Figure 1.--In addition to commercially produced flat and ribbed stockings, it was also common in the 19th century for mothers, grand mothers, and aunts to knit stockings. These home knitted stockings were a bulky knit. A reader writes, "I think the stripped stockings these Czech children were wearing in 1897 were mostly hand knitted at home. I agree that they may be home-knitted. Of course these stockings are also probably ribbed (almost all hand knitted stockings were), but the horizontal striping more or less obscures the vertical ribbing, which would also be there. So there is an overlap between hand-knitted and ribbed stockings, almost certainly.

We do not know much about the early 19th century, but have found much more information about the later decades, especially the 1890s. Ribbed stockings for children of both genders seem to have been invented fairly early—in the later 19th century—originally as a way of insuring greater elasticity and closer fit so that stockings did not bag around the knees or ankles and thus look untidy. But quite soon historically, knitting manufacturers discovered techniques for producing stockings that had a flat or smooth appearance that were nevertheless neat in appearance and suitably form-fitting. These stockings were often very finely ribbed but in such a way as to look smooth. The custom in colder climates of wearing long underwear underneath long stockings complicated the problem of smooth fit

The 1860s

We note quite a few children wearing white or light-colored long stockings. Not all the abailble pirtrits have clear resolution, but as far as we can tell the stockings have a flat weave. One undated American portrait, perhaps taken in the late 60s looked to have ribbing. This is one of the earliest example of ribbed stockings that we have archived on HBC.

The 1870s

Both ribbed and non-ribbed black stockings were common in the 1870s although HBC’s archive of examples is a bit sparse. A example of ribbed stockings are the ones worn by Minnie Tamn, we believe in the early 1870s. We note an American boy in 1875 wearing a sailor suit with lace collar and ribbed black stockings with his knee pants. A French boy wearing a sailor suit during the 1870s wears highly textured stockings which are both ribbed and horizontally striped. This patterning seems to be somewhat unusual. A portrait of an unidentified boy in 1870 in knee pants with light colored ribbed stockings is also interesting. A Belgian boy from Brussels (late 1860s or early 1870s) wears very long knee pants with white ribbed stockings. Ribbing for white stockings is highly unusual, but we speculate that these stockings might be socks since the pants come down so low on the boy’s leg. Despite our examples of ribbed stockings during the decade, plain-weave black stockings were probably just as common if not more common. Note, for example, these unidentified children in 1875.

The 1880s

Boys during the 1880s continued to wear stockings that were both ribbed and plain. These from Barre, Vermont, wear plain weave black stockings with their knee pants. John Robert of Stratford, England, wears heavily ribbed stockings, probably woolen, about 1880, although the Stratford mentioned could be in Canada rather than in Britain. We have another photograph from the 1880s showing an American boy, H. Christie, in patterned but non-ribbed long stockings worn with a Fauntleroy suit. These stockings, which seem to be black flecked with white, seem to be highly unusual. They may have been hand knitted.

