Figure 1.--Many of the children in this French-speaking Swiss primary school wore smocks. The photograph was taken about 1943-45. |
Some information is available on individual Swiss schools, showing both the various styles worn by the boys and available information on the school regulations. The information is abstracted from the available images, but some information is available on the several different schools. These schools are mostly from the French-speaking catons. It is likely that boys in the Italian catons also wore smocks, but HBC at this time does not have any information on these schools.
Here we have wonderful photographs from the primary school of Vingelz. This was a village 30 km north of Bern. Normally these village schools did not have names, but rather just known as village school. This the Vingelz school would have known as the village or Vingelz school. It was a small wood-frame school in a rural area. This was a German speaking area and the school would have been taught in German. The wonderful images available give us wonderful insights into both school life and how the children dressed over several years.
Here we have a class portrait taken December 1, 1927 (figure 1). It shows a secondary school class. The teacher was Herr Letsch. We are not sure who the older gentleman is, perhaps the rector, and a third man. The boys are rather formally dressed, most of them in suits, although some have open collars and others wear ties. One boy in the front row seems to be wearing a pullover sweater with a turtle-neck collar. Most of the boys wear black long stockings with their short trousers although a few wear knee socks. The children seem to be about 12 or 13. Notice thst the girls do not wear pinafores whoch was very common in many Swiss schools. Several girls have pigtails with colored hair bows.
This was the Sihfield School--one of the several schools in the Swiss cantons in the Zurich area. It is in an archive collected by the Lehrmittelverlag. This means the Society for Teaching Aids or Teaching Aids Society. I am not entrirely sure what kind of school it was, but it looks like a secondary school. A reader writes, "Is "secondary school" correct? In America this would be the upper levels of primary school--age 12 (7th grade). Well American schools trat grades 6-8 variously. There were primary (elementary) schools with grades 7 and 8. There were also middle schools and junior high schools that had some comination of grades 6-9. European schools are somewhat different. Primary school children who met the academic standards and whose parents could afford it, often began to attend secondary schools at about 11 or 12 years of age. I suspect this is the case here. Our Swiss reades may know more. Here we have a photograph of a 6th year class/form (6 Klasse) in 1928. The teacher's name was Herr Kern. We think this was a class of the younger children at the school. The children obviously are German speaking. The children look about 11-12 years old. The boys in the front row wear mainly single breasted short-pants suits. One boy has a pullover sweater instead of a suit. Some boys wear formal shirts with ties while others wear their collars open. The class seems to be about evenly divided between boys who wear knee socks and those who wear long stockings.
This school portrait was taken November 5, 1928 at the Andelfingen School in Switzerland (Zurich canton). This is a relatively small class, perhaps because the town of Andelfingen is rather small. All the boys wear short trousers or knee pants, but none of the boys wears a tie. Two boys wears knee socks (one of these seems to be dressed for rugby or soccer with his striped jersey); the others wear black long stockings. Notice that most of the girls wear pigtails.
One concern associated with gym and sports in Switzerland is getting children outside in the fresh air and sunshine. We notice an unidentified rural school moving children to open air classes in the 1920s (figure 1). Notice the sun hats the children are wearing. They also seem to have uniforms. That was not common at Swiss schools. Perhaps this is a private school. And the older boys seem to be wearing romper pants without shirts or socks as a gym uniform. We are not sure whow common this was. The believe in freah air abd sunshine was widespread in Switzerland. We are less sure about the steps that schools took to make sure the children got a dose of sunshine. Some schools participated in summer camp programs. The American summer camp movement also focused on the idea of getting kids out into the freh air and sunhine. The believe in the healthful atributes of fresh air, rest and good food would also lead to the 'Swiss system' in treating early cases of tuberculosis. A HBC reader tells us about growing up in a small village where his father worked at a sanitorium. There were quite a number of these sanitoriums in Switzeland, located in beautiful unpoluted rural site in the mountains. They also stressed the healful benefits of fresh air and sunshine.
