Bloomers. You read that right. I wrote bloomers. It's not something you expect to see in a blog, but it wasn't something I was expecting to see in the satirical magazine, Judge, either. I guess I thought women's undergarments were off limits in the 19th century. Clearly they are not. :)
This past week I was working with magazines and illustrations from Judge. Judge was created by some of the cartoonists who left Puck magazine. I came across a page from the November 16, 1895 issue and found an illustration of women who were dressed in their “pneumatic bloomers." This amusing illustration depicts women participating in winter sports and how these not so pretty, but highly effective (and protective) bloomers made sports safer and more fun. My particular favorite illustration was the one that depicted how bloomers would help anyone who fell through ice to keep them afloat especially because they could protect the victim “until even tardy aid can be summoned.”
Although these illustrations are pretty silly, bloomers were indeed used for sports and more interestingly, they were part of the women's rights movement. They were made popular by Amelia Bloomer, who according to History.com, was the creator of a woman's newspaper, which supported issues such as women's rights and temperance. As her interest in women's rights grew, she also became interested in clothing and came up with the idea of bloomers for bicycling. Patricia Marks, in her book, Bicycles, Bangs, and Bloomers: The New Woman in Popular Press, writes, "The woman who puts on divided skirts and took to the roads on her "safety" gained not only independence but also a measure of health and a sense of well-being that her neurasthenic sister of earlier decades might have envied." Bloomers. Who knew?
http://www.history.com/topics/amelia-jenks-bloomer
Marks, Patricia. Bicycles, Bangs, and Bloomers: The New Woman in Popular Press. Louisville: University of Kentucky, 1990.
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