Figure 1.-- This boy is Ezra Schweitzer. Ezra looks to be about 9 years old. He wears a knee pants suit wih wing collar and tie. We know he is a Canadian boy, but it would be impossible to tell by just looking at the portrait which is usually possible with British portraits. Notice the high-top shoes wuich were standard in America. The wing collar was not common for boys in Anmerica, but neither was it for British boys. The portrait is undatd, but the mount suggests it was taken in the 1900s decade. If this was an American portrait we would have dated it to about 1905. (Our Canadian archive is not large enough to make such difinative assessments.) The studio was W.J. Becker in Stratford, Ontario.

We do not have a lot of information on knee pants in Canada. This is because knee pants were primarily worn in the second half of he 19th century and our Canadian 19th century archive is very limited. We are less sure about Canada. HBC is not yet sure how common knee pants were in the Canada during the late 19th and early 20th century. Knee pants became standard in the United States and knickers were rarely worn in th 19th century. We are not sure about Canada. Notably, Britain was an influence in Canada and knickers were worn n Britain during he 19th century. We can usually distinguish between American and British portraits. This is not the case for Canada. Our archive is limited, but some available photographs suggest that knee pants were commonly worn until replaced by knickers and short pants. Although they may not have been as dominant as in America. We do know that knickers were very common in the inter-War era as in America. We believe that the pattern was similar to Britain, but also influenced by American trends, especially American mail order catalogs. We note a Montreal boy wearing knee pants with long black stockings in 1885. We also notice an Ontario boy wearing a knee pants suit (about 1905), America made a major shift to knickers about 1908-09. We are not sure why, but it is very notable in the photographic record.

Created: 9:33 AM 1/18/2025
Last updated: 9:34 AM 1/18/2025