Figure 1.--It was still common to wear suits to high school in the 1910s. Here we see an AZO postcard. It pictures an unidentified American school group, we think in the 1910s. The students look to be the older students, about 17 or 18 years old. Several of the boys wear knicker suits and black long stockings. Some of the boys wear rolled-collar sweaters, popular in the 1910s.

American boys at 17 mostly wore wore long pants in the 19th century. Shortened-length opants appeared at mid-century, but they were not at first worn by teenagers--especially older teenagers. Only in the 1890s do we we see older teenagers wearing knee pants and to a lesser extent knickers. Only some boys at 17 wore the shorter lerngth pants, but we notice quite a few examples in the photographic recorsd. This was primarily in the latter part of the decade, They were always worn with long stockings, almost exclusively black long stockings. Older boys wearing lnee pants was probably most coimmobn in the 1900s. We also notice oklfer boys wearing long stockings in the 1910s, but mostly with knickers. We see still see boys in high school wearing knickers in the 1910s. Again the only examples we have found are with black long stockings. Older boys after the 1920s mostly wore long pants. This we see very few boys at 17 weafring lonf stickings and we have found no examples by the 1930s.

Created: 3:14 PM 10/4/2010
Last updated: 1:59 AM 10/24/2010