"My sisters, there is need of a dress reform among us. There are many errors in the present style of female dress." With these words Mrs. White introduced her sixth and last article on "Disease and Its Causes," in the series entitled "How to Live," which appeared in print in the early part of 1865.
A Plea for Women
In the literature of that period there is abundant evidence of the truthfulness of Mrs. White's arraignment of the current fashions in woman's dress. About three years earlier a spokesman for the unfortunate sex, when addressing a large audience in Washington, D.C., made the following plaint regarding the disadvantages and tortures of women:
"Women's clothing is arranged with such an eye to inconvenience and burdensomeness, that if they go out at all it is under great disadvantage. If they should cross the threshold, they may dampen their feet and soil their skirts on the steps, and have their unprotected limbs chilled by the wind. If they wish to walk, they must wait till the dew is off the grass, and a sultry summer sun detracts from the benefit of it. If they work in the garden, more strength is expended on account of the dress than with the plants; for it not only is so arranged that they cannot make a motion easily, but it must be gathered up in their arms while they work with their hands. If they go to market, they must carry skirts as well as a basket; for dew, dust, mud, or snow has to be cleared. If they ride, they must be lifted in and out of the carriage, while they take care of their skirts, and even then they are often caught, and have to be extricated from them; and if, by accident, any danger comes to life or limb in carriage or on horseback, it is tenfold greater on account of such shackling garments. ...
"If they turn to the leafy adorned temple of nature to recreate, they must zigzag their way around every bush and log, in spending all their care on muslin instead of enjoying nature; and if they come to a fence, the field beyond is forbidden ground to them, though it be all abloom with choicest flowers."--Ellen Beard Harmon, "Dress Reform: Its Physiological and Moral Bearing" (a lecture delivered at the Y.M.C.A. Hall, Washington, D.C., February 10, 1862, pp. 10, 11). New York: Davies and Kent, 1862.
For more than a decade voices of protest had been heard against the barbarous, health-destroying styles of dress imposed upon women by those who regulated the fashions. Eleven years earlier the Honorable Gerrett Smith, a member of Congress, declared:
"A reformation in the dress of woman is very much needed. It is indispensable to her health and usefulness. While in the prison of the present dress, she is, and ever will remain, comparatively unhealthful and useless."--Quoted by Mrs. M. Angeline Merritt, in Dress Reform, Practically and Physiologically Considered, 169, 170. Buffalo: Jewett, Thomas, and Co., 1852.
Distinguished Ladies Lead Out
With such pronounced opposition to the prevailing styles of dress, it is not surprising that the congressman gave his hearty approval when his daughter, Mrs. Elizabeth Miller, adopted a dress somewhat on the style of the Turkish costume. Mr. Miller also approved and vigorously defended his wife's startling but sensible break with the conventions. As she was among the first to wear publicly such a dress in the United States, the costume made a news feature for the press of that time.
After wearing the dress for about three months, Mrs. Miller went to Seneca Falls, New York, to visit her cousin, Mrs. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, one of the honored ladies of the nation because of her efforts in the cause of women. Evidently the advantages in freedom and comfort of the costume worn by Mrs. Miller made a strong appeal to her cousin, for she very soon donned a dress made in the same style.
Mrs. Amelia Bloomer then entered the scene. She lived in Seneca Falls and edited The Lily, a monthly paper for women. Seeing the novelty, she admired it and soon became the third member of a triumvirate of dress reformers. In the issue of her journal for March, 1851, she described and praised the costume, and in the following month she announced her personal adoption of it, saying:
"Reader ours, behold us now in short dress and trowsers, and then, if you please, give free vent to your feelings on the subject--praise or blame, approve or condemn, as might suit you best. We have become used to both, and are indifferent as to your opinion."--The Lily, April, 1851.
Mrs. Bloomer Given Publicity
Mrs. Bloomer at that time had no thought of permanently adopting the new style of dress, no thought that her action would create an excitement throughout the civilized world, or that her own name would be given to the costume. She always declared that such credit should have gone to Mrs. Miller. The public press spread the innovation far and wide as a spicy news item. Writing later an account of the event for the Chicago Tribune, Mrs. Bloomer commented thus upon the excitement it caused:
"I stood amazed at the furor I had unwittingly caused. The New York Tribune contained the first notice I saw of my action. Other papers caught it up and handed it about. My exchanges all had something to say. Some praised and some blamed, some commended, and some ridiculed and condemned. 'Bloomerism,' 'Bloomerites,' and 'Bloomers' were the headings of many an article, item, and squib. ...
"As soon as it became known that I was wearing the new dress, letters came pouring in upon me by hundreds from women all over the country, making inquiries about the dress and asking for patterns--showing how ready and anxious women were to throw off the burden of long, heavy skirts."--Quoted by her husband, Dexter C. Bloomer, Life and Writings of Amelia Bloomer, 68. Boston: Arena Publishing Company, 1895.
In June Mrs. Stanton, Mrs. Bloomer, and four or five other ladies appeared in the costume while attending a health convention at Dr. Jackson's health institution, which was then at Glen Haven, New York. The new style of dress was placed on the agenda for discussion, and Dr. Harriet Austin, an associate physician at the institution, became a convert. She and Dr. Jackson were won as ardent and enthusiastic advocates of the reform. As editors of the Water Cure Journal and its successor, the Laws of Life, they were in a position to give wide publicity to it. For several years scarcely an edition of their journal failed to urge its adoption or to print testimonials from enthusiastic readers who had received health benefits from it. The style, however, was considerably modified by Miss Austin, and soon became generally known as the "American costume."
