1998

20.1

Lori Duin Kelly
Crossing the ‘Bearing’ Straits: Women’s Maternity Dress in the 19th Century

Though Victorian women lived in a period in which, as a popular physician writer of the period, O.S. Fowler described it, maternity was their "one great destiny. . . [their] controlling function" (50), women of this time who found themselves pregnant continued to wear fashions that were harmful to their health as well as the health of their unborn children. They did this despite a considerable body of medical evidence pointing out the dangers of such a sartorial practice, and they did so for a number of reasons. Being fashionable, a term equated in the period with having a narrow waist, allowed women to maintain access to the public sphere and to resist exclusive consignment to the private one of the home which was the designated space for visibly pregnant women in the 19th century. Another contributing factor was that there simply was no fashionable alternative for a pregnant woman. In a period in which dress codes were explicit, extensive, and exhaustive in addressing the issue of what to wear, this absence is indeed remarkable. The resulting sartorial void may well have created a crisis for the Victorian woman who was schooled in the pages of fashion magazines to think of fashion knowledge as crucial not only to her identity as a female member of her society, but equally importantly, to the successful discharge of her function within it. Thus, even though the message in medical texts was overwhelmingly on the dangers to herself and her developing fetus of wearing fashionable dress--particularly corsets--this message was effectually undermined by an equally compelling voice, that of the fashion magazine, whose central theme was that knowledge of fashion was crucial not only to a woman’s self-definition within Victorian society, but also to the sanctioned--albeit limited-- sources of power which she was allowed to exercise there.

Concerns about the prevalence of continuing to wear fashionable dress while pregnant is contained in the writing of people like Annie Jenness Miller, editor of Dress magazine, who lamented the practice by which "tight corsets [are] grudgingly loosened a quarter of an inch at a time, [and] heavy skirts, and all of the evil conditions as we are so familiar with, are still retained as the months pass" (321). The long-standing concern about corsets was that they impaired the healthy function of women’s digestive, circulatory, and reproductive systems. Barbara Ehrenreich has noted that corsets exerted, on average, twenty-one pounds of pressure on internal organs with extremes of up to eighty-eight pounds measured (109). As a consequence, corsets prevented the proper entrance of air into the lungs while simultaneously forcing abdominal viscera out of their natural position . Of particular concern was the fact that in addition to compressing a woman’s internal organs and causing them to crowd together one upon another, the resulting weight was thrown upon the organs within the pelvis. The pressure of a corset, coupled with the weight of heavy skirts suspended from the waist, resulted in long term damage--fractured ribs, displacement of the liver, and uterine prolapse. In one particularly grisly discussion, Mary Studley, a physician, describes the results of an autopsy performed on a fashionable young woman which revealed a condition known as "corset liver" in which the organ was so deeply indented where the ribs were crowded against it by the improperly worn clothing "that the wrist may easily be laid in the groove" (118).

Even more devastating was the harm such garments inflicted on pregnant women and their prospective offspring. Several of the authors of health manuals for women pointed out how corsets and heavy skirts contributed to the discomfort and pain many women experienced during pregnancy and childbirth. As AbbaWoolson, a leading Dress Reform advocate, noted, "A leading female physician is convinced from her own observation . . . that maternity is fast becoming an unnaturally fearful peril. She believes the dress commonly worn today to be the cause of all this" (129). But in spite of such advice, writers like Annie Jenness Miller lamented the persistence of the practice by which tight corsets were "grudgingly loosened a quarter of an inch at a time," along with the retention of heavy skirts "still retained as the months pass" (321). While at home a pregnant woman might loosen her dress and be comfortable. William Alcott, a popular physician writer of the period, noted that out of the family circle, "conventional law, in other words, fashion usually prevails and the screws are reapplied" (186). Retention of corsets even into advanced stages of pregnancy not only affected pregnant women’s health, it also had the long term effect of ruining them as mothers. Unheeded went the hope expressed by the anonymous author of The American Lady’s Medical Pocket-Book and Nursery Adviser that "now, at least, when not only her own freedom from suffering and danger, but the very existence of her anticipated offspring may be jeopardized by an improper dress and tight lacing, . . . she will cheerfully relinquish both--let the dictates of fashion be what they may" (118). Indeed, the repeated admonitions in health manuals about the practice of pregnant women wearing corsets and heavy skirts is, in large part, a response to their apparently blatant disregard for the view advocated by physicians in the period, namely, that they "sacrifice today’s fashionable glitter upon the altar of [the] prospective child’s eternal good" (13).

In response to these concerns, several authors proposed alternatives to the tight corsets and heavy skirts worn by pregnant women. The American Lady’s Medical Pocket-Book, for example, advocated the adoption of a loose and commodious dress (119). In addition to encouraging pregnant women to abandon their corsets, others, such as Eliza Barton Lyman, the author of The Coming Woman: or, the Royal Road to Physical Perfection, advocated a style in which the weight of the garment was supported from the shoulders with corresponding loosening of the garment about the waist to accommodate the enlarging uterus (225). Such a style allowed for healthy respiration and physical exercise, for it neither compressed the lungs nor prevented freedom of muscular movement .