Many boys wear either suits or sweaters in the 1930ss. We mostly see boys wearing short pants, although they tend to be long-cut shorts looking rather like knee pants. We do not see many boys wearing knickers. The few that do wear the ski-type rather like Hitler Youth winter uniforms that came almost down to the ankles. Long pants were mostly worn by older boys in secondaryy school, but we see a few younger boys wearing them in winter. Many girls have ling braided pigtils. The girls wear dresses. Most of our imafes come from the German speaking areas of Switzerland. We are unsure anout styles in the French area, but presume that were similar to French fashion. Long stockings seem very common. although knee socks were also worn. Both boys and girls wore long stockings, bit they seem especially common with the girls.
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The 1940s was a very difficult time with World War II occurring during the first half of the decade. War devwstated much of Europe. Switzerland was one of the few countries to avoid the War, but the economy was impaired. Switzerland was a trading nation and its normal markets were disrupted. This meant that less money was available to Swiss families for consumer products like Switzerland. We see Swiss children wearing clothes similar to those in neighboring France and Germany. The children wear short pants with knee socks during the warmer months. Children in rural schools might come to school barefoot. CHIldren both boys and girls in French-speaking areas commonly wore pinafores. We see some German speaking girls weaing pinafores, but it was not nearly as common as in the French spealing areas. During the winter, long stockings were very common. We see some boys wearing knickers rather than short pant in the colder months. LOng pants were not very common except for the older boys in secondary school. Only a minority of the children went on to secindary school, especially the more advanced ones beyond Sekundar.
We see major changes in Swiss schoolwear during the 1950s. The early 1950s looks much like the 1940s. Most primary children wore short pants, mostly with long stockings in the winter. A few boys wore knickers. The girls wore pinafores. Youngr secondary children still wore short pants or knickers, also with long stockings. Both boys and girls wore long stockings. We note long stockings by the 1950s declining in many European countries. Switzerland seems to be a country where they continued to be very commonly worn. This probably is a reflection of the inherent conservatism of Switzerland. We still see long stockings in Germany at the time, but they do not seem as common as in Switzerland. Much of our information comes from the German cantons. We are not yet sure if long stockings were as common in the French cantons. We note short pants being worn there, but we are less sure about long stockings. We also see knee socks, but during the winter, mostly in the seconary schools. By the end of the decade we see fewer boys wearing short pants, but this was in part seasonal. We note quite a few boys wearing knickers and not just the boys in the secondary schools. We even see Kindergarteners wearing knickers. Many of the knickers are plus-fours. Long stockings wre much less common than at the end of the decade. We begin to see more knee socks and ankle socks. We also see fewer boys wearing suspenders and more boys wearing belts. We note children wearing somewhat more trendy clothes, surely a sign of the strongly recovered Swiss econonmy.
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Swiss children by the 1960s were dressing quite differently from the 1950s. We no longer see children wearing long stockings to school, Rather children primary chilldren were wearing long pants during the winter. Secondary students were wearing long pants year round.
HBC has limited information on this school. Only a photograph taken in the 1960s of two boys. They attend a private French-speaking school in Geneva. They wear different colored and styled smocks. One boy wears a back buttoning blue smock. The other boy a side buttoning pink smock. HBC is unsure if the different style represents different age groups in the school or if their mother has just selected different smocks for the boys.
Here we have a school portrait from the Niederhelfenswil village school in St. Gallen during 1969. St. Gallen is a German-speaking canton. The girls all wear dresses orr skirts. Bib-front styling seems popular. Most wear knee socks, but some girls wear tights. The boys wear a variety of casual shirts and sweaters. Most seem to be wearing short pants and at least the boys in front were barefoot. This seems to have been common in the warm weathe, at least for the boys.
We begin to see primary children wearing loing pants even during the waner months. This was especially the case by the end of thecdecade.
Uster is district in Zürich canton located in northeastern Switzerland. This is a German-speaking canton. The capital is Uster, a small city. The school here may have been locared in a village within the district rather than the city. The girls wear brightly colored dresses, jumpers, and skirts with coordinated knee socks. The boys wear a variety of shirts and sweaters with both short and long pants. Some of the boys are barefoot.
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