girls. We know that the
Kazoo was highly successful from the fact that Sears catalogs began to
advertise them for the mass market. If the Kazoo took America by storm
during the decade of the 1910s, it seems to have disappeared almost as
suddenly by the early 1920s as it arrived in the late 1900s. We see no
Kazoo ads in magazines or catalogs after about 1922. Long stockings
continued to be worn, of course, but there seems to have been a
reversion to the more standard underwaist with pin-on supporters and
now the development of more varied kinds of garter waists. Perhaps the
suspender waist died out when boys no longer wanted to wear suspenders
to hold up their trousers and wished to switch to belts with knickers
or short pants. If a boy insisted on wearing a belt with his trousers,
he needed to use the more old-fashioned underwaist for long stockings
or else adopt a garter waist which would have the shoulder straps
concealed under his shirt.
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