What is of interest in all of these discussions of suitable dress for pregnant women in the period is the Victorian woman’s persistence in wearing a style which not only made her pregnancy more uncomfortable but which also had the potential to wreck havoc on the development of her offspring. Although some writers, like the physician George Naphys, put down to "false delicacy" the mother’s attempt at concealing pregnancy with tight lacing and the application of a stronger busk (119), the fact could not be ignored that the style not only subjected the mother to greater discomfort, but also "placed the child in jeopardy" (178). Moreover, unhealthful dress during pregnancy began a vicious cycle in which the debility of the mother was transmitted to future generations--hardly the suitable fulfillment of Victorian woman’s great destiny to populate the world with healthy children.

Perhaps one factor which contributed to the Victorian woman’s preoccupation with fashion rather than health during her pregnancy was the message contained in fashion magazines of the period. For the readers of Godey’s and other fashion magazines, which featured only narrow waists and long heavy skirts in their illustrations and colored plates, fashionable dress constituted a semiotic of a socially sanctioned access to power within her culture. The message in magazines like Godey’s was that mastery of the principles of fashion was crucial if women were to discharge effectively their God-given role to "influence" and elevate their family’s--and ultimately, their society’s--moral sensibilities. A good illustration of this is an editorial in the March 1837 issue of Godey’s where the editor, Sarah Hale, characterized her magazine’s mission as "show[ing] that the true taste in dress is an intellectual accomplishment, requiring mental faculties of a high order to understand and great moral power of mind to practice" ("Conversazione" 119). Although she admitted that women were sometimes extravagant in their tastes, she nevertheless went on to defend this extravagance because, as she noted in an essay entitled "Female Education," "In the intercourse of fashionable life much more depends upon their personal appearance . . . " ( 76). Elsewhere in her magazine, she expanded on this theme, noting in an essay entitled "Influence of Females" that dressed well, "a woman’s grace and beauty win their way to the heart and throw a fascinating attraction over everything she says or does" (59). As this quotation suggests, appearance, which in Godey’s was associated with fashionable dress, was the mechanism through which a woman could first attract the attention of others in order to propel them on to higher goals of human perfection. One of Hale’s editors, Edwin Atlee, expressed a similar sentiment when he noted that "Dress, I mean that where taste presides, is the auxiliary of beauty, speaks of else than what is the sweetest and at the same time, the most powerful in the world" (201). Thus, the association of fashionable dress with women’s access to power, and the virtual absence of information about fashionable dress for pregnant women in fashion magazines like Godey’s, might well have constituted a sartorial crisis for the Victorian woman who was schooled to think of fashion knowledge as crucial to the successful discharge of her role within her society. Given the connection between fashionable dress and power, the absence of a fashionable alternative for the pregnant woman may well have been read as a denial of one of the key mechanisms available to her through which she could exert influence, the sanctioned version of female power in this period.

And certainly, given the discourse surrounding maternity in the period, such a loss of power was an understandable concern for the pregnant woman in this period. It began with her assignment to a specifically designated space: contemporary mores dictated that pregnant women exclude themselves from the public sphere and consign themselves to their homes. Indeed, the views in a lecture, "On Some of the Distinctive Characteristics of the Female," which was delivered before the class of the Jefferson Medical College in 1847, are representative of those in the period which required that the pregnant woman "come out from the world, and be separate from it" (50). Such "enforced seclusion" (183), as Mrs. E.B. Duffey, author of a popular advice manual for women characterized it, arose from a belief "almost universal, that at such times she should be strictly a homekeeper" (241). Such isolation may well have contributed to the symptoms of hysteria manifested by some pregnant women. The apparent acquiescence of pregnant women to these societal norms lead Dr. Fowler to conclude that "many women are so ashamed of themselves that they girt in their protruding abdomen . . . as though they had committed some disgraceful crime, and must hide it under stays and within doors . . . (183). However, an equally plausible reason for this practice was that wearing fashionable dress allowed pregnant women to hide their condition so that they could escape exclusive consignment to the narrow private sphere of home and hearth in order to continue to enjoy access to the larger one that lay beyond it.

And certainly, given the expectations about how they were to discharge their maternal functions, there was a strong impetus for pregnant women in this period to do so for as long as possible. Maternity was a physically demanding and life threatening activity for 19th century women. In addition to the explicit rhetoric by physicians like G.L. Austin about "the perils of childbirth" (67) or Fowler’s warning about "labor pains . . . incalculable" (62), the Victorian woman faced the prospect of nine long months of illness for, as Mrs. Duffey noted: "I have found that medical men almost invariably agree in considering this so-called ‘morning sickness’ as a desirable symptom in pregnancy and one author whom I have consulted on the subject goes so far as to declare that in cases where it is absent, it is imperatively necessary to take measures to bring it on, or miscarriage or a dangerous delivery will be the probable result" (163). The equation of pregnancy with illness, and the donning of an "invalid gown" which was the designated garment for the sickly woman, is further evidence of an erosion of power facing the pregnant Victorian woman. If, as Mrs. Duffey has suggested, physicians actually felt compelled to induce illness in healthy pregnancies to prevent miscarriage and insure safe deliveries, then the healthy pregnant woman ran the risk not only of having her freedom of movement curtailed, but also of being forced into a position of total dependency on others. Her invalid’s gown would signify this change in her status, just as its construction--loose, unstructured waist and shoulders, and light-weight, sometimes diaphanous material--was unsuitable for entry into the public sphere.

