How Did Men React to the Bloomer Fashion in the 1850s

In mid-1800s America, everyone agreed women's clothing posed a problem. The dictates of modesty called for floor-length dresses, and manner demanded a total skirt beneath a tiny waist. As a result, heart- and upper-class American women squeezed themselves into corsets and six to eight petticoats to fill out the shape of their skirts. The result weighed upwards to 15 pounds, placed enormous pressure level on their hips, and fabricated movement a struggle.

"Women complained of overheating and impaired breathing, sweeping along filthy streets and tripping over stairs, crushed organs from whalebone stays and laced corsets, and getting caught in mill mechanism," writes historian Annemarie Strassel.

Doctors worried the outfits might cause health problems for pregnant mothers, and the press regularly lampooned the fashion of the 24-hour interval, with cartoons showing assorted garbage getting caught in women's sweeping skirts. But what could be washed?

An editor of the Seneca County Courier had 1 idea: perchance women could avoid the discomfort and dangers of their attire by switching to "Turkish pantaloons and a skirt reaching a little below the genu."

The editorial, written in February 1851 past a man who had previously opposed the women'south suffrage movement and the 1848 Seneca Falls Convention, drew the attention of 1 feminist. Amelia Bloomer was herself an editor of the first women'south newspaper, The Lily. She used her newspaper to gently upbraid the Seneca County Courier writer for supporting apparel reform, but not women's rights.

At almost exactly the same time, Bloomer's neighbor, suffragist Elizabeth Cady Stanton, received a visit from her cousin, Elizabeth Smith Miller—who was wearing the very outfit Bloomer had just been discussing in the press. Alternately called "Turkish trousers" or "pantaloons," the outfit combined knee-length skirts with loose pants. Stanton exclaimed over the mode and fabricated herself up in the same way. Bloomer wasn't far behind, feeling that it was her duty to do so, as she'd engaged in the question of women'south dress in the media, and announced her determination to her readers in the April 1851 edition of The Lily.

Amelia Jenks Bloomer Science History Images / Alamy Stock Photo

In no time at all, the new wearing apparel seemed to set the entire media world aflame. "I stood amazed at the furor I had unwittingly caused," Bloomer later wrote. "Some praised and some blamed, some commented, and some ridiculed and condemned." But what journalists had to say mattered niggling to Bloomer's audience. Afterward Bloomer included a print of herself in the reform dress in The Lily, hundreds of letters poured into her function.

"As presently every bit it became known that I was wearing the new apparel, messages came pouring in upon me by hundreds from women all over the country making inquiries about the clothes and asking for patterns—showing how ready and anxious women were to throw off the brunt of long, heavy skirts," she wrote. Presently later the dress controversy erupted, The Lily's circulation rose from 500 per month to 4,000. And with the explosion of involvement, Bloomer'southward proper noun was soon inextricably tied to the trend, despite her protesting that she wasn't the originator of the fashion. Soon adopters of the new await were "Bloomerites" or practitioners of "Bloomerism," or, more simply, wearing "Bloomers."

But it wasn't long earlier the tide of public opinion turned from bemused comments to vitriolic ones. "[The women] experienced a lot of harassment," says Amy Kesselman, a scholar in women'south gender and sexuality studies at SUNY New Paltz. "To us, it doesn't look like a radical thing, but wearing pants was a kind of flag of gender dissent."

Activist Angelina Grimke expressed her irritation at the level of disapproval, writing, "If the Bloomer costume had come from a Paris milliner information technology would have been welcomed in Boston, New York and Philadelphia, but as it is the but dress which has ever been adopted from principle, from a desire in adult female to fit herself for daily duty—as it is the out-birth of a state of mind which soars above the prevalent idea of the uses of adult female, therefore information technology shocks the taste."

For several years, the women'due south rights activists endured the public censure for the freedom of mobility the new outfit provided. Stanton professed she felt "like a convict set gratis from his ball and chain" while Bloomer praised the lightness and comfort of the outfit. But as the pressure continued on all sides, suffragists gradually returned to the old style—now made more than palatable by the invention of crinoline, a fabric encircled by calorie-free wire to create the bell effect that had once only been possible with layers of petticoats.

Statue of Susan B Anthony Amelia Bloomer and Elizabeth Cady Stanton — Bloomer (middle) introduced Susan B. Anthony (left) and Elizabeth Cady Stanton (right) in May 1851, equally depicted in this sculpture in Seneca Falls, New York. Here, both Bloomer and Stanton are wearing bloomers. Dennis MacDonald / Alamy Stock Photo

Bloomer continued wearing the outfit for several more years, as she moved from upstate New York to Ohio in 1853, and then on to Iowa in 1855. Eventually, though, she likewise returned to the former style of full-length skirts. "We all felt that the dress was cartoon attention from what nosotros thought of far greater importance—the question of woman'southward right to better education, to a wider field of employment, to better remuneration for her labor, and to the ballot for the protection of her rights," Bloomer wrote. "In the minds of some people, the brusk wearing apparel and woman's rights were inseparably connected. With united states of america, the dress was but an incident, and nosotros were not willing to sacrifice greater questions to information technology."

While the struggle for dress reform was carried on by smaller groups of women and sure health practitioners, it generally faded away from the stated goals of activists like Bloomer, Stanton and Susan B. Anthony. Only the association between pants and women'south rights never quite faded, even to this mean solar day, says Salem State University historian Gayle Fischer.

"If you wanted something that's connected from 1851 and Amelia Bloomer to the present, it would be the response of people to women in trousers," Fischer says. "And maybe even more than narrowly, the response to women who try to enter the political arena while wearing trousers." Simply look at the number of stories written about Hillary Clinton'south pantsuits. For Fischer, the explanation for this obsession is simple: "We're still non comfy with the thought of women having this kind of masculine power."

But today, at to the lowest degree, nigh people don't have whatsoever problem with women wearing jeans. And for that, we tin can thank Bloomer and others similar her, who first braved harassment in their search for more comfortable clothes.