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Quite a number of garments existed to help children hold up their pants/skirts and long stockings. The variety and prominance of tghese garments in period catalogs is a good indicator as to just how important they were in 921. We note this to be the case throughout the 1920s. Many were mixed support garments and underwear. Waists suits were the standard underwear for children in 1921 as long stockings were still common. Styles varies somewhat. Sleeves and leg length varied seasonally. Most boys wore short pants, kneepants, and knickers so except for boys living in the most northern states with severe winters, long leg waists suits were not common.
Sexton Manufacturing placed an ad for summer waists in the Good Housekeeping Magazine (June, 1921, p. 88). It shows boys' summer weight waist suits made by Sexton Manufacturing Co. of Fairfield, Illinois. The material is light-weight cotton nainsook. It features an adjustable shoulder strap to allow for the boy's growth (see insert illustration). It has reinforcement straps over the shoulders and down the back with waist buttons for the attachment of trousers--either shorts or knickers. The buttons can be used for girls' skirts also. It has a special kind of garter tab (illustrated in the insert) with two metal eyelets for the fastening of the hose supporter pin and an open slot through which the supporter can be passed if the boy wishes to wear his garters inside rather
than outside his underwear.
Here Wards offers a version of "Dr. Parker's waist" in their Spring and Summer catalog for 1921 (p. 168). The ad copy does not
actually use the term Dr. Parker's waist, but the design is basically the same as that shown in the Eaton's 1910-18 ad, which does use the term. It may be that Parker never bothered to secure a patent for the waist he designed since his aim was public health more than financial profit.
Kazoo Suspender waists, popular in the United States during the 1910s and early 1920s, were sold in sizes up to age 18, which is a good indication that boys wore knee pants until that age.
See the attached Kazoo ad, which appeared in the Ladies Home Journal (September, 1921, p. 120), which says that suspender waists for long stockings were for boys 4 to 18.
Another interesting ad for children's garters made by Rusco Products. The main text of the ad, however, advertises "Laurel" elastic for women who sew and use the elastic for various purposes--perhaps round garters among others. But it is obvious that the little girl is wearing "Laurel" supporters pinned to her underwaist. Her mother is fastening the clasps to the top of her
stockings. This is probably the same kind of supporters advertised elsewhere as
Polly Brand supporters because it has a similar logo--a parrot perched
in a ring. See the advertising copy below that mentions the Parrot on
each package. The Polly brand supporters are close in date to this
advertisement for Rusco or Laurel supporters.
Of all the manufacturers of garter waists and hose supporters during the 1920s in America, the Hickory brand (manufactured by Stein & Company of Chicago) was the best known and most widely advertised. There was no gender
distinction between Hickory garters and garter waists for boys and girls, and they were made in sizes for children from two up to fourteen. Hickory therefore showed both boys and girls in their illustrations. Even when boys wore knickers rather than short trousers, they often wore long stockings underneath and thus required waists with hose supporters attached. The two ads reproduced here, interestingly, show boys--boys normally wearing black garters rather than the white supporters that became more usual during the 1930s and early 1940s. The ads also show boys wearing black stockings, so there was apparently some color coordination between the black stockings and the black hose supporters. Although hose supporters were almost universally worn by boys during the 1920s, the Hickory advertisements make a special appeal to the threatened masculinity of boys who didn't want to be associated with girls just because they wore the same kind of stockings and support garments.
A HBC reader, Charles, tells us about his mother helping him adjust the buckle for length so that the supporters were neither too short (restrictive) or two long (making stockings look sloppy and wrinkled). Another Hickory ad from the same year (1921) features the boy commenting on how easy it is to adjust the buckle on his his supporters because the design makes it easy to open ("no more broken finger nails"). We haven't loaded this image yet, but I think it would be a nice illustration to go with the same paragraph. See attachment. If you want to make a separate page for this variant Hickoy ad, it appeared in the Salt Lake City Tribune (April 4, 1921).
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