Dress-reform

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Introduction

The following Lectures were delivered in Boston during the spring of the present year ; and their purpose was to arouse women to a knowledge of physical laws, to show them how their dress defies these laws, and what different garments they should adopt. All, save the last, were written by female physicians of recognized ability and position ; and the testimony thus given concerning the injuries inflicted by dress was felt to be authoritative and convincing. ' The lectures excited much attention at their first presentation ; and, soon after, they were repeated by request in several adjoining cities. In compliance with the wishes of many hearers, and from a desire to extend the good work which they have already accomplished, they are now offered to the public in permanent form.

It is believed that their force and value will be enhanced by a statement of the circumstances which led to their preparation.

A little over *a year ago, it became the duty

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of a committee of ladies, associated together, to take cognizance of the wide-spread and increasing dissatisfaction then existing in regard to woman's dress, to inquire into the many charges brought against it, and to determine what steps, if any, could be taken towards making it more healthful, artistic, and serviceable. With no preconceived theories to establish, these ladies set to work in good faith to ascertain precisely what was wrong, how to cure it, and how to render these cures acceptable and widely known. They consulted the experienced, fairminded women about them, corresponded with many in other cities, and made a patient study of the hygienic and aesthetic principles to which a proper dress must conform. The result of these inquiries was to convince them that the whole structure and the essential features of our present apparel are undeniably opposed to the plainest requirements of health, beauty, and convenience, and that any remedies, to be thorough, must concern themselves not merely with the external costume, but with every garment worn beneath it.

It seemed vital to the physical well-being of the whole nation that such remedies, when devised, should be generally and permanently

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adopted. And yet it was also evident that any reform in woman's dress, which should produce a marked and sudden alteration in her appearance, would find favor with but a few ; and that these few, however heroic, must ultimately yield to the prejudices of the many. Thus the wisest efforts would result in defeat, unless due deference were paid to the force of custom and to the conventional standards by which every innovation must be judged.

It was accordingly deemed best to render the improvements that should be recommended, however thorough they might be, as unnoticeable to ordinary observers as it was possible to make them, without too great a sacrifice of health, comfort, and beauty to the fashions of the time. A striking change in the appearance could only be produced by some sudden change in the external costume ; and, tried by physiological principles, that appeared by no means the most objectionable portion of the attire. Indeed, under intelligent guidance, it would admit of such modifications and selections as would eliminate its worst features, and accommodate it to a wholly novel hygienic suit worn beneath it. And a complete revolution in the structure and the adjustment of the ordinary under-dress was vni INTRODUCTION.

by far the most important thing to be gained. If that could be effected, the outward covering would in time take care of itself.

This view did not imply that a radical change in the entire dress was not in itself desirable, but that, whether desirable or not, it could not be imposed at the present time. A new costume, to be of lasting benefit, must appear in response to a general call, and to meet an enlightened and permanent desire. Any endeavor to introduce it to-day would only invite another defeat, to dishearten reformers in the future.

The wisdom of these conclusions had been demonstrated by experience. All previous attempts at dress-reform had been failures, because they sought to accomplish an immediate result by ill-considered and inadequate means. It was supposed that from bad clothes to good was but a step, and that the only preliminaries necessary were to devise the best possible apparel, and to invite everybody to adopt it. The most noticeable of these failures was the Bloomer costume ; for, of all attempted revolutions in dress, it sought to bring about the most radical change in the appearance, and it came the nearest to effecting this end. Its originators, who were themselves intelligent and brave, proceeded

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on the assumption that great numbers of women throughout the country were not only dissatisfied with the old attire and longing for a better, but that they would at once adopt a better as soon as it should appear, however odd it might look, and from whatever source it should spring. Others were to follow their example, not from any deliberate and reasoning preference for the new over the old, but because the new should become the mode. When all had worn it and experienced its blessings, they would refuse to abandon it, and thus its reign would be made secure.

The result proved how mistaken were these assumptions. It was, indeed, true that many had grown restless under the burdens and restrictions of their dress. Of these, the more desperate seized the remedy offered, and defied consequences ; but a greater number, who coveted the ease and freedom it promised, lacked the courage to adopt it, and waited till it should establish itself in general favor. A few, regardless of higher claims, were attracted by its novelty, and hastened to lead a new style. But to the majority of thoughtless women it remained an object of indifference or of ridicule. With evils and their remedies they had little to do.

