Feminist Critique of the Dress Reform Movement of the Mid-Eighteen Hundreds
The Dress Reform Movement of the Mid-Eighteen Hundreds
Women’s History in America
In the middle of the nineteenth century in the United States, there were many movements working to improve society. The temperance movement aimed to remove the use and abuse of alcohol in America. The abolition movement called for the immediate end to slavery. The women’s movement had a mission to change women’s role in society by such means as giving them the right to vote and own their own property. Health reformers of the time advocated self-healing and the use of natural remedies like homeopathies and water treatments. There were also religious reform movements, many of which started their own communities to exemplify a more perfect society, which called for an assortment of social changes. In the midst of all of these was the women’s dress reform movement. In this era, American women wore long, full dresses, which included a tight corset made of whalebone, and high heels. This costume held many issues for women in their daily lives; they could not freely walk up and down stairs or climb hills without holding up their skirts, they had to wade through muddy streets with many layers of cloth which became extremely heavy with grime, and they could not breathe properly or fully because of the extreme tightness called for by the fashion of having a “wasp waist”. Elizabeth Cady Stanton complained, “why ‘the drapery’ is quite too much -- one might as well work with a ball and chain. Is being born a woman so criminal an offense, that we must be doomed to this everlasting bondage? (Stanton, "Our Costume").” And Theodosia Gilbert wrote that these costumes robbed women of the natural “poetry of motion” and grace which their bodies were born with (Gilbert, "An Eye Sore"). There were a great number of accused problems with the dresses of the time, yet, as Elizabeth Smith Miller wrote, “the mass of women [clung] to them, even at the sacrifice of comfort, cleanliness, and health (Miller,
Women’s History in America
In the middle of the nineteenth century in the United States, there were many movements working to improve society. The temperance movement aimed to remove the use and abuse of alcohol in America. The abolition movement called for the immediate end to slavery. The women’s movement had a mission to change women’s role in society by such means as giving them the right to vote and own their own property. Health reformers of the time advocated self-healing and the use of natural remedies like homeopathies and water treatments. There were also religious reform movements, many of which started their own communities to exemplify a more perfect society, which called for an assortment of social changes. In the midst of all of these was the women’s dress reform movement. In this era, American women wore long, full dresses, which included a tight corset made of whalebone, and high heels. This costume held many issues for women in their daily lives; they could not freely walk up and down stairs or climb hills without holding up their skirts, they had to wade through muddy streets with many layers of cloth which became extremely heavy with grime, and they could not breathe properly or fully because of the extreme tightness called for by the fashion of having a “wasp waist”. Elizabeth Cady Stanton complained, “why ‘the drapery’ is quite too much -- one might as well work with a ball and chain. Is being born a woman so criminal an offense, that we must be doomed to this everlasting bondage? (Stanton, "Our Costume").” And Theodosia Gilbert wrote that these costumes robbed women of the natural “poetry of motion” and grace which their bodies were born with (Gilbert, "An Eye Sore"). There were a great number of accused problems with the dresses of the time, yet, as Elizabeth Smith Miller wrote, “the mass of women [clung] to them, even at the sacrifice of comfort, cleanliness, and health (Miller,
Cited: Elizabeth Cady Stanton, "Our Costume", document #13, In Doak and Karetny, How Did Diverse Activists Shape the Dress Reform Movement, 1838-1881?, Women & Social Movements database. Theodosia Gilbert, "An Eye Sore", document #5, In Doak and Karetny, How Did Diverse Activists Shape the Dress Reform Movement, 1838-1881?, Women & Social Movements database. Elizabeth Smith Miller, "Reflections on Woman 's Dress, and the Record of a Personal Experience", document #28, In Doak and Karetny, How Did Diverse Activists Shape the Dress Reform Movement, 1838-1881?, Women & Social Movements database. Gerrit Smith, “Letter to Elizabeth C. Stanton”, document #25, In Doak and Karetny, How Did Diverse Activists Shape the Dress Reform Movement, 1838-1881?, Women & Social Movements database. Elizabeth Smith Miller, "Reflections on Woman 's Dress, and the Record of a Personal Experience”, Document #28, In Doak and Karetny, How Did Diverse Activists Shape the Dress Reform Movement, 1838-1881?, Women & Social Movements database. John H. Noyes, "Heroism of Community Women", document #22, In Doak and Karetny, How Did Diverse Activists Shape the Dress Reform Movement, 1838- 1881?, Women & Social Movements database. M. L. Shew, Water-Cure for Ladies Preface, document #3, In Doak and Karetny, How Did Diverse Activists Shape the Dress Reform Movement, 1838-1881?, Women & Social Movements database. Mrs. E. Potter, "Dress Reform: Is It Duty?”, document #6, In Doak and Karetny, How Did Diverse Activists Shape the Dress Reform Movement, 1838-1881?, Women & Social Movements database. Sarah M. Grimké, "Letter IX: Dress of Women," document #1, In Doak and Karetny, How Did Diverse Activists Shape the Dress Reform Movement, 1838-1881?, Women & Social Movements database.