Archibald Roosevelt: Clothing

Figure 1.--Here is a wonderful photograph of Archie at the age of 9 years old in 1902. He is holding a favorite pet in his lap, a badger named Josiah, which he often had to chase on his knees. You can see that he has worn out the knees of his black stockings playing with the animal.

We do not have detailed information on the clothing Archie wore as a boy. Available photographs, however, show some of the clothes he wore as a boy. We have only a few portraits at this time, but hope to gradually add more. We suspect that the boys all wore similar, especially Archie and Quinten. His hair was commonly done in bangs.

Hair Styles

Notice Archie's hair style, neatly cut bangs.

Riding Gear

There is a photograph of the family with Archie, probably taken about 1902. Both the President and Archie are wearing what look like riding breeches and high boots. It looks like they have just gone riding together. The President, of course, was a noted outdoorsman and even worked as a cowboy in the West. We suspect he often went riding with the children and that all of the family had riding clothes.

Play Clothes

Here is a wonderful photograph of Archie at the age of 9 years old (figure 1). The photograph was taken in 1902. Archie is wearing play clothes. He hasc on a long-sleeve white shirt or sweater (short sleeves were not yet common.) He also wears white knee pants. This would have been summerwear. Summer can ve very hot in Washington, D.C. With his white play clothes he wears long black stockings.

Josiah

Archie is holding a favorite pet in his lap, a badger named Josiah. Note the claws on Josiah. Badger's are not the best tempered animals to keep as pets. Archie loved to play with him. He apparently often had to chase Josiah on his knees.

Long Stockings

You can see that Archie has worn out the knees of his black stockings playing with Josiah the badger. One can understand why so many advertisements for boys' long stockings during the 1900s made a point of recommending doubly reinforced knees. A good example of advertisements for stockings stressing reinforced or double knees is a York Knitting Mills ad for "four-thread stockings" sold for boys and available in either "single or double knees." The advertisement is dated 1903 about the same time as the portrait of Archie. A German reader writes, "I do not remember from my youth during and after World War II having such holes in my long stockings. Coming home and going out for play, I had to put on "Knieschoner" (knee protectors). These were leather pads, say 15 cm times 15 cm (1/2 feet by 1/2 feet) with four bands at the corners to be bound behind the knees. Now, playing on the floor was allowed. And mother had not much work with patching holes in the stockings." It is interesting that Archie is wearing long black stockings for play. Quintin a few years younger at the sme time wore outfits with short socks during the summer. I'm not sure why Archie was wearing long stockings. The weather is clearly not cold. Apparently age 9 was considered an age that long stockings were considered more appropriate.