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For them, nothing could be right which was not fashionable ; and nothing could be fashionable which had not come from Paris. They were strengthened in their hostility by that half of humanity whose favor they chiefly sought, and who, as they had never experienced the miseries of the old attire, could never appreciate the comforts of the new. Men sneered at the costume without mercy, and branded it as hideous. As made and worn by many of its followers, it was certainly not beautiful : but had it been perfection itself, it would have utterly perished ; for arrayed against it were the force of ignorance and of habit, and the persistent prejudices to which they give rise. Those who devised it had taken no pains to humor long-established tastes, or to induce a candid consideration of the advantages it would confer. While overrating the intelligence and courage of their followers, they had underrated the strength of their opponents. Before the ridicule that assailed it, its converts soon disappeared. A few clung to it resolutely : but they learned at last that the mental discomfort it brought to its singular adherents outweighed the physical comfort it gave ; and they, too, went back, with a protest, to the old, detested garb. Thus the Bloomer costume has

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perished, and is remembered only as a tradition. Certain benefits it brought ; but these are not what it sought to confer. A permanent reform of the dress of American women it has not effected ; and it has, unquestionably, delayed its advent. So signal a failure has tended to discourage all subsequent efforts in the same direction, and has confirmed the thoughtless in their servile copying of foreign models.

But, had the costume succeeded in establishing itself as our permanent and recognized dress, it would not have rendered further reform unnecessary. The improvements it made, though conspicuous and important, were superficial. It simplified the clothing, lessened its weight, and gave freedom to the limbs; but certain pernicious features were retained. So long as the trunk of the body is girded in the middle by bands, with too little clothing above and an excess of it below r , so long will the greatest evil of our present dress remain untouched.

Notwithstanding the lessons of the past, many still fancy that the object desired can be reached by a short and easy path. When dress-reformers seek for some wise and sure method of advancing their work, they meet advisers who say : " Fashion is the one powerful ally w T hom xn INTRODUCTION.

you should strive to gain : concentrate your efforts upon her ; hunt her to her mysterious lair, — to that secret haunt beyond the seas, where, in busy silence, this frivolous Hecate brews the deadly potions she forces to our lips. There, convert her to your views, and the cause is won. Since we must all obey her behests, it behooves us to see that they are the behests of knowledge and of common sense."

To which we reply, Fashion is too fickle to be a valuable coadjutor in any work. Continual change is necessary to her very existence ; and the costumes she imposes, however acceptable and good, can be but the whims and vagaries of an hour. To intrust vital principles to her is to write them upon the sand. Neither is she as despotic as she may seem. Her mandates reflect the wishes of her subjects ; and, when we rail against her, we rail against a secondary cause. If she deserves opprobrium from us, it is because we force her to accede to our demands. She stoops to conquer the American market. At home, in Paris or Berlin, she amuses herself with the invention of ever-fresh absurdities of style ; but they are for duchesses and queens, whose daily lives are of little value to the world or to themselves, and who can afford to give their

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time to the display of costly follies. We are a nation of earnest workers and of plain republicans ; yet no absurdities that she conceives for others are absurd enough for us. We bid her send to our shores only her last and wildest conceits, and to add to them an extra touch. If she has delicate fabrics, we wish to wear them in our changeable climate ; we require her to lengthen our trains, that we may drag them, on hurried errands, through unswept streets ; to load our skirts with ornament, that we may bind them about our feeble frames ; and to pinch and plait the slender bodices in which we do housework, tend shop, and lift unruly children. Fashion exclaims, " Mon Dieu ! what glorious creatures these Americans are ! They abound in money, and they adore my caprices. I must give them their hearts' desire ! "

It is not against her power that we should strive, for she is more catholic in taste than her devotees, and more concessive to the requirements of reason. She now offers us good styles as well as bad ; and that we adopt the bad rather than the good is not because of any inexorable necessity against which we hopelessly contend, but because, of our own free will, we prefer the tvorst that she can devise.

