Amelia Bloomer and Elizabeth Smith Miller: Seeking (Re)dress

and different rules around the way they dress. That's always been the case, based on geography, access to resources, and tradition, among other factors. What someone wears and what someone thinks about what someone wears can have layers of meaning. I'm Eaves Jeff Coote and This is Unpopular, a podcast about the people in history who did not let the threat of persecution keep them from speaking truth to power. Quite frankly, I've become sick of American conversations around what's right and

what's wrong when it comes to clothing. Not because I think we shouldn't be having these conversations. They often question our ideas about sexuality, patriarchy, gender identity, body types, cultural appropriation, sexism, able is um, so on, and so forth. I'm just tired of seeing how, after all these years of back and forth over clothing, we still have our painties in a bunch and are persecuting and detigrating people over something

as harmless as fabric. Bickering over clothing choices just seems like such a waste of our precious energy. Idealistic me whish is clothing weren't so politicized so that we didn't have to worry about it affecting our ability to be accepted, to avoid attack, or even to live. It would seem that one's right to bodily autonomy and safe self expression

would be something we'd have settled on by now. Alas, clothing choices and trends can still be the focus of controversial discussions, ones around what people should and shouldn't wear, based on how flattering it is, whether a woman's clothes make her more susceptible to sexual assault, how school dress codes are sexist and body shaming. It is at the

center of a controversy. A straight a high school student says this outfit got her suspended for two weeks and now she won't be able to graduate despite having multiple scholarship offers. Which clothes men shouldn't wear in my world. Of course, it don't matter enough. He could be against could dress are you could be against the with bag of pants they don't. I feel like there's no such

things where their leggings should be worn as pants. We have brought in an esteemed pandal of father's right here to see if they would allow their orders to wear leggings to school. We basically have a rule in the Idola household. If it's not worn in the monastery, it's not Who can and can't be braw less in public should have broad be mandatory for young women in schools. That's an issue that's exploding at this all girl private school in Montreal after one of them was told to

cover up when she wasn't wearing a bra. One study even suggested that nonconformity and clothing can signal a person's high status, a phenomenon to study author is called the red Sneakers effect. It's disheartening to see how self limiting we can be with something that can be so much fun because of arbitrary standards. How have we not loosened

our collective collars on this issue yet? Of course, part of the reason I feel this way is because I, like many others, have had my personal battles with clothes and culture. I regret to remember the times I was worse to wear pantyhose or panty loafers to my Black Southern Baptist church. We're being the weird dressing kid just wasn't going to work. I get that there are accepted conventions of dress we are expected to adhere to when

we're in certain spaces. Those are deep rooted and there's no way we're ripping those out of the ground anytime soon. And there are plenty of other people who face clothing related challenges that are specific to their cultural group or practice. Clothing serves a lot of purposes, not limited to just function and adornment. So it really doesn't matter that I'm

jaded when it comes to cultural conversations about clothing. As long as clothing reflects larger societal norms, expectations, and evolution, then we have no choice but to recognize the issues that clothing illustrates so tangibly. So we're going to go back in American history when stuffy and cumbersome were appropriate descriptors for the clothing of middle and upper class white people.

Women's clothing was highly impractical and in the case of course sets, even dangerous to one's health, so some women decided they would advocate for more rational dress. Two of those women who worked for dress reform were Elizabeth Smith Miller and A Million Bloomer. Now let me pause here to emphasize the fact that dress reform mainly affected people

who had class and monetary privilege. This was the mid eighteen hundreds, when slavery and its effects were still part of American life, so when looking at the issue of dress reform, we have to put it into perspective. There were absolutely bigger fish to fry than high class women's corsets being too tight in skirts being too wide. That

isn't up for debate and fact. Many of the women involved in dress reform were also first wave feminists, and they realized that even within their social groups, there were other issues they found more pressing that they would rather focus on and wearing comfortable clothing rather than ostentatious, uncomfortable yet fashionable clothing. What's definitely not a fight working class folks,

impoverished people, and slaves were worried about. For many people, worries about clothes until having clothes to wear at all, and all of that's not to mention the long history of people bucking dress norms on a singular skill to do things like escape slavery and get jobs or better wages. If we're being straight up, dress reform was not the most pressing issue of the day, and it was not

the most noble movement out of all of them. On top of that, progress in dress reform could belie other societal problems around gender, and the body that said that doesn't mean it wasn't important. It is totally possible for more than one issue to be addressed at a time in a country, and those issues may have varying degrees

