Amelia Bloomer

Bloomer costume, 1851

Amelia Bloomer in the bloomer costume named after her, from The Lily, 1851

Amelia Jenks Bloomer (born May 27, 1818 in Homer , New York , † December 30, 1894 in Council Bluffs , Iowa ) was an American suffragette .

Amelia Bloomer was initially a tutor. She lived with her husband Dexter Bloomer, editor and co-owner of the liberal Seneca County Couriers , in Seneca Falls , New York State. There she was a member of the abstinence movement . The Ladies Temperance Society was founded there in 1848, and Bloomer was a board member. From 1849 the association published its own magazine with the title The Lily with Amelia Bloomer as publisher and sole editor. The magazine initially appeared as a small brochure with a maximum print run of 300 copies. In 1850 Bloomer changed the title and content of the paper and renamed it The Lily. Devoted to the Interests of Women ; it was now available by subscription . In the period that followed, Bloomers magazine became known as the mouthpiece of the American women's movement and, above all, of the reform of women's clothing .

Amelia Bloomer's name has been linked to efforts to reform clothing since 1851 to give women more freedom of movement and thus more opportunities to actively participate in social, political and working life. This included the abolition of corsets , a shortened to knee-length skirt and a worn under the skirt, ankle-length baggy pants . In 1851 she first publicly presented a corresponding suit, which was named after her bloomer costume , although she herself repeatedly emphasized that the actual inventor was Elizabeth Smith Miller (1822-1909). These first women's trousers met with keen interest from women's rights activists, but were not accepted by the general public, but aroused scorn and ridicule. Almost ten years later, Bloomer resigned and declared her attempt at reform to have failed.

literature

• Gundula Wolter : Pants, female. Cultural history of women's pants . Jonas Verlag, Marburg 1994, ISBN 3-89445-176-9 .
• Victor Grossman : Rebel Girls: Portraits of 34 American Women . Papyrossa, Cologne 2012, pp. 87–93.

Web links

Commons : Amelia Bloomer  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Construction of the Bloomer Costume