When the bloomer was invented in the 1800s, it sparked widespread condemnation. Nevermind that women’s clothing of the time was restrictive, heavy, and at times could even be dangerous — the swathes of fabric, panniers, and hoops were viewed as virtuous. 

And in contrast, the woman who wore bloomers was indecent and unfeminine. “The model bloomer leaves her poor young husband pouting and weeping at home,” asserted one author in the 19th-century publication Gleason’s Pictorial Drawing-Room Companion.

The bloomer struggle became inextricably linked with suffragism. But the feedback was so dramatic, so negative, that many early suffragists worried that bloomers were detracting from their activism for women’s rights. As a result, the loudest voices in the movement (including Amelia Jenks Bloomer, who popularized the garment) put their dresses back on and their bloomers away.

Women eventually got the right to vote. And eventually, many women also began........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)