of gravity and urgency. Dress reform was intertwined with the movement for women's rights, and as a matter of gender iniquity, it managed to raise awareness about the relevance of women's clothing that was more practical and less restrictive socially and physically. Elizabeth Smith Miller and Amelia Bloomer were both activists outside of dress reform, but their willingness to adopt unaccepted clothing at the risk of being rejected, and the hopes of

introducing more sensible dress was admirable. If a problem exists, no matter how small, there's potential that it can be solved. Amelia and Elizabeth chose to work on the issue of dress reform for several years of their lives, and they were often ridiculed for it. Though dress reform didn't fully take off due to their efforts and fashion didn't meaningfully changed until decade later, they recognized the need for progress

and we're kind of ahead of their time. After this break, we'll dig into exactly what Elizabeth and Amelia were up against. Reserved with something many upper and middle class women in mid nineteenth century America were not when it came to clothing.

Contemporary custom called for dramatic floor length dresses. Women sauntered around and literally breathtaking corsettes and heavy skirts filled out with several petticoats so their top half looked like a coke bottle and their bottom half looked like a lampshade.

The stiff petticoats could weigh up to fifteen pounds. As someone who couldn't step foot in a stiletto and generally finds tight clothing a hassle, if not insufferable, I couldn't imagine being so burdened by such excess, but they ord for the sake of modesty, decorum, and keeping up with the sensibilities of the time. And when I say endured, I'm not just talking about the discomfort these women experienced. These dresses affected the way they interacted with their environments

and caused actual health complications. Women overheated had trouble breathing, tripped over stairs, had their organs crushed, swept up the garbage on city streets with their skirts, and got caught in carriage wheels and factory machines, and even caught fire due to their huge Crinolines. Krinolines were stiff skirts or

under skirts, also known as hoop skirts. It would be slapstick comedy if it weren't actually hurting real women, but a lot of people, including people who didn't wear the unweldy outfits, realized just how absurd dealing with all of this was. Cartoons, often made by men, mind You, poked fun at the size of women's skirts and a double hit to the anti garretting phenomenon and the krinoline praise.

One illustration from an eighteen fifty six issue of Punch, for instance, shows a seedy looking guy narrowly missing his opportunity to strangle a guy in the top at The caption reads Mr Trumbull borrows a hint from his wife's krenoline and invince what he calls his patent anti Garrett overcoat, which places him completely out of harm with reach and

his walk phone from the city. In this way, the constraints these outfits set on women's movement and the detriment they had on women's health were symbolic of women's confinement to ideals of vanity and domesticity. Not all women had it out for corsets and ever growing petticoats. Some upheld the exaggerated shapes as models of femininity and sophistication and

crucial parts of their beauty and health regimen. Regardless, a vocal group of women involved in the temperance, suffrage, health reform, and women's rights movements took up the cause of transforming women's clothing that involved less calculated risk and more comfort. Elizabeth Smith Miller was the daughter of abolitionists and Carol

Fitzhugh and Garrett Smith. They were a wealthy family, and Elizabeth spent a lot of time in huge houses and engaged in what she called rousing arguments at Peterborough that made social life seemed tame and profitless elsewhere. The Smith's home in Peterborough, New York was a station on the underground railroad, so Elizabeth sometimes conversed with people who were

attempting to escape slavery. Being in this environment influence Elizabeth's perspective and in part inspired her social advocacy, and she donated time and money to the movements for suffrage in women's rights. At the same time, Amelia Bloomer was taking on social issues important to her. She wrote articles about temperance,

or abstaining and drinking alcohol, and joined temperance organizations. She went to the first women's rights convention in Seneca Falls in eighteen forty eight, though she was still pretty conservative at the time and her views didn't completely align with the sentiments of the meeting, and in eighteen forty nine she started the newspaper The Lily. When the newspaper started out, it was focused on temperance and created for distribution among

women in the Seneca Falls Ladies Temperance Society. Amelia thought that writing was more appropriate for women to voice their ideas as opposed to speeches she said about women in temperance in the first issue. Surely she may, without throwing aside the modest refinements which so much become her sex, use her influence to lead her fellow immortals from the destroyer's path. But soon the newspaper began including articles on

other subjects. Elizabeth Katie Stanton, a suffragist and activists who was also Elizabeth Smith Miller's cousin, began writing pieces for the paper on childbearing, education, and later women's rights. Stanton's calls for changes to the way women were treated helped motivate Amelia to become involved in the movement. Amelia advocated for women in other ways, but she's best known for

her role in dress reform. After going back and forth with the Seneca County Courier editor, who had proposed that women wear pants because their dresses were a nuisance and harmful to their health, she grew partial to the idea of donning a new suit. Amelia began to support wearing more functional attire, which consisted of a dress that came just below the knee, a loose bodice or none at all, and a pair of trousers that gathered at the ankle.

