Figure 1.--This unidentified American boy from Reno, Nevada wears a white silor suit with white long stockings and spats, something we havn't seen before. The portraits are undated, but lookm like they wee taken in the 1900s. Many of the portraits with white long stockings were done with sailor tunics, but this boybwears a poroper sailor suit.

We are not sure about the color of the hosiery worn with sailor suits. Generally it was dark hosiery, often matching the color of the sailor suit. We know many boys wore black long stockings, but we think many more navy blue long stockings as well. It is often possible to detect black in blackm and white photography, but navy blue is so closse to black that it is commonly almostbimpossible to destinguish btwen thevto. This we cannot, however, confirm given the black-and-white photography of the day.White was for the first time popular, but we also see dark socks. And we see white long stockings for the first time in any numbers. Even at this time, we commonly see boys and girls wearing black long stockings with white sailor suits, but for the firt time we begin to see white hosiery as well. This is the one color we can confirm with any surity. It was not by far the most common color and generally worn for dressy occassions. By the 1910s we see colored bands added to the white socks. Then white hosiery become less common, at the same time sailor suits are also decling in popularity. We se some children wearing tan long stickings with sailorsuits in the 1920s and early-30s, primarily because the tan shades became standard for long stockings at the time. Sailor suits basically went out of style, at least, forbboys, before color photography became common. Girlssailor outfits continued into the era when color photograph became common. Here we see a range iof colors, alough blue and white were the most common.

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Created: 3:48 AM 2/5/2014
Last updated: 3:48 AM 2/5/2014