Posted on May 27, 2021
Key points
This is an update of my post published on May 27, 2010:
Born on this day in 1818, Amelia Jenks Bloomer was postmaster of her town and ran the first American women’s magazine.
Her town was Seneca Falls, New York, often coupled in people’s mind with the women’s suffrage movement (that is, the women’s right-to-vote movement). Bloomer was a part of that important movement, and she worked side-by-side with such famous suffrage activists as Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony. She also worked in the temperance movement, which worked to outlaw alcoholic beverages.
Bloomer’s magazine was called The Lily. It included recipes and articles of general interest to women, but its focus was articles about temperance and about women’s rights, including suffrage and education for girls and women.
Her town was Seneca Falls, New York, often coupled in people’s mind with the women’s suffrage movement (that is, the women’s right-to-vote movement). Bloomer was a part of that important movement, and she worked side-by-side with such famous suffrage activists as Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony. She also worked in the temperance movement, which worked to outlaw alcoholic beverages.
Bloomer’s magazine was called The Lily. It included recipes and articles of general interest to women, but its focus was articles about temperance and about women’s rights, including suffrage and education for girls and women.
What Amelia Bloomer is most famous for is her habit of wearing comfortable, loose Turkish trousers.
Back then, American and European women almost never wore pants. Bloomer thought that clothing was important, saying, “The costume of women should be suited to her wants and necessities. It should conduce at once to her health, comfort, and usefulness…” Bloomer pointed out that looking good wasn’t the only important consideration for clothing.
Because Bloomer wore loose pants and urged others to wear and accept them, the trousers became known as bloomers.
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| This political cartoon made fun of bloomers and warned that such gender-bending clothing would lead to terrible problems. |
Imagine living at a time when women had to wear tight corsets and awkward hoop skirts.
Apparently, women’s clothing back in the 1800s weighed between 20 and 40 pounds! Compare that to an outfit you might wear today!
(I checked, and most modern outfits only weigh from 1 to 3 pounds.)
Compare women’s clothing back then to a bag of books—how many books equal that much weight?
(Since textbooks weigh between 2 to 6 pounds, we will take 4 pounds as an average textbook weight. So women’s “proper” clothing during Bloomer’s life weighed as much as 3 to 10 textbooks!!! Yikes!)
Here is a website about clothing reform during Bloomer’s time.
If you can find it, read You Forgot Your Skirt, Amelia Bloomer, by Shana Corey. Here is a video read-aloud of the book. Or what about Bloomers!, by Rhoda Blumberg?
Here are some questions to ponder today:
How do you think the ways that modern people dress affect their behavior?We certainly have more freedom, fashion-wise, these days…
Even on fashion runways, people wear all sorts of clothes, including both pants and dresses.
But are there some people who have little freedom to dress as they wish?
Are you in favor of school uniforms? Why or why not?
How important is clothing and fashion? How important is it to you to dress like your friends, or to dress differently from others? Why?
Also on this date:
Beaufort Scale Day
Plan ahead:
Check out my Pinterest boards for:
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May holidays
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May birthdays
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Historical anniversaries in May
And here are my Pinterest boards for:
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June holidays
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June birthdays
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Historical anniversaries in June
