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| Mary Livermore |
Though practically unknown today, Mary Livermore was a popular figure in 19th Century America. A suffragist, abolitionist, and co-director of the U.S. Sanitary Commission in Chicago during the Civil War, Livermore travelled the country and gave over 1,000 inspirational speeches to raise money for her favoured causes. Today's reading focuses on one of her more famous speeches, concerning the health of young women with particular caution against fashions which injure the female form.
Reading time: 21 minutes
What Shall We Do With Our Daughters?
Chapter II: Physical Education
Good health is a great pro-requisite of successful or happy living. To live worthily or happily, to accomplish much for one^s self or others when suffering from pain and disease, is attended with difficulty. Dr. Johnson used to say that "every man is a rascal when he is sick." And very much of the peevishness, irritability, capriciousness, and impatience seen in men and women has its root in bodily illness. The very morals suffer from disease of the body. Therefore I would give to "our daughters" a good physical education."But suppose my daughter is so unfortunate as to have a sickly body at birth?"
Learn what is the cause of her feebleness, what is the defect in her physical organization, and then how to remedy it by wise, hygienic living. Correct living and intelligent physical training will eliminate many of the tendencies to ill health which we bring into the world with us.
We shall by and by come to recognize the right of every child to be well born, — sound in body, with inherited tendencies towards mental and moral health. We have learned that it is possible to direct the operations of nature so as to have finer breeds of horses, cattle, and fowls, to improve our fruits, flowers, and grains. Science searches for the pre-natal laws of being, and comes to the aid of all who wish to improve the lower creation. When shall an enlightened public sentiment demand that those who seek of God the gift of little children shall make themselves worthy the gift by healthful and noble living, practical acquaintance with pre-natal laws of being, and all that relates to the hereditary transmission of qualities?
Canon Kingsley, in his book on "Health and Education,'* says, "Let duly educated and legally qualified women teach to women what every woman ought to know." "Let woman be restored to her natural share in the sacred office of healer, which she held in the middle ages, and from which she was thrust out during the sixteenth century." During the last decade duly qualified medical women, through books, lectures, and papers, have poured in a flood of light on the subject of the physical education of girls. Drs. Elizabeth Blackwell, Mary Putnam Jacobi, Mary Safford, Sarah Hackett Stevenson, Caroline Hastings, and many others — all thoroughly educated and "duly qualified" women physicians — have put their knowledge of physiology, anatomy, and hygiene at the service of women most generously. By printed and oral speech they have sought to change the conditions and habits of women, which at one time threatened to make womanliood and invalidism interchangeable terms. They have awakened thought, stimulated inquiry, and set in motion a reform that was needed.
Other books have been written by men physicians, some of them valuable, and others so technical as not to be adapted to popular use. Some of these works, written by specialists, are calculated to do injury. .One would suppose in reading them that women possessed but one class of physical organs, and that these are always diseased. Such teaching is pestiferous, and tends to cause and perpetuate the very evils it professes to remedy.
There has been great improvement in the physical habits of women and girls within my memory. In my girlhood girls wore low-necked dresses and short sleeves almost universally, except in winter. Many even were thus insufficiently clad in the severest weather. Flannel underwear was unknown, so were rubber shoes and waterproof cloaks. Slippers and thin-soled shoes were worn on the streets in inclement seasons. Very little attention was given to regular bathing, ventilation, or the preparation of healthful food. Instead of mattresses we slept on feathers, and lived in rooms with open fires, which roasted you on one side while you were freezing on the other. Glorified as these same open fires are today, I remember them with a shudder. Better houses, better food, more comfort, a more cheerful system of religion, a larger intellectual culture, a nobler outlook for womanhood,— as far as these have prevailed, they have undoubtedly told favorably on the health of women during the last fifty years.
