About Dress Reform

The following is an interesting paper read by Misa Loana M. Dayidson, at a Farmer's Picnic held in the Southwestern portion of this county a few weeks ago, and is of sufficient interest on this subject, which is now provoking so much discussion and attention, as to warrant its reproduction : WE .UÏE PEOGRKSSIXG KAI'IDLÏ. "This is an age of rapid progress. Never in all the hietory of the human race has the ingenuity of mankind, in the form of inventions and all kinds of science, made such great advancement as at the present time. Were you able to put forth your hand, push back the veil aiul peer through the Stygian blackness of the mysterious future, your eyes would behold still greater changes and advancement. Could you step from the present time across a space of twenty-five years into the year of 1920, it would be like leaving the oíd world and entering a new one. AVe live in a land of liberty and freedom, a land where woinan has been liberated from her sbackles and is lowed to think and act for herself. She is no longer considered inferior to man and simply a servant or slave, but in every respect inan's equal. WO-MEN MAY BE EDÜCATED. It is no longer a disgrace for a woman to have a good education, but they are freely admitted to our colleges and higher institutions of learning, and tlms equipped for.life's work we find them actively engaged in nearly all the occupations that are entered by man. Parents are beginning to see the wisdom of givina; their girls, as well as their boys, a liberal education, so that, if circumstances demand it, they can fall back on their own resources and be able to take care of themselves, and not, as a last resort, marry some poor stick of a man and flnally be obliged to take in washing to support the family. A CHANGE IS IMPBBATIVE. Since woruan's spbere has become so enlarged and she is filling so many positions that were not open to her a quarter of a century ago, she finds it necessary, as weil as does her brother co-workers, to find some cheap and speedy mcans of getting to and from herwork. .Man's inventive genius has solved tliis knotty problem of tion, not only on the streets of our towns and cities, but on our country roads, in the shape ot a bicycle. But woiaan flnds herself hampered and hindered in the freedom of locomotion by her long, heavy, skh-ts. Henee, in order to avail herself of the convenience of the bicycle, the common sense woman of today finds an imperative deinand for i radical change in woman's dress. WHAT 8HALL IT BE ? "The necessity for such a change baving been established, the next thing is what shall it be ; the Assyriau costnme, vhich was so popular at Chicago during the Coluinbian Exposition ; the Greek drapery, so highly lauded by Mary Stowe aud Mre. Flower ; or, wiU it be the divided skirt, which combines all the essentials of a perfect dress. There are argumenta in favor of all. Ho we ver lot as eonsider a few of the advantages that any one of these costumes would bring to woman-kind. What a boon it would be to the women in factories, schools, offices aud shops to be free from the weight of a long, heavy skirt! Especially is this true in " stormy weather, when the skirts become damp and we have to sit at our work a half n day at a time with damp skirts, thus endangering our health and perhaps our lives. Such a costume would prevent many severe and painful accidents occasioned by the dress skirt becoming entangled in tlie wheel. Theu they are much cheaper and more cleanly, for they do not sweep the streets and thua becoine worn andfrayed, besides pieking up all the fllth and dirt, and oftimes genus of disease, from the streets. The Assyrian costume affords a superior amount of warmth for the same amount of weight, over the open skirt of the same leiigth ; the Grecian robe is more appropriate for a house dress. So it seems tliat only tlie divided skirt can assume all requirements. BELP-CONSTITÜTED AUTHORITIES. Of course ruoderji prudery will prejudice popular sentiment against thia new departure in dress. A class oL gentlemen, of undoubtedly henevolent intentions, have taken upon themselvea the onerous task of deciding, somewhat dogmatically, what the feminine half of the human race ought to be, to do, to think, to want and to wear; no shadow of doubt as to their fitness for this selfappointed mission appears ever to have ílitted across their minds, and it seems almost too bad to have to criticize when they evidently mean so well; but it is ever our duty to be cruel to fiction, if thereliy we may be more kind to truth . They apparently imagine that the world began with male man living scrupulously within "one sphere" and with female man living rigidly within "another spliere,"each having different tasks, liabits and occupations and ing different costumes. Their amazing misconception of the actual liabits of the male and female of the human race is displayed in the following sentence of a paper read before au anti-bicycle club in a New England town : "Woinan