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Both boys and girls wore many styles of combination suits. Combination suits came equipped with numerous buttons for button-on styled clothing and for holding up the long stockings that were still commonly worn. Girls had bloomer or romper styled underwear while boys, excet for the youngest, wore stright legged underwear. Many styles for boys and girls were checked. There were several styles of combination suits. They were called combination sits because they combined both underm shirts and under pants. Wards also calls them "union suits" and "romper togs". A 1923 Montgomery Wards mail order catalog shows the varied styles of combination suits available for boys and girls in 1923. I am not sure at this time if there were actual differences between a combination suit and a union suit or if they were just different terms for the same garment. A HBC reader writes, "I think the combination suit was very specific. It combined the union suit with a hose supporter or waist supporter that we saw earlier. In 1915 Stewart's catalogue there is a reference to a combination suit but it is called an "alheneeds" it was for younger boys as listed in the site. Notice it was also for summer when the extra layer of a waist to hold up stockings would be very hot!"
A combination suit is essentially a union suit meaning the union or combination of underwear pants and shirt into one single garment. In fact in Britain, the common term for union suit is combination suit. The term combination suit in America, however, is used differently. While it is a tyoe of union suit, it is normally used to mean a child's union suit that is combined with a waist suit meaning attachments to support other garments such as pants or long stockings.
Some of the early American references to children's union suits use the term "combination suit." Wards calls them "union suits" and "romper togs". While a combination and union suit are very similar there are differences. A HBC reader writes, "The combination suit in America was very specific. It was a chuld's union suit with a hose supporter or waist supporter. In 1915 Stewart's catalogue there is a reference to a combination suit but it is called an "alheneeds". It was for younger boys. Notice it was also for summer when the extra layer of a waist to hold up stockings would be very hot!"
One difficulty we have is that contemporary sources are not always consistent in their description of similar garments or in the use of terms. The Sears 1902 catalog uses the term "combination". In this case, the term combination refers to the combination "belt and hose supporter". The underwear shown is an ordinary union suit, not a waist suit or
combination suit. He wears a garter waist over an ordinary union suit.
A "combination" is the British term for a union suit, meaning adult one-piece underwear combinging both undet shirt and pants (drawers).
Both boys and girls wore many styles of combination suits. Combination suits came equipped with numerous buttons for button-on styled clothing and for holding up the long stockings that were still commonly worn. Girls had bloomer or romper styled underwear while boys, excet for the youngest, wore stright legged underwear. Many styles for boys and girls were checked. There were several styles of combination suits.
We do not yet have full details concerning chronological trends in children's combination suits.
Some sources report that combination garments were introduced as a practical under-garment for younger children in the late-18th century. We can not yet confirm this, but information on 18th century under garments is very limited. And paintings did not nomally depict underwear. Vintage clothing is another source, but although there are important collections of vintage clothing, underclothing is often lacking in these collections. It was much less likely to be preserved. One source suggests that early combinations were mostly for boys. Low necklines on some of these garments suggests that girls also wore them or very young children who wore dresses--including boys. Early combinations were made both as one-piece garments or two-piece garments that bittoned at the waist. Boys wore these combination underwear garments with skeleton suits which were popular in the late-18th and early 19h centuries. A good example of mid-19th century combination underwear is a garment worn by Ambrose Turner who was about 4-years old.
As far as we can tell, combination underwear was for children until the late-19h century, Women began wearing combinations in the 1870s and men a little later. Fashion pundits at this time began to advocate combination underwear as a healtful garment fir children, both warm, practical. and sanitry. The warmth and practicality factor is obvious, but its less clear to me why they were seen as a sanitary. One author describes combinations as a "a complete and most sanitary costume". [Ballin] We are not sure about trends in Europe, but combinations became extremely popular in America for the whole family. While they were called combinations or combination suits in Britain, they were called commonly called union suit in America. We notice children's combination suits at the turn-of-the-20th century in the United States. A 1923 Montgomery Wards mail order catalog shows the varied styles of combination suits available for boys and girls.
We are not enirely sure at this time just how some outer clothes were worn by boys with comination suits. We think some boys wore pants that buttoned on to combination suits or waist suits. Often men wore suspenders. Some boys did also, but many did not. We also do not see school age boys in the early 20th century wearing suppot aids such as belts, button-on pants, or suspender pants. Thus we are trying to understand just how boys dressed. Hopefully we will gradually work this out.
Ballin, Ada. The Science of Dress (1885).
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