DRESS REFORM. Dress reform. in the nar row sense in which it is customary to use the term, signifies a more or less definite and con eerie(' movement against unhygienie, clothing for women which began about the middle of the nineteenth century.
In the United States the earliest crusader against long skirts, high heels, a multiplicity of bands, restricted breathing capacity. and other unhygienic forms of clothing was Amelia Bloomer. In 1S51 Mrs. Bloomer, as editor of The Lily, a paper advocating equal suffrage rights for men and women, gave some space to the discussion of a comfortable and sensible dress for women. In her case this dress took the form of full Syrian or Turkish trousers ex tending to the ankle in slimmer, and in winter tucked into high boot-tops, worn with a scant skirt coming just below the knees. The credit of originating this costume. although it has always been known by her name. sirs. Bloomer ir. her writings expressly gives to .1rs. Elizabeth Smith Miller, from whom she says she copied it, as did Mrs. Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Mrs. Lucy Stone (Blackwell), another of the pioneer American women suffragists, also adopted it for a time. But all of these ladies eventually re turned to a dress more closely resembling the generally accepted one of their day.
As early as 1857 a National Dress Association was engaged in trying to spread hygienic ideals of dress among the women of the United States. but their efforts seem to have been abortive at that time.
In England the Rational Dress Movement, as it was called. began in the seventies. It grew about equally from two roots—the pre-Raphaelite (estheticism, which flourished at that time, and a zeal for woven woolen clothing. which. sweep ing over Germany, spread to England. The pre Raphaelites advocated. as an artistic need. a return to the simple lines and the color combina tions which they declared had not been found in English costumes since the middle of the four teenth century. The 'antique' waist—untram meled and large—was taught by them to be more beautiful as well as more healthful than the tapering. hour-glass waist. In spite of the clever ridicule spent upon them as apostles of a 'greenery gallery' cult, they really accomplished something fur the cause of dress reform. The 'woolen' crusade of the same period. basing its arguments upon pathological rather than :esthetic grounds. also bore excellent fruit in warmer, more closely fitting, less underclothing.
In 1s7 I a second National Dress Association was formed in Boston. Lectures were given by prominent physicians in which were attacked the chief evils of women's dress—namely. the corset, displacing the internal organs and interfering with the primal and most necessary function of life, breathing: the carrying of a weight of cloth upon the hips, resulting in further abdomi nal displacements: the long skirt impeding loco motion and harboring disease germs; the capri cious and uneven nature of the protection against cold; the high heels and pointed toes of shoes, causing unerect carriage of the entire body as well as b 1%11 and the face•veil, that prolire of ocular trouldes, systcn s of rational dress have been devised ns a result of this nnwement. In the United
states, Mrs. Anna Jenness-Miller became the i..o-t widely known exponent of a system com bining a line regard for hygiene with some regard for beauty and for *ancient prejudices. In I.:1011nd. Lady Ilarberton, president of the Rational Dress became the recog nized leader of the movement. Iler system dif fers greatly from that of Mrs. for she a modification of (lie Turkish Ironer costume. clothing her servants in it. in England there are also a National Ilealth Dress Association and a National Funeral and .Mourn ing Reform Association.
At the World's Fair in Chicago in 189'2 a Dees was held, and new life was infused 11110 the cause. So many cities nr winized Rainy-Day Clubs, with meinhers pledged to wear short skirts in sloppy weather, that the lainy-day skirt is now as familiar an object of the fashion-plate and of commerce as the pelisse and the dolman once were.
In Germany the first definite effort of modern times against unhygienic clothing for women was made under the auspices of the Crown Prin ce of Saxony in Is',73. _1t her suggestion Dr. Max V. Pettenkofer. professor of hygiene at the University of Munich, delivered a course ot lectures on the subject which aroused sonic pull. lie interest. Almost at the same time Dr. Jaeger. of Stuttgart, inaugurated his crusade against all forms of clothing not woolen. The chief articles in his creed were the for warmth about the middle of (he body and the prevention of accumulations of fat and water. Wool. on account of its heating and absorbing lie held to conduce toward this end.
been no widespread movement else where on the Continent in favor of a more ra tional style of dress for women. There has been practically no legislation anywhere on the sub jeet. A minister of education in in the last decade of the nineteenth century. attempted to prohibit the wearing of corsets by girl stu dents under a certain age, lint this piece of sump tuary legislation proved impossible, The general participation of women in outdoor sports has probahly done as much for the of dress reform as the conventions and agitation of the past—unless, indeed. all that agitation made the participation possible. Outdoor ath letics. however, demanding short skirts, ample breathing -pave, light-weight but warm clothing, and the possibility of unhampered movements, and making convent ional the at( ire which all is undoubtedly the strongest ally which dress reform has ever had. Consult : Woolson.
Do ss 1ST4 : Moonier. 7'he Life am! of Bloomer ( Roston, 1$9.1 ItN Relation to Health and climate (London. : Ilaweis, The .trt of ifrtss. (London. 1SSI).