Figure 1.-- This photo postcard shows three unidentified American siblings. We see the girl and younger boy wearing white outfits including white long stockings. The younger boy wears a knee pants sailor suit and looks tgo be about 5 years old. Their older brother wears knickers with black long stockings. He looks to be about 7-8 years old. The portrait is undated, but looks to have been taken in the 1910s.

Long white stockings were most popular with girls. We see both boys and girls of all ages wearing black and other dark colors of long stockings in large numbers. The same was true of striped stockings. White long stickings were different. They were much more popular wityh girls than boys. We are not sure just why this was, but it is very clear from the photographic record. This varied somewhat over gime. We see boys and girls wearing white long stockings in the 1860s and early-70s, although only younger boys sore knee pants at the time. For quite a while, white long stiockings declined in popularity. We see mostly dark or striped long stockings in the late-19yth century (1870s-90s). We then begin to see many more children wearing white long stockings at the turn-of-the 20th century. We see girls of all ages wearing white long stockings. We also see some boys wearing white long stockings, but not nearly as many and mostly younger boys. American boys usually wore knee pants when wearing white long stockings. We see some boys wearing knickers with whitr long stoivckings, but very commonly. This trend was prevalent in the 1900s znd 10s, but rapidly went out of style after World War I in the 1920s. Girls continued to wear white knee socks, but this was much less common for boys.

Created: 8:52 PM 11/15/2011
Last updated: 8:52 PM 11/15/2011