One of the tactics employed by these
reformers was the adoption of so-called "Turkish
Trowsers" [sic]. The Orientalist movement, sparked by
travel to and trade with the Middle East in the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries, provided much inspiration for "'Turkish trowsers,' first
as a masquerade costume, later as a reform garment" (Fischer 1997,
116). Dress was one of several important concerns of these early
feminists. It was believed that dress (specifically pants or trousers)
that permitted a freer range of motion would also give women greater
access to different activities and opportunities. Supporters of
the dress reform movement drew attention to the fact that pants
were already worn by many women in other parts of the world. The
early feminists who adopted this dress relied on the writings of
women such as Lady Mary Wortley Montagu,
the wife of an English Ambassador who traveled to the East in the
early eighteenth century and recorded her impressions. According
to Gayle Fischer, "Mary Wortley Montague's [sic] travel writings
enjoyed a new audience and popularity after Godey's published her
letters to her sister in 1852" (Fischer note 12, 136-7). In one
letter to her sister, written while in residence in Turkey in 1717,
Lady Mary (as she was known) describes "the Turkish habit" that
she had adopted as her wardrobe:
The first piece of my my dress
is a pair of drawers, very full, that reach to my shoes and conceal
the legs more modestly than your petticoats. They are of a thin,
rose-colored damask brocaded with silver flowers. My shoes of
white kid leather embroidered with gold. Over this hangs my smock
of a fine white silk gauze edged with embroidery (Halsband 1986
In another letter to her sister, Lady
Mary describes a visit to a Turkish bath, which reveals the inspiration
for her change of wardrobe:
The lady that seemed the most considerable
amongst them entreated me to sit by her and would fain have undressed
me for the bath. I excused myself with some difficulty, they being
all so earnest in persuading me. I was at last forced to open
my skirt and show them my stays, which satisfied 'em very well,
for I saw they believed I was so locked up in that machine that
it was not in my own power to open it, which contrivance they
attributed to my husband (Halsband, 91).
The pants or drawers that Lady Mary
describes here became rather popular among some American reformers
who considered them a liberating form of dress. But their popularity
was short-lived. Shortly after the bloomer's debut in 1851 and Bloomer's
endorsement of it in a magazine essay, the essay was reprinted in
a number of newspapers around the U.S., awarding Ms. Bloomer much
fame and infamy (Crane 2000, 112). Indeed, Bloomer stopped promoting
her bloomers when she felt that the public's reaction to the garment
began to overshadow her reputation as a writer (Ewing, 64).
Women's trousers, and the wide-spread
use of bifurcated garments for women in general, did not re-surface
on a wide scale until the end of the nineteenth century. What really
launched the second wave of bifurcated garments into the limelight,
not only as underwear but also as outerwear (in the form of trousers
or split skirts) was something completely unrelated to fashion and
politics—the invention of the bicycle.
Although the bicycle was first invented by
Karl von Drais in 1817, it did not gain widespread popularity
until the late 1870s and early 1880s (Oddy 1996, 60). Even so, it
was most popular among men. In fact, the technology of the first
bicycles (specifically the placement of the cranks and pedals) was
such that it was nearly impossible to ride the bicycle with a long
skirt (Oddy, 61). In the 1890s bicycles for men and women emerged,
while at the same time, trousers were also gaining popularity as
a "sport" dress to accommodate women who rode both women's and men's
bicycles (Oddy, 64-5).
Although both bloomers and bicycles
were gaining popularity for women by the late nineteenth century,
for some they were a dangerous combination. Many opposed both bicycling
and bloomer-wearing on the bases of morality and a concern for the
public good. For example, some opponents believed that by wearing
"male dress" (i.e., bifurcated garments, later called "rational
dress" or "alternative dress" by dress reform advocates) women would
adopt other masculine traits, such as the desire for other women.
In other words, there was a fear that such reform
dress would transform women into "inverts"
(to use Havelock Ellis's term) or lesbians—"the unforgivable
sin" in the conservative, heterosexual circles of the Victorian
era. Another concern was that bicycling, a sport that required one
to leave the safe environs of one's home, would lead women to immodesty,
promiscuity and insatiable sexual desire. As Clare S. Simpson notes,
The independent mobility of cyclists
raised genuine alarm for their physical, if not moral, safety;
simply put, the bicycle could easily take women to unsavoury places
where they might be endangered physically (for example, by being
attacked), or morally (for example, by being seduced into imprudent
conduct with intemperate company). [. . .] Drawing on previous
knowledge of the kinds of women who deliberately made themselves
conspicuous in public, that is, prostitutes, there would be a
strong tendency to conclude that cycling women were far from respectable:
not exactly prostitutes, perhaps, but possibly women of loose
morals or with an undeveloped sense of propriety. (Simpson 2001,
In addition, bicycling might not only
lead women to dangerous, unsafe places in—gasp!—open, public spaces,
it might also lead to masturbation (Simpson 2001, 66-7).
