|
Part of the American
History & Genealogy Project |
Amelia Bloomer 1818 ~ 1894
Amelia Bloomer
The ridicule of the press has often
dimmed a worthy name and such seems to have been the case with
Mrs. Amelia Bloomer, who was born May 27, 1818. An insignificant
myth of American history lies in the supposition that Mrs.
Bloomer originated the garment to which her name was attached in
ridicule, but which has become one of the commonest words in the
English language. Mrs. Bloomer was not the originator of the
style, but adopted it after seeing it worn by others and
introduced it to the public through her paper. But, be that as
it may, Mrs. Bloomer's life and work is no subject for the
cartoonist; she should be ranked among the foremost workers for
the betterment of her sex in America. The facts of her life
substantiate this. It was in 1840 that she first appeared in
public life as an advocate for temperance reform. The study of
that question soon led tier to understand the political, legal,
and financial necessities and disabilities of women, and having
seen the depth of the reform needed she was not slow to espouse
the cause of freedom in its highest, broadest, most just sense.
At that early day no woman's voice had yet been heard from the
platform pleading the rights or wrongs of her sex, so Mrs.
Bloomer employed her pen to say the thoughts she could not
utter. She wrote for the press over various signatures, her
contributions appearing in the Water Bucket, Temperance Star,
Free Soil Union and other papers. On the first of January, 1849,
a few months after the inauguration of the first Women's Rights
Convention, she began the publication of the Lily, a folio sheet
devoted to temperance and the interests of women. That journal
was a novelty in the newspaper world, being the first enterprise
of the kind ever owned, edited and controlled by a woman and
published in the interests of woman. It was received with marked
favor by the press and continued a successful career of six
years in Mrs. Bloomer's hands. In the third year of the
publication of her journal Mrs. Bloomer's attention was called
to the neat, convenient and comfortable, if not esthetic costume
afterwards called by her name. The press handed the matter about
and commented more or less on this new departure to fashion's
sway until the whole country was excited over it, and Mrs.
Bloomer was overwhelmed with letters of inquiry. Many women
adopted the style for a time, yet under the rod of tyrant
fashion and the ridicule of the press they soon laid it aside.
Mrs. Bloomer herself finally abandoned it after wearing it six
or eight years, but the grotesque caricature remained forever
attached to her name.
In 1852 Mrs. Bloomer made her debut on the platform as a
lecturer, and in the winter of that year, in company with Susan
B. Anthony, she visited and lectured in all the principal cities
and towns of her native state, from New York to Buffalo. At the
outset her subject was temperance, but temperance strongly
spiced with the wrongs and rights of women. In 1849 Mr. Bloomer
was appointed post-master of Seneca Falls, and on receipt of the
office he at once appointed Mrs. Bloomer his deputy. Upholding
her theory of woman's brain equality with man's she soon made
herself thoroughly acquainted with the details of the office,
and discharged such duties throughout the four years of the
Taylor and Fillmore administration. In the winter of 1853 she
was chairman of the committee appointed to go before the
legislature of New York with petitions for a prohibitory liquor
law, and she continued her work throughout the state, lecturing
on both temperance and woman's rights and attending to the
duties of her house and office until the winter of 1853-1854,
when she moved to Mt. Vernon, Ohio. Here she continued the
publication of the Lily and was also associate editor of the
Western Home Visitor a large literary weekly paper published in
that place. In the columns of The Visitor, as in all her
writings, some phase of the woman question was always made her
subject. At the same time that she was carrying on her literary
work she visited and lectured in all the principal towns and
cities of the North and West, going often where no lecturer on
women's enfranchise-ment had preceded her. In January, 1854, she
was one of the committee to memorialize the legislature of Ohio
on a prohibitory liquor law. The rules were suspended and the
committee received with mock respect and favor, but the same
evening the legislature almost in a body attended a lecture
given by her on women's right of suffrage. In the spring of 1855
Mr. and Mrs. Bloomer removed to Council Bluffs, Iowa, making it
their permanent home. Mrs. Bloomer intended henceforth to rest
from her public labors, but this was not permitted to her. Calls
for lectures were frequent, and to these she responded as far as
possible, but was obliged to refuse to go long distances on
account of there being at that day no public conveyance except
the old stage coach. In the winter of 1856, Mrs. Bloomer, by
invitation, addressed the legislature of Nebraska on the subject
of woman's right to the ballot. The Territorial House of
Representatives shortly afterwards passed a bill giving women
the right to vote, and in the council it passed to a second
reading, but was finally lost for want of time, the limited
session drawing to a close and the last hour expiring before the
bill could come up for final action. Mrs. Bloomer took part in
organizing the Iowa State Suffrage Association, and was at one
time its president Poor health eventually compelled her to
retire from active work in the cause. She died on the thirtieth
of December, 1894.
Women of
America
Source: The Part Taken by Women in
American History, By Mrs. John A. Logan, Published by The Perry-Nalle
Publishing Company, Wilmington, Delaware, 1912.
|