If, however, we would give to our daughters a good physiological training, we must attend carefully to their dress. The dress of women at the present time is about as damaging to health as it well can be. And many of our girls are made the victims of disease and weakness for life through the evils of the dress they wear from birth. The causes of their invalidism are sought in hard study, co-education, too much exercise, or lack of rest and quiet in certain periods when nature demands it All the while the medical attendant is silent concerning the "glove-fitting", steel-clasped corset, the heavy, dragging skirts, the bands engirdling the body, and the pinching, distorting boot. These will account for much of the feebleness of women and girls; for they exhaust energy, make freedom of movement a painful impossibility, and frequently shipwreck our young daughter before she gets out of port.
We begin very early to injure the health of our girls by means of their dress. Riding over the New-York Central Railroad from Albany to Buffalo in a drawing-room car, I observed a lady occupying one of the compartments with her two little children, — a girl and a boy, accompanied by a nurse. The little boy, rosy and happy, made frequent visits to the saloon of the car, where all welcomed him, for he had a gay temper, and overflowed with good-nature and sociability. As he went back to his sister with an orange, an apple, a picture, a pencil, and bit of paper, she would ask to accompany him on his next excursion among us. We would barely catch a gleam of the child's shining face and delicate raiment, when the watchful nurse would swoop down upon her, and bear her back within the close, stuffy compartment What was the matter?
The little boy was sensibly dressed in dark stuff, suitable for travelling, with a white collar about the neck. But his sister wore an immaculate white Marseilles dress, then the fashion for children, ruffled, tucked, shirred, embroidered, and be-furbelowed generally. The dress was tied back with a pink sash of most delicate shade. Her lislo-thread stockings, reaching above the knee, were of the same delicate hue. Her dainty boots were of very light kid. Her hair, soft and shining, like spun gold, was braided and curled, and tied back with ribbons of the same exquisite pink. She wore pink shoulder-knots, held in place by little pins of gold, and was farther adorned with bracelets, finger-rings, and a gold neck-chain with a locket attached. This was the remonstrance made to this overdressed little creature; "You'll spoil your dress out there, and ruin your pretty stockings, and get your hair all out of curl. You know you want to look nice when you get to auntie's: so you must sit here, and be a lady."
Now, before that ride was ended, the child had learned a lesson which she shall never forget - that clothes are of small moment to boys, while to girls they are of vast importance, so that enjoyment, comfort and play must be subordinated to them. This "gospel of good clothes" is continually dinned into the ears of the girl, as she is growing to young womanhood, til she is dominated by it. Is she invited to a picnic, lawn party, wedding or funeral? The first question asked is "What shall I wear?" Not so with her brother. He knows what he will wear,- the suit out of which he jumped on Sunday night as he bounced into bed, and which, for aught he knows, lies where he doffed it. He will wear that, for he has no other, and he wants no other.
Years roll away and the little girl reaches womanhood. She has promised her hand to the one man whom she has learned to love. Parents and friends approve of the lover; and she begins her preparations for the future home, which her imagination invests with every charm. In what do these preparations consist? In the manufacture of clothing of every conceivable fashion, to be worn on every supposable occasion, in quantities that are absolutely wasteful. She will sew to tehe very verge of exhaustion, and go to her new home with trunks packed with every thing to wear of which you have ever heard, as well as with garments of whose existence you have never dreamed.
And, if you did not know to the contrary, you might infer that a partnership in marriage includes a partnership in business, and that the newly wedded pair proposed to open a store for the sale of ready-made clothing for women; or that it is the custom of the country for the bride to provide herself with all the clothing needed during her life, the husband being expected to furnish her only such garments as may be necessary at death, — a shroud or grave-gown.
We do even worse than this; for we have a theory, generally accepted in civilized society, which we never formulate in speech, but to which we are very loyal in practical life. This theory, put in plain language, is this: "God knows how to make boys; and when he sends a boy into the world it is safe to allow him to grow to manhood as God has made him. He may be too tall or too short, too stout or too thin, too light or too dark. Nevertheless, it is right, for God understands how to make boys. But when God sends a girl into the world it is not safe to allow her to grow to womanhood as he has made her. Some one must take her, and improve her figure, and give her the shape in which it is proper for her to grow."