The 1890s

Many more examples from the 1890s than from the previous decade have been archived on HBC. This of course reflects the iuncreasing popularity of photography and declining proces for portraits. We find numerous examples of both plain and ribbed stockings. White stockings, worn for dressy and formal occasions, were almost always of smooth weave. Note these fashionable boys (Fig. 1) in white knee pants with the stockings to match in the 1890s. Also in the 1890s, Harry Gill, a boy playing a banjo, wears plain black stockings with his dressy knee pants suit During the same decade we find two boys in plain black stockings enjoying photography with their father. A boy, perhaps a German boy, from Alsace-Loraine (sometime during the 1890s) appears to wear the standard plain-weave black stockings with his knee pants. An 1892 photo of British schoolboys in their school uniform shows similar long black stockings of plain weave, worn with knee pants.An elegantly dressed lad, photographed with his family in 1893, again shows black stockings of apparently smooth weave. A unidentified boy from Gardiner, Maine (1894) wears the traditional smoothly textured black long stockings. Plain weave stockings seem to have been standard wear for American schoolboys during the decade. Note the stockings worn in 1895 by the students of the Misses Porter School, in Middleton, New York. Two American boys from Indianapolis in the late 1890s wear dressy plain-weave stockings with their Fauntleroy suits. Canadian boys often wore plain-weave stockings with their knee pants for formal studio portraits. The McMaster boy of Montreal is shown with a white blouse and black long stockings of smooth appearance. Another example is one of the Brown children, photographed in Montreal in 1897 with plain black stockings. Not surprisingly, plain weave stockings were favored by Goddard White in 1897, or more likely his mother. This American violin virtuoso had his portrait take, perhaps just before a recital appearances. Two Canadian boys, again from Montreal (from the Armstrong and Balfour families) wear plain-weave black stockings with their knee pants—again for formal studio portraits in 1898. A boy named Arthur Franz, of German extraction apparently, was photographed in America in 1898 wearing white stockings in the usual plain weave. His European background may explain the color and weave, but white stockings were almost always of smooth texture in both Europe and the United States. A German schoolboy, Emil Brack, is seen in 1899 wearing plain brown long stockings with his knee pants. Finally, we note an American boy at some point in the 1890s wearing heavy woolen stockings, probably gray or brown, with knee pants (Fig. 1). Although heavily textured because of their weight, this hosiery appears to be non-ribbed. Ribbed stockings seem to have been almost as popular as non-ribbed during the decade, being worn both with dressy outfits and for play. In a photo of three boys from Norval, Ontario, taken in the 1890s, we see both ribbed and non-ribbed stockings being worn. The older boy wears plain hosiery whereas his younger brother with a very fancy collar and bow wears heavily ribbed hose. Two different American boys, shown with their tricycles during the decade, both wear ribbed stockings with their sailor suits. These lads look quite dressed up for play activities, but boys dressed more formally in the 1890s even for leisure. In the first example, see Fig. 3; in the second example see Fig. 4. Three boys from Akron, Ohio (during the 1890s) wear ribbed black stockings with supporters and dressy Norfolk style suits with floppy bows.American Fauntleroy suits in the 1890s were sometimes worn with ribbed stockings (see Fig. 2 for a detail showing the ribbing). For another example (also dated to the 1890s) note the very fine-gauge black stockings that are nevertheless ribbed. This photograph illustrates the difficulty of always being sure whether stockings are ribbed or non-ribbed because fine-gauge ribbing is meant, of course, to give the appearance of greater neatness and close fit. One of the two Syder brothers (1890s), the one with knee pants, wears ribbed black stockings with a knee pants suit with large collar and floppy bow. The advertisements of the period sometimes show boys wearing ribbed or highly textured stockings. A Work Brothers ad (1893) clearly shows the ribbed stockings being worn with a knee pants suits (Fig. 1). A another advertisement (a drawing) of the same year shows an illustrated boy wearing a Fauntleroy blouse with knee pants and apparently heavily textured stockings although it is difficult to be certain how accurately the stockings are represented. The stockings here (Fig. 3) do not appear to be ribbed, however. A photo of Robert Mason Hamilton (1897) shows the American boy wearing heavy ribbed woolen stockings with a very dressy knee pants suit. Woolen stockings seem often to have been manufactured in prominently ribbed texture so as to be less baggy. Even so, these stockings seem to fit somewhat loosely, possibly because Robert may be wearing long underwear underneath. Finally, HBC has at least four examples of Canadian boys, all of them from Montreal, wearing black ribbed long stockings with formal outfits. The Rankin boy wears a sailor suit with an unusually large and prominent starched collar (1898). Notice the ribbed black stockings and the dressy shoes. The much older Beckett boy (1899) wears ribbed stockings with a Norfolk-style knee pants suits. He seems to be at least 15 or 16.and may be even older. In 1899, one of the Russell children wears a white sailor suit with dickey and black ribbed stockings. Also in 1899, we see the Ross brothers, the younger of whom wears a very formal knee pants suits with extremely wide-ribbed but nevertheless quite dressy black stockings that he holds up, not with the more usual hose supporters, but with round black garters, one of which shows at the hem of his trousers.