Just reading about what was considered a suitable outfit for the summer of 1880 makes me want to swoon from heatstroke! But alongside the fashion plates and advice to wear a corset to bed to “train” the waistline there were articles by “Medicus” warning about the dangers of tight lacing and horror stories about women puncturing their lungs with their own crushed rib cages !

A bit like today’s size zero debate in fact.where clothes are displayed on tiny models on one page and the editors lament about young women’s poor self image on another.

Meanwhile all dress patterns were offered in
” Medium.viz bust 34″

The illustrations were of improbably proportioned women and adverts for the Edwardian S Bend corsets which gave the exaggerated bust and bum line are quite alarming. But it was amusing to read of a young lady who wore too large a ” Dress Improver” ( bustle) so that as she walked it ” Wagged behind her like a discontented kitten”. There was also the fast young hussy of the 1920′s who was censured for wearing scanty underwear and, in the same article told that it was terribly bad form to waste material and labour by having embroidered trimmings on the knees of her knickers. This was the time when breasts were bound flat by elastic bust bodices to get the boyish flapper look which was all the rage. And also the time when the balance of articles shifted to incorporate many more diet and exercise routines lest those “naughty curves” should spoil the line of your bias cut gown.

I guess nothing much changes only now it’s miracle knickers and lycra shape garments which are advertised to try and make us mould our fat into an “acceptable” shape and the freak shows are on TV under the guise of public interest and information rather than in the fairground booths.

In the second and third books, the girls have a white friend (who they can’t talk to, since they only speak Anishanaabe and she only speaks English) who they call the Breakapart Girl because her waist is so tiny – and then they all go swimming and see her corset and are relieved to know why she’s shaped that way.

They’re really wonderful books & they have a lot of echoes of the Little House books (which I was raised on and are all sitting on a shelf by me right now)

Did Louisa May Alcott really not like him as a character? She didn’t give him a lot of face-time in Little Men, but when he does show up he’s always wonderful. I remember reading somewhere that LMA’s 19th c. “fangirls” were very upset when she introduced Bhaer (nothing new under the sun, eh? :D )

* * * *

As far as the newspaper clipping goes, IMO it represents a strongly conflicted 19th c. American view about fat people. On one hand there’s some admiration (she’s described as “great,” for instance, not “sick” or “disgusting”) but at the same time she *is* an object of a variety of teasing. I am reading about “fat men’s clubs” (which were all over the country at one time) and sometimes the newspapers report on them in the same tone. It’s horrified fascination, yes, but IMO the tone is a lot more balanced and perhaps even more humane than what we see today.

Thanks for posting it – I love these snippets of the past.

Stef from men_in_full

You said, “I’m not as ok with my body as I’d like to be and I still have a thing or two to learn.”

I think there’s a lot of us out there like that – self acceptance is a hard beastie to manage.

It’s not surprising that Pa approved of Laura’s “stoutness,” while Ma was giving her shit about wearing the corset – it’s not uncommon for fathers, then and now, to want to keep their daughters “down on the farm” while many moms, then and now start worrying early on about making their daughters marriagable.

(takes off material culture dork hat)