Accordingly, our young girl comes some day from the dressmaker with this demand: "Mme -- [the dressmaker] says I am getting into a horrible shape, and that I must have a pair of corsets immediately." The corsets are bought, and worn, and very soon the physical deterioration begins.
"It does not require the foresight of a seer," says Dr. Mary Safford, "to diagnose a chronic case of tight lacing and heavy skirts. You know that when the abdominal muscular walls become inert, almost wasted, one of the most important daily functions of the body is rarely, if ever, normally carried on. We might enumerate the ill results that follow, but these are only links in the long chain of disorders that have won the disgraceful appellation of 'women's diseases' when they should be termed 'women's follies'.
"Medical students have learned to call the livers of the female subjects that go to the dissecting room the 'corset-liver'" says Dr. Mary Studley. "It is the rule, rather than the exception, for these livers to be so deeply indented where the ribs have been crowded against them by the improperly worn clothing that tho wrist may be easily laid in the groove. And this is an organ which is a mass of blood-vessels, through which every particle of blood ought to circulate freely on its way to the heart. Of course it cannot get through the squeezed portions; and the inevitable result of the half-done work of the liver is an unclean condition of the blood, which utters its cry by means of aching nerves."
"The Greeks," says Canon Kingsley, "whose figures remain everlasting and unapproachable models of human beauty, wore no stays (corsets). The first mention of stays that I have ever found," he continues, "is in tho letters of Synesius, Bishop of Cyrone, on the Greek coast of Africa, about 400 A.D. He tells us how, when he was shipwrecked on a remote part of the coast, and he and the rest of the passengers were starving on cockles and limpets, there was among them a slave girl, out of the for East, who had a pinched wasp-waist; such as you may see on tho old Hindoo sculptures, and such as you may see on any street in any British town. And, when the Greek ladies of the neighborhood found her out, they sent for her from house to house, to behold, with astonishment and laughter, this new and prodigious waist, with which it seemed to them impossible for a human being to breathe or live."
He goes on to tell us, this plain-speaking Canon Kingsley, that "in future years when mankind has learned to obey more strictly those laws of nature and science, which are the will of God, the present fashion of tight lacing will be looked back upon as a contemptuous and barbaric superstition, denoting a very low level of civilisation in the people which have practised it."
If an artist with a commission to cut in immortal marble a statue of the Goddess of Liberty, of Justice or Peace, an Aurora, the Muses or Graces, should copy the figure of the fashionable woman made over by the modiste and the corsets, he would lose caste, not alone with the artists, but with the civilised world. He would seek instead, as a model, one of the matchless living forms on which no corset has begun it's deforming work, and then add another to "those glorifying statues which we pretend to admire, but refuse to imitate."
While it is undoubtedly true that the practice of tight lacing is regarded with growing disfavour today, it is also true that corsets in vogue at present are more objectionable than those worn even half a century ago. For those were home-made, and while they could be very tightly laced did not fit the figure well, were free from the torture of whalebones and steel front pieces, all stitched in; while broad straps passing over the shoulders supported them, and the clothing hung upon them. But the modem corset is so ingeniously woven that it presses in upon the body, the muscular walls, the floating ribs, the stomach, the hips, and the abdomen, compelling them to take the form the corset-maker has devised in lieu of that God has given. Stiff whalebones behind, and finely "tempered steel-fronts" pressing into the stomach and curving over the abdomen, keep the figure of the girl erect and unbending, while Nature has made the spine supple with joints.
