Boys' Historical Uniform Garments: Sweaters

Figure 1.--These British Cubs are lined up wearing their traditional green sweaters. They did not have standard Cub shirts. Sweaters were less common among uniformed youth orhanizations.

Sweaters are not a garment generally associated with boy's uniformed organizations. There is one major exception. British Cubs for years wore green sweaters, perhaps acomment on the British weather. Boys or more correctlt mums sewed the badges and unit insignias on the sweater rather than a shirt. During the summer, Cubs might wear green "T"-shirts, but they usually wore their green sweaters. Other Scout groups might also have sweaters, especially those in northern Europe. I'm not aware of sweaters being worn by other organizations like the Boys' Brigade or nationalist groups like the Hitler Youth.

Groups

Sweaters are not a garment generally associated with boy's uniformed organizations. In fact there is a notable lack of uniform sweaters. There is one major exception. British Cubs for years wore green sweaters, perhaps acomment on the British weather. Boys or more correctly mums sewed the badges and unit insignias on the sweater rather than a shirt. During the summer, Cubs might wear green "T"-shirts, but they usually wore their green sweaters. American Scouts did have sweaters, but they were not commonly worn. I'm not aware of sweaters being worn by other organizations like the Boys' Brigade or nationalist groups like the Hitler Youth. Cadet groups in Britain also wore sweaters. HBU has not noted any photographs of Hitler Youth wearing sweaters. The same is true for most other uniformed youth organizations. While many of these groups had perscribed caps, kerchiefs, shirts, pants, belts, socks, ect, the lack of an official uniform sweater is notable.

Countries

The British are the only country where HBU has noted boys in uniformed youth groups commonly wearing sweaters. The green sweater was the standard uniform for Cubs. HBU has also noted Baden Powell Scouts in England wearing sweaters. French Scouts also wore sweaters to some extent. Other than Britain and France, however, HBU has not noted sweaters being commonly worn in other countries. American Scouts did have an official sweater, but they were not commonly worn. Scouts and other youth groups in northern Europe may have worn them, but HBU at this time has few details.

Reasons

I am not positive why sweaters have not been commonly worn by boy's youth groups. I suspect that part of the reason is all the unit patches and rank insignias that boys wore on their shirts. If they put a sweater on it would cover all those patches. If they put the patches on the sweater than they couldn't wear it in the summer when it got hot. This was a special problem with youth organizations in countries where warm weather was more common than in Britian and the rest of northern Europe.

Modern Situation

Uniform sweaters are even less common with modern uniformed groups than was the case earlier. This is largely because of the cost of a wool sweater. Sweaters have been reoplaced with sweatshirts and are in fact much more popular than sweaters vused to be. The sweatshirt, however, is worn as a casual uniform and not the dress uniform.