DRESS REFORM, a movement of the 19th century, having for its aim the modification of the dress of women along hygienic lines chiefly, but also with regard to comfort and con venience. Many articles of feminine apparel had long been operating against the health of the wearers and the injurious effects had been recognized and more or less frankly discussed in private circles before leaders were found with sufficient earnestness and courage to make organized efforts for reform. So far as the United States is concerned dress reform may be said to date from 1851, when Amelia Bloomer published some articles in favor of freer dress for women in her paper called The Lily. A few years before the Civil War (in 1857) a National Dress Association was started, but made little headway. It was not until a similar society was organized in Boston in 1874 that attempts of this nature began to bear any fruit. Several causes seem to have contributed to making the time more propitious for an active propaganda against tight-lacing, high-heeled and cramping foot-wear, trailing garments, etc. The greater attention paid to physiology in schools dispelled to some extent the ignorance which had been a partial excuse for unhygienic methods of dress. The increasing number of women receiving a college education ensured for the new ideas an audience with minds too liberal and judgments too sound to be rigidly fettered by conventionality and fashion. A third factor not to be disregarded was the firm attitude of physicians. Prevention of disease and the development of normal conditions was becoming the watchword where formerly cura tive measures had been emphasized. The co operation of the medical fraternity by lectures, periodical literature and personal influence should receive due .credit for the progress of dress reform. Such co-operation was a marked feature of the movement inaugurated in Bos ton. As the century drew to a close conditions became still more favorable. The prominence given to bacteriology associated in innumerable minds the trailing skirt with Ferm-transporta tion. The investigation, too, into the relative values of the different fabrics—cotton, linen, silk and wool— as material for underwear (a discussion in which Germany took a notable part) was very timely. It called attention to the lamentable lack of judgment exhibited by many persons, especially women, in protecting themselves by suitable under garments against the changes of the season, and especially the sudden variations of the American climate. The adoption of outer garments suitable for wet weather was undoubtedly hastened by the vogue of the bicycle skirt, which accustomed the eye to a style of garment once attracting unfavorable comment or at least unwelcome observation. Rainy-day clubs, formed in many cities, have done their share toward the introduction of the short skirt. The fact that a great number of women are now daily going to business has also greatly promoted the movement of rational clothes for women. To athletics, too, woman's
dress reform is deeply indebted. The present popularity of out-of-door exercise and sport for women and the general interest taken in physical culture have inevitably tended to mod ify the form of women's garments.
The practice of lacing, with its vicious re sults of molding the feminine form into ab normal lines and crowding the vital organs into disease-promoting states, still persists among women who place less value on health and bodily comfort than on outward appearance and unnatural °grace? Yet on the whole, the move ment toward rational raiment for women is making steady if seemingly slow progress on both sides of the Atlantic. }Esthetic considera tions had little effect upon the earliest dress reformers such as Mrs. Amelia Bloomer and a few women suffragists who first braved public opinion by a radical change of costume. The Turkish trousers and very short skirt adopted by Mrs. Bloomer did not invite imitation; but later phases of reform, both in England and in America, have aimed at grace and beauty as well as health and comfort in the style of garments advocated. In the United States Mrs. Annie Jenness-Miller has been a prominent exponent of the more artistic aspect of the subject. Very near the time of the establish ment in this country of the second National Dress Association an attempt was made by the crown-princess of Saxony to awaken her fellow countrywomen to the importance of dress reform, the hygienic side of the question being most prominent in that effort. Under the leadership of Lady Harberton, president of the Rational Dress Association, the dress reform movement assumed a somewhat different direc tion than that associated with Mrs. Jenness Miller. To retain the natural beauty of the human form and succeed in its harmonious appareling were the aims of some of the dress reformers. There was, however, side by side with this movement one having a utilitarian trend. This was allied to the German move ment in favor of more hygienic garments; the combination of lightness and warmth in the material used being a great desideratum. Or ganized effort along the line of dress reform in England has resulted in the formation of the Rational Dress Association just mentioned and the National Health Dress Association. There is also a society having for one of its aims a change in the customary mourning apparel. Outside of Germany and England little interest has as yet been taken in Europe in the subject of dress reform, although a certain Russian Minister of Education tried in vain to prohibit corsets. Consult Bloomer, 'The Life and Writings of Amelia Bloomer) (Boston 1895) ; Godwin, 'Dress and Its Relation to Health and Climate) (London 1884) ; Harbeis, 'The Art of Dress) (ib. 1881) ; Woolson, 'Dress Reform' (Boston 1874). See Dams; COSTUME; FASHION.