Physicians have persistently condemned the corset for half a century, even when it was not so harmful an article of dress as it is to
The basque under-waist, mode as a substitute for the corset, and beginning to supersede it, fits the figure trimly, revealing its graceful contour, and is kept in place, — not by bones, or slips of steel, but thickly stitched-in stiff cords, — but by the weight of the skirts buttoned on the lower part. Over this under-waist the outer dress can be fitted; and its waist will be smooth and unwrinkled — a desideratum to most women.
The stout woman who wears a corset to diminish her proportions only distorts her figure; for the pinched waist causes her broad shoulders and hips to look broader by contrast, while the pressure upon the heart and blood-vessels gives to her face that permanent blowzy flush that suggests apoplexy. "Who can forgive the unhealthy cheek and red nose induced by such a practice?" says Mrs. Haweis in her "Art of Beauty." "And who can forget the disease which has come or is coming?"
If it were certain that the present fashion of short skirts for the street had come in as a permanency, we might all"thank God" and take courage. But a dreadful fear perpetually haunts one, that there may be a revival of the old-time uncleanness,
sight, than when similarly hampered?
There is yet one other part of the girl's dress to which mothers must give attention.
John Burroughs, in his "Winter Sunshine," expresses the fear that ** the American is becoming disqualified for the manly art of walking by a falling-off in the size of his foot ... "A small trim foot," he tells us, "well booted or gaitered, is the national vanity. How we stare at the big feet of foreigners, and wonder what may be the price of leather in those countries, and where all the aristocratic blood is, that these plebeian extremities so predominate!"
CoL Higginson informs us, on the high authority of a fashionable New- York shoemaker, that "women are not so vain of their feet as men. A man who thinks he has a handsome foot," says this unimpeachable witness, "is apt to give us more trouble than any lady among our customers. I have noticed this for twenty years."
The prevailing French boots made for women, and exhibited in the shop-windows, are painfully suggestive. Pointed and elongated, they prophesy cramped and atrophied toes; while the high and
narrow heel, that slides down under the instep, throws the whole body into an unnatural position in walking, creating diseases which are difficult of cure. "Show me her boots!'' said a physician, called to a young lady suffering from unendurable pain in the back and knee-joints, which extended and engirt her, till, to use her own language, "she was solid pain downwards from the waist." "There's the trouble!" was his sententious comment, as he tossed the fashionable torturing boot from him after examination. We send missionaries to China to teach mothers, among other things, not to cramp and distort the feet of their little daughters. Who will send missionaries to Christianized, civilized America, to teach American mothers the same gospel?
Latterly, I have noticed in the windows of some of the shops on Washington and Tremont Streets, Boston, placards, advertising in large letters, "Common-sense boots for girls!" and "Common-sense boots foe school wear!" Almost square at the toe, with broad, thick soles, more fullness in the upper leather, and low, broad heels, to be worn under the heel, they are a great improvement upon the Parisian boots. The young people who wear them declare them to be "vastly comfortable," and a foot well fitted with them pleases the eye with its elegance.
The tendency to follow fashions that deform the body is inexplicable; and yet it is found among all people, the savage as well as the civilized. The Polynesian tattoos his body from head to foot. The Australian wears a plug of bone through the cartilage, which divides the nostrils from each other. Many of the Eastern wear rings in their noses, instead of in ears. The Malays blacken their teeth. The Zulus bore holes in their ears, which holes they enlarge enormously by stretching. Tribes of North-American Indians flatten the form of the head, commencing the distortion in infancy. The Chinese bandage the feet of women till they fail to be the organs of support and locomotion, and resemble the hoofs of animals in shape. While civilized European and American women not only deform the feet, pierce the ears for the wearing of rings, but compress the waist, till the vital organs are displaced, and frightful diseases are incurred. "Seest thou not," says Shakespeare, "what a deformed thief this fashion is?"
While the clothing of our daughter should not deform the figure, nor injure the health, it need be neither inelegant nor inartistic. No particular style of dress can be recommended, but each one should choose what is most becoming and appropriate in fashion and material. With sacred regard for the laws of health, and without too large expenditure of time and money, every woman should aim to present an attractive-exterior to her friends and the world. So, indeed, should every man; for it is the duty of all human beings to be as beautiful as possible.