The topic of masturbation as a consequence of bicycling received
considerable debate in many medical journals in the late nineteenth
century, a reflection, perhaps, on the prurient interests of some
in the medical profession.
Much of the debate about morality,
bicycles and "bloomerism" (a popular term at the time) centered
around the morality of middle-class women. Ostensibly, the middle
classes lacked the moral resolve and character of the upper classes,
and could easily be swayed and impressed by the immoral actions
of others. (Indeed, the need to "protect" the middle classes from
vice extended well into the twentieth century. Penguin Books were
sued by the British Government in the 1960 when they released D.H.
Lawrence's Lady Chatterly's Lover in
paperback See Nead 2002; Penguinputnam.com.) Thus, what gave bloomers
and bicycles their most significant endorsement was their adoption
by aristocrats. In the late 1890s, Queen Victoria was reported as
riding a tricycle (another variation of the bicycle, made for adults)
and giving her daughters bicycles to ride (Simpson, 64).
Questions of morality related to
sport and dress continue today. The debate between skiing and snowboarding
(both sports of the upper-middle and upper classes) is divided along
the lines of morality and propriety. Among many, snowboarders are
regarded as impolite and inconsiderate on the slopes. Women who
pursue the sport are considered by some to be "unfeminine." By contrast,
some regard skiing as elitist and old-fashioned. Even bicycling
has its pecking order—cruiser bikes, complete with dropped crossbar,
wide gel seats and handlebar bells are regarded by some as too feminine,
whereas mountain bikes are serious, "masculine" vehicles, complete
with seats to protect against testicular numbing. Consider the number
of television commercials in which mountain bikers appear and you'll
see that the majority are men, not women. Although we've come a
long way from bloomerism, and the dress for men and women cyclists
has changed dramatically in order to promote comfort, bicycling
continues to be a highly gendered sport.
(1) Elizabeth Ewing writes, "When
the Englishwoman's Journal was set up in 1857 as the voice of the
new movement, a prospective helper described how, on visiting its
offices in Bloomsbury, she expected 'to see some dowdy old lady,
and found herself in the midst of young women who were well dressed,
beautiful and gay'" (63).
-Crane, Diana. Fashion and Its
Social Agendas: Class, Gender, and Identity in Clothing. Chicago:
The University of Chicago Press, 2000.
-Ewing, Elizabeth. Underwear: A
History. New York: Theatre Arts, 1972.
------. Dress and Undress: A History
of Women's Underwear. New York: Drama Book Specialists, 1978.
-Fischer, Gayle V. "'Pantalets' and
'Turkish Trowsers': Designing Freedom in the Mid-Nineteenth-Century
United States." Feminist Studies 23, no. 1 (1997): 110-140.
-Garber, Marjorie. Vested Interests:
Cross-Dressing and Cultural Anxiety. New York: Routledge, 1997
-Halsband, Robert, ed. The Selected
Letters of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. New York: Penguin Books,
-Horwood, Catherine. "'Girls Who Arouse
Dangerous Passions': Women and Bathing, 1900-39." Women's History
Review 9, no. 4 (2000): 653-673.
-Luck, Kate. "Trousers: Feminism in
Nineteenth-Century America." In: The Gendered Object, edited
by Pat Kirkham. Manchester; Manchester University Press, 1996: 141-152.
-Nead, Lynda. "From The Female Nude:
Art, Obscenity and Sexuality." In The Visual Culture Reader,
edited by Nicholas Mirzoeff. New York: Routledge 2001 , 485-494.
-Oddy, Nicholas. "Bicycles." In: The
Gendered Object, edited by Pat Kirkham. Manchester; Manchester
University Press, 1996: 60-69.
-Penguinputnam.com. "Penguin Putnam
Inc. - History." www.penguinputnam.com/static/packages/us/about/history.htm,
11 June 2002.
-Simpson, Clare S. "Respectable Identities:
New Zealand Nineteenth-Century 'New Women' - on Bicycles!" The
International Journal of the History of Sport 18, no. 2 (2001):
June 13, 2002