Figure 1.--This unidentified American boy wears a romper suit with basic smocking. The photograpoh is undated, but we would guess it was taken about 1920. He is baredoot. Most American boys wore shoes and socks with rompers.

Rompers were nmot worn with a lot of other clothing. They were popular in psrt because they were a convenient one-piece outfit for children. Children rarely wore headwear with them for some reason. They did normall wear footwear. Only a few children went barefoot. Here we see an example (figure 1). This is a bit unusual as going barefoot during the summer was quite common at the time. We think class factors were at play here. Most boys, however, wore shoes and hosirery. Boys wearing rompers commonly wore them with short socks. Long stockings were still common at the time rompers were possible. Rompers were rompers were one of the first garments, except dresses, to be commonly worn with short socks in America, both ankle socks and three-quarter socks. HBC has noted boys wsearing rompers with kneesocks or long stockings. An example is an unidentified American boy in 1912. But this was not very common. Rompers were commonly worn with strap shoes, a popular shoie style for younger boys at the time. HBC has not noted them with canvas shoes, but strap shoes were vey common--the kind of colored strap shoe worn as a play shoe. Red strap shoes seem common with rompers, but this is difficult to assess in the black-and-white photography.