Bloomer Girl!

Last Saturday, I went to a wedding in Orange County, New York, and spent the night in the city of Middletown.

I had never heard of Middletown, New York, so I naturally felt compelled to look it up in wikipedia.

I’m always interested in the notable people who come from a town, so I went and grazed Middletown’s list. Not a lot of particularly notables on the list, I’m afraid. You know they’re scraping when they’ve got the Chief Technology Officer of the NYC Department of Transportation as a highlight.

There were a few people I’d at least heard of: marathoner Frank Shorter and basketball player Cleananthony Early. Then there was an entertainer named Little Sammy Davis, but he turned out to be no relation to the Sammy Davis.

But the notable who caught my eye was one Lydia Sayer Hasbrouck, women’s dress reformer.

Women’s dress reformer? Okay!

Lydia Sayer Hasbrouck was born in 1827, and was keen on freeing women from the constraints of Victorian-era clothing: crinolines, bustles, cinched waists, laced up corsets…and making it easier for women to get comfortably around. One woman she was keen on freeing was herself:

In 1849, she adopted the then-radical style of clothing known as the bloomer or reform dress — an adaptation of Turkish pantaloons with a knee-length overskirt. When she applied to the Seward Seminary in Florida, she was told that she could not be admitted unless she stopped wearing the reform dress.She refused and had to finish her education elsewhere.She later recounted that this experience "anchored me in the ranks of women’s rights advocates advocates", and she resolved to fight for women's "physical, political and educational freedom and equality. She wore the reform dress throughout her life, including at her wedding. (Source: Wikipedia)

Women, she felt, would never be the equals of men if they were forced to wear impractical clothing. Quite a woman, Lydia was trained in hydropathy – 19th century water-based PT – at something called Hygeia-Therapeutic College, where she enrolled after Seward Seminary rejected her. She was also a journalist, and, elected to the Middletown Board of Education in 1880, “she is thought to have been the first American woman to hold elected office.” She worked as a real estate developer. Plus she was a wife and mother of three. No fussy, impractical clothing held this bloomer girl back!

These days, there are plenty of comfy and practical clothing options for women. As I write this, I’m wearing jeans, sneakers, a turtle neck and a fleece. Comfy r’ us.

We’ve come a long way, baby. And yet, we still see women destroying their feet by wearing pointy-toe high heels. And the creator of Spanx is a billionaire.

If Lydia Sayer Hasbrouck could see all that comfy clothing, I suspect she’d be a bit shocked but mostly delighted. As for the spike heels and Spanx, she’d probably be rolling around in her Middletown, New York grave – able to roll, no doubt, because she was wearing her those bloomers…