With the birth of her child, a woman’s real responsibilities began. As Dr. Fowler described it, "We use this term childbearing in the general sense of bringing up, as well as bringing forth, children, and consequently mean that the sole destiny of the female, as such, is to BEAR, NURSE, and EDUCATE until they are capable of caring for themselves" (53). After the child was born, the mother was expected to nurse it. This was, according to Dr. Alcott, "Without doubt, the general law" (189). Views like these were fixtures in the popular medical treatises of the period, with physicians like Dr. Henry Chavasse, insisting that a mother "must make up her mind to forego the so-called pleasures of a fashionable life. . . . She should either give up her helpless babe to the tender mercies of a wet nurse, or she must devote her whole time and energy to his welfare--to the greatest treasure that God hath given her" (25). As long as she could wear fashionable dress, however, the Victorian woman who found herself pregnant could deny to herself and obscure from others a condition over which she may have experienced shame, trepidation, and certainly--given the expectations about the rigors facing her in discharging her duties as a mother--not a little resentment.

Given the culture’s glorified views of motherhood, the decision to wear clothes that were repeatedly characterized as endangering offspring was clearly a departure from the glorified views of motherhood current in this period. Childbirth was, as Dr. Austin characterized it, "a natural process, a duty incumbent upon all healthful women, the object for which they were created" (127); or, as Dr. Fowler described it, it was a woman’s "primitive end . . . the rationale of her being" (50). Indeed, Fowler even went so far as to say that "The very name woman--womb man--man being the generic term for the race, and womb the adjective, or descriptive part of her name, refer to this same childbearing apparatus and to NOTHING ELSE . . ." (53).

But, by choosing a style of dress not for its benefits to their offspring, but rather for the access it provided to the public sphere, to a world beyond the confines of home and hearth, Victorian women revealed both how desperate they were to escape their culture’s circumscription of their lives as women and the lengths to which they would go to achieve autonomy over their reproductive functions. Home may have been what their culture designated as their place, and motherhood may have been their God-given and natural role, but the reluctance of pregnant women to surrender their corsets and heavy skirts, suggests, in turn, a real reluctance to enter into domestic roles that the relinquishing of these garments--even temporarily--would seem to have symbolized.

Lori Duin Kelly
English and Women’s Studies
Carroll College
100 East Avenue
Waukesha, Wisconsin 53186
 

The American Lady’s Medical Pocket-Book and Nursery Adviser. Philadelphia: James Kay Jr. and Brother, 1833.

Atlee, Edwin A. "On Dress." Godey’s Oct. 1851: 201.

Austin, G. L. Perils of American Women or A Doctor’s Talk with Maiden, Wife, and Mother. Boston: Lee and Shephard, 1883.

Blum, Stella, ed. Fashions and Costumes from Godey’s Lady’s Book. New York: Dover, 1995.

Chavasse, Pye Henry. Advice to a Wife. 12th ed. London: J. & A. Churchill, 1877.

Crawford, M.D.C., and Elizabeth Guernsey. The History of Corsets in Pictures. New York: Fairchild Publications, Inc. 1951.

Duffey, Mrs. E. B. What Women Should Know. 1898. New York: Arno, 1974.

Ehrenreich, Barbara, and Deirdre English. For Her Own Good: 150 Years of the Experts’ Advice to Women. New York: Anchor Doubleday, 1979.

"Female Education: Letter from a Husband to a Wife." Godey’s Feb. 1838: 76.
Fowler, O. S. Maternity, or the Bearing and Nursing of Children. New York: Fowler and Wells, 1848.

Hale, Sarah. "Conversazione." Godey’s Mar. 1837: 119.
---. "Influence of Females." Godey’s Jan. 1834: 59.

"Lecture on Some of the Distinctive Characteristics of the Female," Delivered Before the Class of the Jefferson Medical College, January 5, 1847. Philadelphia: T.K. and P. G. Collins, 1847.

Lyman, Eliza Barton. The Coming Woman: or, the Royal Road to Physical Perfection. Michigan: W. S. George, 1880.

Miller, Annie Jenness. "The Maternity Dress." Dress Dec. 1887: 332-33.
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Studley, Mary. J. What Our Girls Ought to Know. New York: M.L. Holbrook, 1878.

Woolson, Abba. "Lecture V." Dress-Reform: A Series of Lectures Delivered in Boston on Dress as It Affects the Health of Women. Boston: Roberts Brothers, 1874.