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Moreover, she controls but a small portion of the domain of dress. The worst evils we experience are beyond her power to affect. It is for her to modify the outer costume, and to vary its countless details ; but with the abiding and essential structure of the whole attire she has nothing to do. And what are a few ruffles more or less, a fitful change in the trifles of finish and trimming, to the inequalities of temperature, the burdens and the compressions, which our dress in every one of its many forms must inflict ? They are but mint, anise, and cummin, compared with the weightier matters of physical laws perpetually broken by an established and unvarying style of senseless underwear, which has been handed down from generation to generation, and which we have all accepted from our mothers and grandmothers as the legacy of Fate, asking no questions as to its utility, and dreaming of nothing else as possible.

What is needed, then, is not to assail Fashion, but to teach Hygiene, — to awaken women to \ a consciousness of the injuries that follow the wearing of their present garments, and to demonstrate that it is in their power so to modify this tight, heavy, and complicated style of apparel as to increase the strength, ability, and

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happiness of themselves and of their children. Only through a general indifference to Nature's laws has a steady adherence to suicidal fashions been possible in the past. To remove such indifference should be the primal endeavor of any reformers who desire to lay the foundations for a broad and beneficent work.

In accordance with these views, the Association, of which mention has been made, took measures, early in the present year, for the public delivery of a series of free lectures to women, concerning the structure of their dress, and the important natural laws with which it conflicts. From a belief that no views would be so intelligent, and no words so effective, as those of experienced female physicians, a number of regularly educated and able members of the medical profession were selected, and urged to speak upon this theme. Most of them were personally unknown to the members of the Association ; and all were chosen solely on account of their manifest fitness for the task. One has been for thirty years a well-known and successful practitioner, and during that period has had a wide acquaintance with the physical sufferings of her sex. Another is President of the Ladies' Physiological Institute, — a large and honorable society, —

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and for a long time has taken charge of an important dispensary at the North End. Two are regular professors, and one a lecturer, in the Medical Department of the new Boston University ; and all are practising physicians of good repute. The invitation extended to them they accepted without hope of recompense, and simply from a benevolent desire to stay the tide of misery and weakness which they are daily called upon to observe.

The lectures were not intended to be a connected course, but a series, where all should be kindred in scope, and each one complete in itself. There was, therefore, no assignment of any special topic to any special lecturer ; nor did the lecturers hold any consultation beforehand, either together or with the Association, as to what should be said. The general theme assigned was " Dress, as it affects the Health of Women ; " and the physicians were left to advance whatever assertions and opinions might seem to them good. Those for whom they spoke had no hobbies to present, no theories to uphold : their purpose was simply to obtain such a public presentation of facts concerning the dress of women as should command attention and induce reform. Thus the papers, when read, were as fresh to them as to any of the audience.

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The entire freedom of expression which this plan secured might have been supposed to result in a wide dissimilarity of views. But, as if with intentional concurrence, these several physicians, of different experience, education, and schools, agreed, not only in general statements, but in the specification of the minutest details ; and these statements were also in perfect unison with the conclusions to which the Association had previously been led.

The plan upon which the series had been given, and the uniformity of belief which it developed, implied, of course, some repetitions ; but these were to be welcomed as evidences of the truth of what was said. It had not been the aim of the speakers to propound startling facts or singular opinions, but, without technical terms or learned speculation, to bear such plain, direct testimony to a few vital truths as should carry conviction to the minds of their hearers. Judging by the crowded and eager audiences that assembled to hear them, and the inquiries and endeavors subsequently put forth in the cause of reform, these efforts to benefit others met with a cordial and earnest response.

The claims of the physiologist were of such surpassing importance, that only one lecture in xviii INTRODUCTION.

the series was devoted to the need of reform from an aesthetic point of view. In the closing paper, considerations of beauty, economy, and fitness received some recognition.

For women who are already convinced of the evils of their present dress, and who desire to provide for themselves a better, an Appendix has been prepared, in which will be found some explicit and practical suggestions in regard to the radical improvements that are capable of ready adoption to-day. It offers no regulation-suit for all to accept, irrespective of peculiar needs and preferences ; but, by defining clearly the principles upon which a proper dress should be constructed, and by presenting a variety of forms in which such principles may be embodied, it seeks to avoid those unnecessary limitations upon individual freedom which would be unwise if they were not futile.

Table Of Contents

Lecture y Page

I. By Mary J. Safford-Blake, M.D. . . i

II. By Caroline E. Hastings, M.D. . . . 42