Figure 1.--Here we see a Czechoslovakian school class in 1952, presumably a second year class. This is the school in Czechoslovakia (Bohemia, I think). Most of the children wear long stockings in a variety of colors--white, tan, beige, brown, and black. White seems to be favored by the girls, but one boy (fifth from the left in the front row) obviously wears white stockings. He seems to be a bit more formally dressed than the others with his large floppy bow tie. Karel and the boys sitting immediately to his right show up a bit more clearly in the detail from the photo (see the second image). One point worth noticing is how long the stockings have to be when the boys wear such briefly cut shorts, and even with extremely long stockings, the supporter clasps sometimes show at the hem of the shorts, as is the case with the the boy with glasses, second from the right in the first row. The boy to the immediate right of Karel with the patterned pullover wears stockings that are obviously several sizes too large for him--perhaps hand-me-downs from an older brother. This photograph is a good illustration of what school children were wearing in Bohemia in 1952. One of the boys is Karel Chech who was 8 years old at the time. Karel is the fourth boy from the right in the front row wearing a white tie and front-buttoning jacket with short pants and very long dark tan or light brown stockings. Put your cursor on the image for an elarged detail. Karel Cech has an fascinating Flicker page with many other views of his family.

We have very limited information on Czechoslovakia at this time. What was once Czechoslovakia was formerly Bohemia and part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Czechoslovakia was created in 1919 after World War I. Briefly just before World War II, the country split into Slovakia and the Protecorate of Bohemia and Moravia. After the War Czechoslovakia was recreated and became a Communist People's Republic. After overthrowing Communism, the country split into Slovakia anf the Czech Republic. Thesec political changes of course affected attitudes toward schoolwear as well as fashion changes over time. The children here in 1952 do not wear uniforms (figure 1). Short pants and long stockings were common for the younger children. Apparently the uniforms were not introduced yet. We note that later during the Communist era that many school photographs show many children in their Young Pioneer uniforms, but other photographs do not. The uniforms are white shirts and blue pants worn with a red scarve. An image archived on HBC here shows Czech children wearing their unifoirms in 1965. We are not quite sure yet when the uniforms were introduced and what the regulations were.

Created: 11:21 PM 9/4/2006
Last updated: 1:54 PM 9/5/2006