Ok, fashionistas, this one's for you. As I've been roaming websites and scouring images of women to feature here on my site, it has occurred to me that if a woman has ever, even once in her life, had her picture taken in a dress, that is the exact picture that will be used for all posterity. This gives me images in my head of that black dress with cabbage roses that I wore to my college graduation. It was the last dress I ever wore, and someone near and dear may have commented that I looked like I was in drag. If I am ever lucky enough to be remembered in any way, please don't let anyone use that picture. As I was researching Mary Edwards Walker (whose picture in the Women in Military Service to America Memorial portrays her in a normal women's dress--even though said picture takes away from part of who she was and what she stood for), I came across the National Dress Reform Association of 1866. These women were all about fashion! They believed that the way they dressed held them back, and they created an Association to change that problem. Amelia Jenks Bloomer was part of the Association, and was also a temperance reformer, newspaper editor, and suffrage journalist, and is noted for her pioneering temperance and woman’s rights newspaper, The Lily (1849). She was one of many who wore a healthful reform dress featuring full pantaloons and a short skirt – giving the “Bloomer” costume its name. Because the New York Times picked up one of her articles in The Lily to add to its publication, the name for the dress became attributed to her. Bloomer lived in central New York and attended the famed Seneca Falls woman’s rights convention in 1848. Despite little formal education, she published The Lily,(1849) which printed articles on woman’s rights, many written by Elizabeth Cady Stanton. In 1850, she introduced Susan B. Anthony to Stanton, thus beginning their life-long partnership. Bloomer herself adopted the healthful reform costume to which she gave her name, and defended its use in her paper. She lectured on temperance and women’s rights, while continuing to edit The Lily, (circulation 6,000). After moving to Iowa, Bloomer sold her paper but continued her reform work as president of the Iowa Woman Suffrage Society in 1871. She died in 1894, having spent her best years as a propagandist for woman’s rights. I've posted three pictures of Bloomer, just to show you what I mean..
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