In an article in the Chicago Tribune, she recounted her journey to adopting the costume. She said, about this time, Elizabeth Smith Miller, daughter of Congressman Garrett Smith, appeared on the streets of our village dressed in short skirts and full Turkish chowders. She came on a visit to her cousin, Elizabeth Katie Stanton, who was then a resident of Seneca Falls. Mrs Miller had been wearing the costumes some two or

three months at home and abroad. Just how she came to adopt it, I have forgotten if I ever knew. Amelia saw Elizabeth Katie Stanton wearing the short skirt and satin chouders get up too, and Amelia figured she would walk the walk and not just talk to talk. So she started wearing the Bloomer suit, as it would become known, and announced the switch to readers of The Lily. She wasn't the first person in the world or even the US,

to wear that style of clothing. People in water cure santatoriums, and in religious and utopian groups in the early nineteenth century dressed similarly and up to the European and American women were similar panto letts since the seventeen hundreds. Miller's chouders resembled those that women war in the Middle East,

Central Asia, and the Oneida tribe. It's not clear exactly how Miller came up with her design, but there's a good chance she pulled from examples in utopian communities or sanatoriums. But this time, unlike many other instances, women's dinning of the Bloomer suit was not innocuous. It was a direct challenge to contemporary social conventions, which dictated that wearing trousers in public was for the eyes only. Amelia argued that women's over the top dresses limited their access to physical

activities and ensure that women remained subordinate to men. The outfit caught on, and Amelia was amazed at the fear she had caused. As she put it, Bloomer expounded on the benefits of the costume and subsequent issues of the Lily, and women's rights advocates began to believe that removing those layers of oppressive clothes was an important part of their effort to reject the confines of a male dominated society. Women began sending letter as to Amelia asking her for

patterns to make the outfit. The Lily circulation went from five hundred a month to four thousand. There were Bloomer balls and Bloomer festivals, and Amelia began wearing the outfit everywhere, at lectures, at parties, at church, and in the office. Amelia said in The Lily, those who think we look queer would do well to look back a few years at the time they wore ten or fifteen pounds of petticoat and bustle around the body and balloons on their arms.

Then imagine which cut the queerest figure they or we. Amelia Bloomer got a lot of the credit for wearing the dress and trousers outfit, hence it being named after her, but Amelia has acknowledged Elizabeth Smith Miller as the originator of the style when it came to dress reform in America in England, and she said that if it weren't for Miller, neither she nor Stanton would be trapesing around

in the controversial garb anyway. So it wasn't because of a milius lack of humility that people rallied around the name Bloomers for the new costume. Anyway, her last name is pretty fitting for those billowy pantaloons. So Bloomers were hot stuff for many people, but not most people. The women who dared to wear pants in public in lieu of dresses that sacrificed health for social decency weren't going

to get away with their rebellion that easily. Many women chose not to wear or support the outfit because they found it ridiculous or undignified, because they weren't interested in just reform, because their families begged them not to, or any other reason. But women who did wear it were subjected to lots of ridicule and criticism. Some people said that bloomer wearers were only homely women trying to get

men's attention. Some critics said the bloomer suits erased any trace of appeal or mystery in the women who wore them, which could be destructive to the prospering of American families. Bloomer wearers were accused of trying to become men, inspiring fear in the hearts of people who couldn't stand the thought of any disruption to gender roles. Women were harassed and embarrassed in the streets, often afraid to go out in bloomers due to fear of being scorned or even

mobbed for being so bold. An article in the October sixty one issue of the newly founded New York Times described the quote dubious reception to the new style in London and may clear the fear of a slippery slope, leading to an uprising of liberated women. For if the fair sex emancipate themselves from the tyranny of custom and costume,

what may they not do next? One journal hits very ill naturely that the new dress is best adapted for a particular class of ladies, who, poor things have a deal of street walking, would find the bloomer costume quite a blessing, since its adaptation to outdoor exercise is insisted on as one of its chief recommendations. If it be once patronized by the class in question, I need not