bas made her way into the smoking room and inounted the bicycle. She has begun to adopt the male attire and nothing but her own taste will stop her. After all, nature has made two sexes." ONLY MEN SUOULD INDULGE. Now these learned "Thebees" really believe that nature gave to man a taste for tobáceo not shared by woman, aud that bicycle riding in the streets is a peculiarly uufemiuine action, and that nature bestowed upon man the ability to créate for himselí a peculiarly "male attire" to which woman lias no title. While it would of course be pleasing to ferninine vanity to believe tbat the feniinine half of the race never possessed the weakness of smoking and that the occasional woman to whoin tbey referred as havine "made her way to the smoking room" is a new and extraordinary departure in the ferninine part of the human race, truth utterly refuses to allow us to lay this flattering iinction to our femiuine souls. We may admit, possibly, that woman shows superior sense in having in some countries left off smoking, but it will never do to say "she has made her way into the smoking room, and mounted the bicycle, as if the two were eqnally inno vating, equally modern and peculiarly unfeminine customs. As a matter of faet, originally there was not íi partiële of difference between man's love for tobáceo and woman's enjoymeut of the weed. Then, as to mounting the bicycle, this is the tamest of a tame procedure, as compared with the well known thousand of years old femiuine custom of riding in the most public and crowded city streets astride a donkey or a camel, and it was womanly because woman did it. Since this is the case, why should these modem tlemen object to a woman mounting a wlieel when she does not happen to possess a donkey or a camel. TIIEY ARE WOMAN'S BY KIGIIT. But in regard to "male attire," I doubt if tliere is any subject regarding wliich so much popular ignorance prevails and about wliich somuchnonsense is talked. To hear the average person orate, one would suppose that nature created male man fully clothed in a bifurcated, and gaye liim an indisputable patent which claim is good for all eternity, secure against infringement by the other sex. It is a pity to have to shatter an Ilusión so dear to millions of men. The trutb. is, man did not invont, nor did he flrst wear the bifurcated garment which is variously ñatea as "trousers," "breechee," or "pantaloons." Tlie fact is "trousers" were a purely feíninine invention oreated by woman for her own special use, and man was actually reproached when lie first begao to adopt trousers for his attire. ANTEDATES TUE CHRIBTIAN EBA. AVe are indebted to the historian for alluding to this garment 450 years 1!. 0. as being the coinmon dress of the beautiful oriental woman, and this same fashion abides today in Morocco, Algiers and Tunis. Since it is ed that the bifurcated garment was a feminine iiivention for feniale attire, woman, in returning to the divided skirt or oriental trousers, will merely return to a perfeetly woinanly, etriinentiy sensible fashion of her own original creation. GOWNS BELONG TO MK.V. For thousands of years man wore skirts; scanty skirts, iull skirts, plaited skirts, or short skirts. Man has worn single owns, doublé prowns, gowns triiiliiii.' in the 'lust in true street sweeper fashion, without a thought of iinpropriety in sueh iinitation of l'emale attire, and woinan has never interfered with this sincerest form of flattery as iaf-HH lias heeu discovered. Down to tlie fourteenth century there was almost no distinction between the dress of an English man and woman of rank, savo that when riding to battle men wore sliort skirts instead of Ioiií;. The Englishman's first bifurcated garment appeared about the twelfth century, but undoubtedlv man's mate rejection of the gown and the adoption of the effeininate oriental trouserswas due to a fitness of the costume. TirE MOVEMENT WILL NOT PAIL. Will the movement fail as did the bloomerin the early sixties? we think not, for the samo conditions do not exist at present that made the bloomers impopular. Already women throughout christendom are returning to this bifurcated feminine costumes for bath. ing, gymnastics and bicycle riding. Imagine what a blessing such a costume would be to the 500,000 women who toil as agricultural laborera in the United States, or the 3,000,000 who travel daily tbrough dust or storm to the task of earning their own livelihood in shops and factories, or to the millions of housewives who now work in and about their dwelÜHga hampered and senselessly encumbered with long and heavy skirts. II BEQÜTRBS COURAGE. Courage to adopt what reasou demonstrates to be the best attire for any ocrequires an independence of intellect to ■sviiich the world as a whole has never yet fully attained. The beauty of the American woman depends on three things,- physical culture, careful diet and correct dress. These, added to her already acknowleged intellectual ability, will give her a pre-eminence in the worid equalled by none.