Praise and commendation on the one hand, and reproach and sarcasm on the other, were the lot of the dress reformers. This makes it possible for later commentators on the movement either to heap contumely upon it and to represent it as unpopular and ridiculous, or to commend it as meritorious and worthy of the praise which it received in many quarters. Dr. Jackson tells how its adoption by his wife, at a time when she had become a hopeless invalid, not only saved her life but restored her to health, and speaks thus of the severity of the criticism he received from some:
"No one can tell what we all have suffered in public estimation for our conviction of the need of a change of a style in dress for our country women if they are to have health as a rule and sickness as an exceptional condition of life. I do believe that no representation of villainy supposed possible for a man to be capable of committing, and yet be luckily free from liability to be hung, has not been made against me, simply because I advocated a reform in dress of women and a vegetarian diet for invalids."--Laws of Life, November, 1860.
Dress Reform Gained Favor
There was a steady increase year by year in the number of women who changed to the new style. In June of 1863, about twelve years after Mrs. Miller had initiated the reform, an annual meeting of the Dress Reform Convention was held in Rochester, New York. In her opening address Dr. Austin stated that she invariably included as a part of the prescription to her patients the words "Adopt the American Costume," and she claimed credit for having thus influenced at least a thousand women to follow her advice. As to its general adoption, she said further:
"No reform, so truly conservative as this, ever made more progress, during the first years of its existence, than this has done. In all the Northern States it has hundreds of representatives; and in numbers of them it has thousands. It is known and worn in California, Canada East and West, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia. Thousands of women in this State are wearing the American Costume. There are many neighborhoods, in central and western New York, where it is the common dress worn. There are counties in Ohio, Michigan, Iowa, and other of the Western States, where its wearers can be counted by hundreds."--Laws of Life, August, 1863.
In this same address before an audience of 1,700 people, Dr. Austin gives us a picturesque arraignment of the style of dress against which the "American costume" was a protest. Personifying "lank, sallow Disease," she graphically pictured the results of his clutches upon wives and mothers, and added:
Dr. Austin's Powerful Plea
"How he delights in the apparel they wear! He sits in their dressing rooms, and nods and chuckles and grins in gratified maliciousness, as the process of dressing goes on; and ever and anon, as some article specially adapted to his hateful purpose is appropriated, he holds his sides and twinkles his eyes in merry satisfaction. Those shoes--yes, those suit him precisely! How beautifully they pinch the toes, and press upon the veins at the ankles! 'Dear madam, what a loyal subject you are! I will stand by you till your dying day. And these bands about the waist--adjust them carefully. There, make them a little tighter. Cut off the action of the abdominal muscles entirely.' Tis vulgar to let your breath descend so low.
"'And this dress is capital--excellent! The flowing sleeves will allow the cool, damp, evening air to play easily about the white arms. Whalebones in it? Ah, yes, that will do. Now hook it, madam. Draw a little tighter. Exhaust your lungs, and contract your chest into the smallest compass. Bravo! One hook is fastened! No sensible woman would wear corsets. They are injurious, and, what is worse, they are out of date. But a dress just fitting closely and beautifully can do no harm. ...
"'Stop, madam, and pant a moment. There, now, proceed. Oh, what a model of a dress! Stand now, and examine its length in a mirror. Elegant! It just sweeps the floor so gracefully. And your hoops are of the most genteel size. Ha! Ha! ... Won't the wind find easy access to her limbs? And won't she be harassed, and hampered, and hindered, in every step she takes, in the midst of all this drapery? By the time she is ready to lay it off, won't she feel nervous and weary and exhausted? And shall I not have gotten a faster hold upon her?'"--Ibid.
Among the persons selected at this gathering to serve as officers of the convention for the ensuing year were seven physicians, three ministers, one minister's wife, and one professor. Joshua V. Himes, a former co-worker with William Miller in connection with the advent movement, was a member of the executive committee. His name found frequent mention in the Laws of Life as one of those interested in, and approving of, the various reforms for the maintenance and restoration of health.
Dress Reform Principles Prevailed
Because the popular agitation over dress reform was carried forward for only two or three decades, and because the costumes they designed and advocated were later discontinued, it might seem that the cause of these reformers was lost. But the principles for which they valiantly contended have prevailed. This is well set forth in an editorial in a popular journal, from which we quote:
"The cause for which the early dress reformers labored and suffered martyrdom has triumphed in almost all points, but in a very different way than they anticipated. They considered only health and convenience. They cared little for beauty, knew nothing of art. Their attempts to introduce the bloomer and other costumes of equal ugliness fortunately failed, but their efforts were not altogether wasted. ...
"The chief points in the indictment of woman's dress of former times were that the figure was dissected like a wasp's, that the hips were overloaded with heavy skirts, and that the skirts dragged upon the ground and swept up the dirt. Nowadays the weight of a woman's clothing as a whole is only half or a third of what it used to be. Four dresses can be packed in the space formerly filled by one. In the one-piece dresses now in vogue the weight is borne from the shoulders, and the hips are relieved by reducing the skirts in weight, length, and number. The skirt no longer trails upon the street. ... The women who, for conscientious reasons, refused to squeeze their waists, and in consequence suffered the scorn of their sex, now find themselves on the fashionable side. A thirty-two-inch waist is regarded as permissible, where formerly a twenty-inch waist was thought proper. A fashionably gowned woman of the present day can stoop to pick up a pin at her feet."--New York Independent, October 23, 1913.
It is possible for womanhood today to be clothed neatly, modestly, inexpensively, and healthfully without the necessity of a wide divergence from accepted styles.