THE BLOOMER GIRLS

by Charles Neilson Gattey ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 1, 1968

Bloomers started sprouting under twiggy mini's last year, blossoming into fashion for the third time (1851, 1895, 1967) but the lady who gave the trousers with overskirt her name didn't really invent them; Amelia Bloomer waved them in her crusading newspaper, The Lily, devoted to the concerns of women and their enfranchisement. She was a light and slender foil among the battleaxes of the American struggle for Woman's Rights and her butterfly mind fluttered ahead of the ideas and issues. After ungirdling the girls to the unbridled wrath of their menfolk (she was stoned in the streets of New York City) she went on to commend divorce for women with drunken husbands, supported abolition and the Union (President Lincoln thanked her and Grant ignored her suggestion about the formation of a woman's army corps) and her happy marriage was held up as an example to her more Amazonian colleagues. Mr. Gattey has stripped the lampoonery surrounding the legendary life of the original Bloomer and it's an easy to read light history of the suffering suffragettes.

Pub Date: July 1, 1968

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Coward-McCann

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1968

Categories: NONFICTION