Girl Athletes and Working Women
In the 19th century, poor women were known to wear corsets "boned" with rope, rather than steel or bone, to facilitate work in the field.
-
Approx. second half of 1880s poster showing Annie Oakley wearing short-skirted attire
-
An 1897 ad, showing a relatively early example of an ordinary non-sea-bathing woman in public view in unskirted garments (to ride a bicycle)
-
1895 Punch satire on wearing a bicycle suit despite lacking a bicycle
-
Wigan "pit brow lasses" scandalized by wearing trousers for dangerous work in coal mines. They wore skirts over their trousers, rolled up to the waist to keep them out of the way.
Read more about this topic: Victorian Dress Reform
Famous quotes containing the words girl, athletes, working and/or women:
“This girl borrowed no dim light of a star
Nor ever night held her in a dark mesh,
A slim bloom she stood of the first larkspur,
A wind of spring fluttered in her white flesh.”
—Allen Tate (1899–1979)
“To read well, that is, to read true books in a true spirit, is a noble exercise, and one that will task the reader more than any exercise which the customs of the day esteem. It requires a training such as the athletes underwent, the steady intention almost of the whole life to this object.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Stay-at-home mothers, . . . their self-esteem constantly assaulted, . . . are ever more fervently concerned that their offspring turn out better so they won’t have to stoop to say “I told you so.” Working mothers, . . . their self-esteem corroded by guilt, . . . are praying their kids turn out functional so they can stop being defensive and apologetic and instead assert “See? I did do it all.””
—Melinda M. Marshall (20th century)
“... contemporary black women felt they were asked to choose between a black movement that primarily served the interests of black male patriarchs and a women’s movement which primarily served the interests of racist white women.”
—bell hooks (b. c. 1955)