Reasonably accurate, in our area, at least. I think that our high school girls were more simply dressed than these ... and our guys didn't wear suits and ties.

It appears that 1936 I was starting in a small rural elementary school, 25 - 30 kids in eight grades in one room - and I was amazed at how small it looked when I visited after graduating from 6 years of university and seminary.

I began in primer class in April/Easter, took first class and junior second in the next year, so had senior second, junior and senior third and junior and senior fourth to go ... that does add to eight, doesn't it?

I think that I went dressed I bib overalls, for a few junior years, at least.

ole joyful

My first thought was how much older the girls look. If you had shown the photo without any info, I would have thought the girls and some of the guys were in their late 20's and early 30's.

I always enjoy looking at your photos!

I wonder how many lived through WWII. I wonder how the members of the German Club fared during the war years, with all the anti-German sentiment in the US.

I wonder how many lived through WWII.

That's a sobering thought.

As for the members of the German Club, if I had to guess I'd say the club itself might have disbanded during the war. But I would hope the students--many of whom were of German descent and all of whom were likely studying the German language--didn't suffer because of anti-German sentiment. I base some of this on the experience of my mother's family, who had a German name. Her mother was born in Germany, and her father owned a German deli in NJ. I never heard mention of any intolerance.

It was a different story with my dad, who got in a lot of fights as a teenager because his father was Jewish. But that was much earlier, and had nothing to do with a war.

My mother-in-law graduated in 1935 - with a class of 35 students, ironically enough, from the same small rural high school hubby and I graduated from. There are two women still living from the class of '35. None of the men were lost during WWII, even though most, if not all, of them served. As a former Alumni Board Member, I still help keep statistics of the graduates (addresses and death dates) at this high school, and we publish a booklet of all the graduates every two years.

Like Ed, I noticed the clothing the Queens high school students wore were nothing like the simple togs (most were sewn and knitted at home) worn by the working- and farm-class teens living here in the middle of Kansas. Everyone looked like movie stars from that era at the Queens high school, in comparison. :-)

My mother (b. 1926 in Ontario, Canada) was a German-Canadian and spoke German until she went to school and then learned to speak English. She would never let people know she spoke German due to WWII persecution. My grandparents would only speak German at home.

I suspect the students dressed up for these photographs, although I'm sure their day-to-day clothing likely appeared more formal than that of their rural counterparts.

I don't know how much ready-to-wear clothing was available then. If it was, surely this school in a big city had access to it -- if there was money to spare in the Depression. Their clothes were more likely of the Loving Hands At Home variety.

I bet Ed was cute in his Oshkosh overalls! Got any photos, Ed?