Figure 1.-- |
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Quite a range of underwear styles were available for children in 1919. Underwear wa more important at the time when the population was more centered in the north and few homes had central heating. The styles were still quite different from modern styles. There were shirts, drawers, and combination or "union" suits with the shirts and pants combined. Union suits were very commonly worn and not just in the winter. There were both knee-length and long length union suits. Knee-length underwear was made because most boys wore knee-length pants. Knee pants were standard through the 1900s and knickers in the 1910s. And American children commonly wore long stockings ith the knickers and skirts. The knee-length long johns were thus needed for both boys and girls. And skirt lengths made them needed for girls. Children commonly wore waists, support garment also worn by women. To simplify dressing children, there were waist union suits. Theu comombined the support features of waists to the standard union suit. Also sometimes combined with the waists and worn separately were stocking supporters for the still commonly worn long stockings. Waist union suits combined these stocking supporters with the union suits.
E-Z Waist offered 3-in-1 waist union suits (shirt-drawers-waist) for boys and girls. They were made in sizes age 2-13 years. A Lafies Home Journal advertised these waist union suits. We can not read all of the ad, but it tells mothers, "The convenience, the sheer delight of wearing E-Z Waist Union Suits is in fact known to countless little folks. Long wearing everywhere, binding nowhere, strength but full of 'give' is this famed wonderwear, with its protective attachments for hose and outer garments." The accompanying illustration shows a family scene, we think in the evening. The children are wearing knee-length union suits. The a boy is depicted wearing them with black long stockings. It is less clear if the girl is wearing long stockings.
Munsingwear placed an advertisement for a union suit in The Literary Digest during 1919. The company says, "Union suited America says, Munsingwear, the National Underwear. Millions of discriminating people, men, women, children, prefer and wear Munsingwear Union Suits. They ask for Munsinwear and never say just underwear.
This is an unusually informative ad for boys' waist union suits (summer
model) that appeared in the Kansas City Star (June 3, 1919), p. 9, and
sold by a local department store (Jones' on Walnut Street in Kansas
City. The manufacturer is not specified.
Waist union suits were like adult union suits but had, in
addition, the features of an under waist--taped on buttons for trousers
or skirts at waist level and built-in shoulder straps to which garter
tabs for long stockings were fixed. This ad appeared in June when
mothers would be buying summer underwear for their children, which was
much cooler than the knitted union suits they had worn during the
winter months. Waist union suits were usually made for children up to
twelve, and sometimes even fourteen. The boy in the illustration seems
to be about eleven. Notice that he is putting on long black stockings
(to be worn with above-the-knee knickers or short trousers) even during
the warmer months. This ad mentions "bone underwear buttons" (i.e.,
waist buttons for fastening to trousers) and "metal hose supporter
attachment[s]" (i.e., pin tubes for fastening on pin-on supporters).
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