Amelia Bloomer - Script
During mid-nineteenth century, many women were enslaved by evil, tight corsets, heavy
petticoats, and layer upon layer of restricted clothing. Until one day, a hero saved them from
their awful clothing and the lifestyles that went with it. Her name was Amelia Bloomer. Her
contributions to individuality and freedom of women led to many forms of feminine expression.
So that today...
Amelia Jenks Bloomer was born in Homer, New York on May 27th 1818. Very few
women at the time had the chance to progress from a seamstress to a well-educated woman.
Amelia Bloomer was fortunately able to gain such an education for two years. After then, she
became a schoolteacher. In 1840, at age twenty-two Amelia Bloomer married lawyer, Dexter
Bloomer. Even at this young age, Bloomer established a unique feminist philosophy as her
wedding vows excluded the word “obey.” Shortly after her marriage, her husband encouraged
her to begin writing articles supporting prohibition and women’s rights in his own paper, The
Seneca Falls Courier. Consequently, her interests led her to take part in numerous temperance
and women’s rights groups including the well-known Seneca Falls Convention of 1848.
In January of 1849, Amelia Bloomer became inspired by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and
Susan B. Anthony to publish her own newspaper, The Lily. The Lily, dedicated to women’s
suffrage, temperance, education, and fashion.
Her dedication to these issues were embodied in the movement of the Women’s Dress
Reform. Corsets were the normal outfit of a women during the nineteenth century. The style
caused "distorted spines, compressed lungs, enlarged livers, and displacement of the whole
abdominal viscera . . . a weary soul in a weary frame" as described in The Lily, June 1851.
During the Spring of 1851, a woman named Elizabeth Smith Miller began experimenting with a
new design of women's clothing. She described the clothing as "Turkish trousers to the ankle,
with a skirt reaching some four inches below the knee" to replace the swaddling long skirts
women were currently wearing. Elizabeth Smith Miller introduced the reform dress to Elizabeth
Stanton her cousin. Stanton copied her designs, and the two women then decided to inform
another friend, Amelia Jenks Bloomer. Bloomer, intrigued with the healthier form of clothing,
adapted the style to her own tastes. As editor and publisher of The Lily, A Ladies Journal,
Devoted to Temperance and Literature, Bloomer wrote an article in the next issue advocating the
benefits of Miller's "Freedom Dress" or "Rational Dress." Society feared a Dress Reform
Movement would overrun the social standards that governed feminine and masculine norms.
Society feared that the distinction between male and female would fade. The public criticized
women for unsexing themselves, giving them an image of a male, as well as hiding their
femininity.
Amelia continued wearing the bloomers for 6 to 8 years even though the fashion lost
popularity. The Bloomer marked a significant achievement of Amelia Bloomer’s life as a social
reformer. However, she was not a single-issue person. At the age of 30, she witnessed the
Seneca Falls Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions, the launch of the suffrage movement
that peaked in the ratification of the 19th Amendment in 1920. The Lily, once focussing on dress
reform, matured to include the major aspects of the women’s movement. In the early 19th
century, there was an immigration boom which brought new dietary customs including beer and
hard liquor. As women spoke out against the alcoholism, the critics suggested the women should
keep silent. Amelia Bloomer responded, “None of women’s business, when she is subject to
poverty and degradation, and made an outcast from respectable society! None of women’s
business, when her starving naked babes are compelled to suffer the horrors of winter’s blast!...In
the name of all that is sacred, what is women’s business if this be no concern of hers?” Later on,
the Lily inspired other suffrage publications and even published Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s pieces.
Some historians believe it is the first newspaper in the United States owned and operated by a
woman.
In 1854, Amelia sold the Lily when she moved to Council Bluffs, Iowa with her husband
Dexter Bloomer. The Lily was able to maintain popularity even though Bloomer sold it. In
Council Bluffs she attempted to establish churches, Good Templar lodges, suffrage legislation,
and the Soldiers’ Aid Society. Additionally, she was nominated president of the Iowa Women’s
Suffrage Society, and advocated a legal code that ended separation between male and female
property rights. In 1878, Amelia wrote the 45th Congress a petition for relief from the burden of
taxation or for the removal of political voting restriction on women. This is known as the
“Petition from Mrs. Amelia Bloomer of Council Bluffs Iowa Regarding Suffrage in the West”.
Amelia proceeded to write an essay concerning women’s right to vote. From 1881 to 1886, she
helped Elizabeth Stanton write about Iowa’s suffrage movement in her book History of Woman
Suffrage. Amelia Bloomer passed away peacefully at the age of 76 on December 30th, 1894.
Through her passion, Amelia was able to inspire many feminists including Louisa May Alcott.
Today, Amelia Bloomer’s home in Seneca Falls, New York, once used for the Seneca Falls
Convention, is now a national landmark for the public to see. Although Bloomer’s work was far
less renowned than her contemporaries were, she made many significant contributions to the
women’s movement — her ideas of dress reform and her work in the temperance movement
were notable. Moreover, The Lily was a voice for many women reformers such as Elizabeth
Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony. It spoke on many issues such as dress reform and the need
for women’s suffrage. Amelia Jenks Bloomer was a woman who fought the social standards of
the nineteenth century and not only helped begin the women’s suffrage movement, but also put
forth a new fashion for women as an inspiration for the world.