Figure 1.--This cabinet card was taken in June 1925 at the end of the school year. This looks like a huigh school guess. We might guss 10th graders, abiut 15-16 years old. It looks like astandard American high school. Masny students did not go beyond 8th grade, but it was becoming more common. A gew boys wear suits, but mosr wear white shirts and ties. Many teenagers still wore knickers and long stockings in the 1920s, but you can see that long pants were becoming more common. The girls wear dresses. One girl weas a blouse and skirt. The photographr was the Newark Studio in Newarkm New Jersey.

The 1920s was a turning point in American demographic historic. It was in the 1920s that the United Sttes became a majority urban populastion. Large urban centers first began appearing in the mid-19th century even when most of the population still lived in the country side. And urban and rural schools were very different. There wee still many small one- and two-room schools. And the children at urban and rural schools dressed very differently. For the most part, rural children did not have sendary schols ghey coukd attend. America had bcome the largest industrial power in the late-19th century, long before the majority of the population lived in cities. It was at this point that Henry Ford introduced the Model-T Ford--the Tin Lizzy. There were major impacts. First it the Model T helped thrust America from the world largest industrial nation to a an industrial superpower aprroaching the industrial outout of all of Europe in the Roaring Twenties. The industrial expansion drove even more people into the cities. Another shift beginning in the 1910s was the Great Migration (1910-70) which propelled rural African Americans in the South to northern cities. All of this had consequences for American schools. Nor only do we see African American children in norther schools, but we begin to sees states begining to consolidate the many small rural schools which were expensive to operate. And the automotive industry was soon making busses, including school busses that made school cosolidation possible. .

Urban Schools

Subrban Schools

Rural Schools

We continue to see differences between city and rural schools. The most obvious difference was that boys in rural areas often wore overalls to school. This became very common in the 1910s and continued until World War II and the 1940s. The change was due to improving economic conditions and schools system introducing bussing as part of aost saving measure to close small schools. Another importance difference was that we see fewer children wearing suits to school. We also see rural kids coming to school barefoot. We still see suits in the 1920s, although it had begun to decline in popularity. The clothing at rural schools could be quite varied. This is because some of these schools had children from both farms and small towns. Thus you getfamilies from quite varied family circumstances. nother factor is that conditios in rural America deteriorated after World Wsr I. American farmrs geared up to feed Europe, but fter the war, the countries in Wurope which needed food during the War soon began recovering and producing their own food. As aesult, the Great Depression hit rural America several years before the rest of the country.

Navigate the Relate Boys Historical Clothing Style Pages
[Return to the Main U.S. country page]
[Long pants suits] [Short pants suits] [Lederhosen] [Kneesocks] [Eton suits]
[Jacket and trousers] [Blazer [School sandals] [Page/Dutch boy bangs]

Navigate the Boys' Historical Clothing School Uniform Pages
[Return to the Main U.S. School 1920s Chronology Page]
[Return to the Main U.S. School 20th century Chronology Page]
[Return to the Main U.S. School Chronology Page]
[Return to the Main U.S. School Page]
[Return to the Main National School Page]
[Australia] [England] [France] [Germany] [Ireland] [Italy]
[Japan] [New Zealand] [Poland] [Singapore] [Scotland] [Singapore]

Navigate the HBC School Section
[About Us]
[Activities] [Chronology] [Clothing styles] [Countries] [Debate] [Economics] [Garment] [Gender] [Hair] [History] [Home trends] [Literary characters]
[School types] [Significance] [Transport and travel [Uniform regulations] [Year level] [Other topics]
[Images] [Links] [Registration] [Tools]
[Return to the Historic Boys' School Home]

Created: 4:49 AM 3/31/2023
Last updated: 9:43 PM 4/1/2023