Victims Of Fashion , In Print; The Crinoline Wars

And I just added more to my list of projects. Found some crochet thread on clearance for a dollar and I want to make the pretty little hair net thingies. I'll have to find the link to them and post them over on the crochet thread. They look so time consuming.

I am hoping to post picture once I get going. I am very inspired to do so after reading all of these great comments though!

We are a great group, aren't we?! I love the support!
 
We are a great group, aren't we?! I love the support!

I think the CWT group is awesome! I really appreciate having a place where I can contribute without fear of ridicule or put-downs. At least that's true most of the time. Sadly everyone doesn't share my admiration for General Longstreet, but alas I digress. The folks here really are great and I love reading opposing views as well as those that agree! Share away @AshleyMel!
 
I have read (as usual, I didn't bookmark the source) that hoops were forbidden for woman factory workers. Dorothea Dix prohibited them for nurses (if you watched the first episode of the first year of "Mercy Street," you saw why). They also were not recommended around open fires, since the "drop and roll" technique for extinguishing clothing fires doesn't work with all that air space underneath. That's a useful thing for reenactors to remember, although out here on the West Coast most reenactment venues now prohibit open fires due to fire danger--which means I'll have to start wearing the things for outdoor reenactments!

On the other hand, in the era of full skirts, the steel "cage" that came "in" in the mid 1850s was downright liberating. Instead of 5-6 petticoats, heavily starched, with one often corded, to hold out that skirt, with the "cage" only two petticoats were needed--one under and one over the cage. Not only was it a big savings on laundry and ironing, but also in weight.

I very much doubt that the farmer's wife wore her cage to milk cows or feed chickens. She would wait until visiting hours to don her better (newer) dress and her cage.

The enormous hoops seen in fashion magazines were normally worn only with ball gowns. Most women stuck with a relatively modest cage ranging from 90" to 110" in circumference.

I still haven't figured out how to drive a car while wearing hoops, a problem that our ancestors didn't have!
 
I just had to know how women manage to sit down with these dresses and hoops? I found a short vid.
Now come on ladies, gather up them hoops.
http://historicalsewing.com/how-to-sit-in-hoopskirt

Not entirely all that hard--now...trying to get modern young men to dance with you while wearing a 5 foot hoop on the other hand.... :bounce: They do crush, but the fellows don't seem to realize that.

@MaryDee I haven't done it, but my elder sister has driven in hoops. It was interesting to say the least!

This is a fascinating thread...I wonder what the percentage was of women who a) caught their skirts on fire and b) of those, how many perished? I can't imagine the terror....
 
There seems to be an inverse relationship between the development of clothes-washing technology and the amount of cloth with which people drape themselves.
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Makes me think of some good advice for the girls left behind, from a January 1862, Salem, Mass. newspaper:
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Imagine getting in or out of a carriage or wagon. Scary.
I read that women used to hang their hoops on the back of a carriage but someone also mentioned something called a traveling cage, it was a hooped dress made of 'spring steel' Spring steel was particularly useful since it could be pressed out of shape temporarily, making it easier for the wearer of the garment (which at its widest could be up to six feet across) to get through doors, sit down, and enter and exit vehicles.
 
A writer to The Times in January of 1857,signing himself "A respectable elderly gentleman" complained,

Often, Sir, at ball or crowded assembly have I been gripped by the confluence of massive tissues. Often have I been suddenly and painfully compressed in a doorway by the framework of a creature whom nature had intended for a fairy. Nay, Sir, more than once have I, without a murmur, submitted during a pelting rain to banishment from my own carriage, constructed originally for the conveyance of four persons, but now, forsooth, not capable of one elderly and two youthful ladies, hedged in their shells like the clapper of a bell.
 
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Ha! Well it really does seem to have been quite a ' thing '? There were women's groups in Europe, forbidding them. I'm not
being argumentative, honest, but from reading what the perceived problems were, those concerned had some points. Seems to have been hoops and crinoline, the topics.

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Gettysburg, 1864

Quite simple, ascertaining how controversial crinolines were. LoC newspapers, dates between 1860 to 1865 , use ' crinoline ' as the search word. You get ads, a few stories on advantages then articles either brief and tragic or long, where someone has popped on the subject, like this fellow, original story.

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You can sure see where one of the main problems would have been, women could not know where their garments were, always. Seems to be the case in most accidents.

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Part of a much longer article, 1863, New Orleans, using for the equally extreme names fashion conferred on styles. Awesome,


Before, 1830's- and using far too much starch- where the fashion outline began a journey up in smoke. Tiny waist of great emphasis, fitted bodice, exaggerated hips.

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@JohnW. well that's sure a much better version of what I was trying to say! Thank you!! I suppose those pesky plagiarism laws prevent me swiping the whole thing? :giggle:

So funny! Here we all are admiring, a little automatically, these fashions- the iconic hoop skirt outline of the era is entrenched in Civil War lore- one of our most beloved images in Time. Who knew it was sooooo embattled? There's something for reenactors to mull over, right? I know a lot stay in character. Men could be irritated by women's skirts- it sounds not uncommon!
 
Discovering this was quite a bit more of a ' thing ', societally, than has been carried forward 150 years. While poking around for information on corsets, continually ran into the controversy. Beyond these horrible stories, men just seem to not have admired them at all.

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Equally, in England
 
You know, I'm torn? This stuff can make you feel your age in a big hurry and it's not something I've paid any attention to at all. On one, obvious hand, hauling around yards of fabric draped over a chicken coop was, well, extreme. Modesty ran slightly amuck especially considering fashion, 80 years previous to this, centered around daring a portion of feminine charm not to fall out of one's dress.

Some current apparel I ran into while looking around for material on the corset thread makes one a little nostalgic for the idea we could bring back a few more inches of fabric.
 
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