What is beauty? It is not a mere matter of pink-and-white complexion, of abundant tresses of hair, of lustrous eyes, shapely shoulders, and exquisite figure ; for you will meet people possessing all these traits of physical beauty, and after the first hour the eye wearies of them. You fail to find any charm in them. A graceful shape of decorated china interests you more. You will meet others lacking all these elements of beauty; and after the first interview you are forever attached to them, as with hooks of steel. They enter your home, and glorify it with an indefinable charm. They seem to be invested with the overflowing sunlight, the perfume of flowers, the singing of birds. The best that is in you comes forth to meet them; and for the time you are translated into a gladness, a nobleness, and a fine courtesy higher than your wont.
Beauty comes from within. To be "upright before God, and downright before man," to be honest, faithful, helpful, patient, and kindly disposed, will give a charm to any face, though it be irregular in feature, or framed in white hair and beard. It is within the province of all to possess beauty of this highest order. "There is no beautifier of complexion or form or behavior," says Emerson, "like the wish to scatter joy, and not pain, around us." Nor should women fail to attire themselves tastefully, to adopt costumes that are harmonious in form and color, to give attention to matters of personal decoration. No woman can afford to ignore the attractions of dress, and a badly dressed young woman is always a disappointment. To be well dressed one must avoid unhealthy, absurd, and grotesque styles. The dress must be appropriate to the time and occasion, adapted to the wearer, and must not seem the result of a too lavish outlay of money or time.
prevailing dress of women, and because it is also a prolific source of disease, which becomes chronic and incurable. But food, sleep, exercise, and other matters demand attention, when one is entrusted with the education of girls. American children, unlike those which we see abroad, sit at table with their parents, eat the same food, keep the same late hours, and share with them the excitement of evening guests, evening meetings and lectures, and the dissipation of theatres, operas, balls, and receptions. This is unwise indulgence. Children require simple food, early hours for retiring, and abundance of sleep, as well as freedom from social and religious excitements.
I will not enter into a consideration of these matters, but will refer mothers, and those charged
with the training of girls, to the excellent books recently written by women physicians for their guidance. "The Physiology of Woman," by Dr. Sarah Hackett Stevenson, who is connected with the Woman's Medical College of Chicago, is one of these books. Another is entitled "What our Girls ought to know," by Dr. Mary J. Studley. "Dress Reform," edited by Abba Goold Woolson, contains four lectures, delivered by four women physicians, which are invaluable. "The Education of American Girls," edited by Anna C. Brackett, has had a deservedly wide circulation; and the first paper, by the editor, on "The Culture of the Body," should be in every mother's and teacher's possession.
Signs multiply about us that the women of the future will have healthy and strong physiques. Dress-reform associations are organized in the principal American cities; and agencies established to furnish undergarments, or patterns for them, demanded by common-sense and rigorous health. For it is the undergarments that the dress-reform proposes to change. The outer garments may be safely left to the taste of the individual who has accepted the principles of the dress-reform in the construction of the under-garments. English women are moving in the same sensible direction; and a "Society to promote Rational Dress for Women" has been formed in London, with Viscountess Harberton as president. A new American association has just been formed of collegiate alumnae; and in their circular they urge upon women students "to bear constantly in mind the fact that the best intellectual results cannot be
obtained without perfect physical health." It recommends all women students to "maintain a constant watch over their own habits as regards sleep, food, exercise, and dress;" and declares that "a failure in sufficient sleep, food, and exercise should be lamented equally as a failure in recitation."
Health is a means to an end. It is an investment for the future. That end is worthy work and noble living. And life has little to offer the young girl who has dropped into physical deterioration, which outs her off from the activities of the time, and makes existence to her synonymous with endurance.
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