Figure 1.--The photo was taken at Gordon Elementary School, in Wilkinson County, Georgia, a rural county. It was taken during the school year 1957-58. It shows a 5th grade class, meaning the children would be 11-12 years old. The boys wear colored long-sleeve collared shirts. Jeans seem very popular for the boys. Notice the well-worn knees. The girls wear dresses and skirts. Notice how full the skirts were. The girls called them 'poddle skirts'. At least three boys are barefoot.

The photo was taken at Gordon Elementary School, in Wilkinson County, Georgia, a rural county. It was taken during the school year 1957-58. It shows a 5th grade class, meaning the children would be 11-12 years old. The boys wear colored long-sleeve collared shirts. Jeans seem very popular for the boys. Notice the well-worn knees. The girls wear dresses and skirts. Notice how full the skirts were. The girls called them 'poddle skirts'. At least three boys are barefoot. It is not clear if they went to school barefoot or took off shoes at school. It looks like they have shoes under their desks. I have not seen that before. Apparently it was still normal to go barefoot for boys aged 11-12 years. If they had shoes with them, they didn't put them on for the class photo. The girls are all wearing their shoes. We are not sure why the boys are barefoot, but it would not have been poverty. We suspect the boys were more comfortable going barefoot. I went to school in neighboring Alabama about 2 years earlier at abvout the same age. I don't remenber children giing barefoot, but my school was a suburban rather than a rural school. Even in the South, goung barefoot was becoming much less common by the late-50s.

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Created: 8:52 AM 7/29/2011
Last updated: 8:52 AM 7/29/2011