 |
| Before Socks, stockings |
Black cats with white paws were being named Socks well before the Clinton presidency, and perhaps that suggested the brand name Black Cat to the Cooper brothers of Kenosha, Wisconsin, who founded the Black Cat Hosiery Company in the 1890s.
All the socks and hose produced by the company bore the image (on the toe) of a grinning black cat with a ribbon around his neck. (It was actually “grinnier” than the Cheshire cat of Alice in Wonderland.) In time the a in black and cat morphed into the front legs of the black cat image.
