When U.S. Presidents Started Wearing Pants

Mr. Beat explains when and why American presidents started wearing pants instead of breeches.

Produced by Matt Beat and Beat Productions, LLC. Music by @neffexmusic.

Sources/further reading:

Join this channel to get access to perks:

For business inquiries or to send snail mail to Mr. Beat:

How to support and donate to my channel:

Subscribe to @iammrbeat & hit the notification bell 🔔

Join for great perks on Patreon

Donate to Mr. Beat on Paypal

Buy Mr. Beat a coffee

Subscribe to my second channel: The Beat Goes On

Patreon for The Beat Goes On

Connect with me:

@beatmastermatt on Twitter

Merch:

Affiliate Links:

Useful Charts

In the early days of the United States, the wealthy generally wore breeches instead. I mean, you gotta look good amirite? Only the working class at the time usually wore pants. Well, flash forward to 1824. That year, the pants-wearing working class overwhelmingly supported Andrew Jackson for President and he got more votes than anyone.

Still, a bunch of breeches-wearing members of Congress instead picked John Quincy Adams to be President instead, so he won the election. Now, Adams was worried he was going to be seen as out of touch with the working class, so for his official portrait the next year, he insisted he be painted in pants.

So John Quincy Adams was the first American president to wear pants, and pretty much every president has worn them ever since.