say it will have no chance with any other. One might, in fact, sooner abridge our liberties than curtail the female petticoats, and alter the constitution more easily than affect a radical change in feminine costume. So yeah, I need not go through any more insulting comments filled with archaic thought. For you to get the picture, women plus Bloomers equals bad, terrifying, and somehow worse than stripping our freedoms. After the break,

we'll get into the downfall of the Bloomer costume. We all felt that the dress was drawing attention from what we thought of far greater importance, the question of woman's 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. In the minds of some people, the short dress and woman's rights were inseparably

connected with us. The dress was but an incident, and we were not willing to sacrifice greater questions to it. Amelia wrote that in the Chicago Tribune article I mentioned earlier. By eighteen fifty nine she had ditched the costume, and Elizabeth Katie Stanton only wore the Bloomer suit for about two or three years after her father and friends convinced her to retire the ensemble. The trend didn't last for

even a decade. Bloomer's unpopularity in the derision that brought on the women who wore them discouraged women from wearing the outfit and ultimately led to its faith into relative obscurity, though advocates of health reform did continue to embrace similar costume throughout the eighteen fifties and sixties. So Bloomers had fallen by the wayside, but cage cunolines were growing in popularity.

Those were lighter and more flexible, and gave women a better range of mobility as compared to the hot and

unhygienic layered petticoats of previous years. According to the Ladies newspaper of eighteen sixty three, so perfect are the wave like fans that a lady may ascend a steep stare, lean against the table, throw herself into an armchair passed to her stall at the opera, and occupy a further feet in the carriage, without inconveniencing herself or others, and provoking the rude remarks of observers, thus modifying in an important degree all those peculiarities tending to destroy the modesty

of English women. And lastly, it allows the US to fall in graceful fold. Many women, including Bloomer herself, were content with wearing these and cage crinolines were inexpensive, worn by working class and black women. That meant that they also came to signify women's shifting position in society, and they challenged racial and class hierarchies. A Bloomer light costume did come back decades later as athletic wear. Dress reform continued after the Civil War and fashion standards eased up

in the early nineteen hundreds. Miller and Bloomer continued to be active in social movements, but the fervor for Bloomers have been relatively short lived. Clearly, Bloomerism and dress reform really scared some people who saw it as a gateway drug to more rights for women. Someone and at the time did view dress reform as inextricably linked with the women's rights movement. To them, choosing new dress that anticipated a shift in women's roles, rights, and power was a

significant action. But others just saw Bloomerism as a byproduct of the real work that needed to be done for women. So dress reform took a back seat, and that's valid. While fashion can be a great visual signifier of social progress, cultural autonomy, and identity, that symbolism can't belie real gender class and race issues still at play based on who gets to wear the fashion, how and where they wear it,

and how they're treated when they do wear it. Even Bloomer was conservative, as she didn't take to the liberal, religious and abolitionist views many of her peers did. Let me remind you again that this period of dress reform and women's rights activism took place while women who were still enslaved were not concerned about having the freedom to ditch corsets and wear pantaloons in public, and that Native Americans were often being forced to give up their traditional

dress in favor of European clothes. To this day, conversations around what people wear and what it signifies about their background, ideas, and identity are often contentious, and they can devolve into cultural shaming and public mockery. And he said, why are you wearing that? You know, really my favor? Why are you wearing that? Take it off? And then the next thing I realized is we're both of my scuff from hand.

Just try to remove it. There have been strides in American fashion, like clothes created with religious practices in mind, gender neutral clothing, clothes that cater to people with disabilities, and clothes created for a wider range of body sizes and tights. But clothing choices still invite stigma and judgment, and people are still confined by social norms and strea. Some people are ridiculed for what they wear when they're

not even trying to be subversive. So yes, Bloomerism did not have an immediate impact in terms of it meaningfully changing women's lives, and it operated and privileged spaces. But a million Bloomer and Elizabeth Smith Miller both used clothing as a vehicle to defy the constraints that were part of their lived experiences, and they stepped out on the limb and endured backlash in service of a goal that

was bigger than just them. In the end, they showed how a few people's personal descent can galvanize many, and that has the potential to change minds and societies around the world. Andrew Howard is our producer. Holly Fry and Christopher hasiotis our our executive producers. If you're not already subscribed, you can make sure you never miss an episode by subscribing to the show on Apple Podcasts, to I Heart

Radio app or wherever you get your Podcasts. We'll be back next week with another episode of Unpopular m