When women started wearing bloomers (loose trousers gathered at the ankle and worn under a knee-length skirt) in the 1850s, it was considered a scandalous mode of dress. What bloomers replaced seems beyond scandalous by today’s standards.
If women wanted to be deemed fashionable in the 1850s, they wore…
1) a skirt that dragged several inches on the ground
2) layers of starched petticoats stiffened with straw or horsehair sewn into the hems
3) a whale-bone corset that pushed one’s internal organs out of place
As one medical professor warned his students, the result was “a feminine population which was of no use as cadavers for studying human anatomy.”
But bloomers (also known as the Reform Dress) resulted in warnings as well. Public meetings were called to stop the change. Some women were denied church membership for wearing bloomers.
So now it’s time to meet Amelia Bloomer and Lucy Stone, two Wild Women reformers and fashionistas who helped shape a new fashion…instead of having it shape them.
Read the rest on the May edition of my monthly blog with Cowboy Kisses.
