Granted, the word, “bloomers” itself is sort of a funny word, maybe especially for Baby Boomers who think of them as long baggy underwear worn by our grandmas and great-grandmas. At age 7 we giggled about them when mentioned or when they were seen hanging out on the laundry line, filling with air as they blew in the breeze.

When “bloomers” were used as an article of women’s outer clothing back in the 1800s, however, it was revolutionary.

As discussed in our earlier post this week, Madness Monday: Clothes Make the Man- er, Woman!, modest, fashionable styles of dress back in the 1800s were really harmful to the health of women. In fact, one physician cautioned his students to NOT use female cadavers to study ‘normal’ anatomy, since corsets to elongate the torso, minimize the waist, and accentuate the bust moved women’s internal organs to places that nature had not intended!

Many of the health movements of the 1840s suggested that women should wear less restrictive dress, and some women adopted a variation of the “Turkish dress” that had a shorter skirt over baggy trousers. As the outfit became more popular, in 1851, there was a “Bloomer Craze.” Amelia Bloomer published a temperance (no alcohol) journal and lived in Seneca Falls, New York. (That place will be familiar to those who know their women’s history.) Amelia adopted the dress and it was so popular that her name started being used for it, and she included how to make it in one of her journals. The craze was on, and even included a special banquet for only the textile workers in Lowell Massachusetts who wore bloomers to work, as it increased job safety to not have long skirts among the complex machinery of a mill. There were “Bloomer picnics,” balls where women wore bloomers, and even dress reform societies and institutes were founded.

Of course, wearing bloomers became tied with the Women’s Rights movement of the mid-to late-1800s, especially when Susan B. Anthony, Lucy Stone, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton wore bloomers. Some of those in the crowds at their speeches came to see the women’s dress more than hear their words. A few years later, because they were worried about distracting from their primary message, the movement’s leaders uncomfortably returned to ‘conventional’ dress.

Others, however, felt the new style was a moral choice, as this poem illustrates:

“And now I’m dressed like a little girl, in a dress both loose and short,
Oh with what freedom I can sing, and walk all ‘round about!
And when I get a little strength, some work I think I can do,
‘Twill give me health and comfort, and make me useful too.”

— The Sibyl magazine, April 15, 1859 

Of course, there were critics who felt the costume usurped male authority- and privilege.

But the bloomer dress continued to be worn, and was very useful to women in the west- even on the Iowa prairie. Wonder if some of our ancestors wore them? And, could our own Lynette Payne and her good friend Charmian Kittredge (who later married Jack London, the author) have been among the ‘natty’ ladies in bloomers that the 1895 Berkeley newspaper mentions? They both were living in Berkeley that year, and Lynette was just 16.

During the Civil War, some of the nurses wore bloomers as well- it was very useful for working in the field as well as hospitals. We do have a Civil War nurse in the family, Helen (Merrill) [Burkett] Burnell, who married Kingsley Abner Burnell after his first wife- our ancestor- passed away. Perhaps Helen wore the new dress to avoid long skirts dragging through pools of blood and other bodily fluids while working in a hospital or in the field. (Of course, they did not understand the germ theory of disease back then, so the long conventional dresses were not seen as a bad thing.)

Overall though, the bloomer dress went out of fashion after the Civil War, but was revived in the late 1880s and during the 1890s when it was realized that women needed healthy exercise, plus the bicycle came into fashion.

There were probably many accidents with long skirts caught up in spokes and chains and gears… so the bloomer dress became useful and more acceptable again.

Of course, bloomers were still scandalous…

Of course, some women could not bring themselves to adopt the new fashion. It must have been very challenging to ride a bicycle in a long dress.

There were versions of bloomers for athletics and different versions for cycling, and another to wear out in public for comfort. By about 1900, some versions of bloomers eliminated the overskirt, and bloomer pants became shorter in the late 1920s. In the 1930s, women were allowed to wear shorter and tighter pants, more like men’s styles.

Those of us ‘of an age’ will remember the baggy bloomer-type gym shorts/jumpsuits required for PE in the 50s, 60s, and even into the 70s. Also,  girls/women were not allowed to wear pants to school, work, or church until the 1970s or 80s. (In the winter girls could wear pants under their dresses to get to school, but had to remove them for the rest of the day until returning home.) Even in the mid-1970s, women in the military did not have a dress uniform that included pants, and the short skirts of the day had to be worn on watch even in the coldest of duty stations. Frost-bite, anyone?

We’ve come a long way, baby!

Notes, Sources, and References: 

1. Illustrations from Wikipedia Commons, all public domain. See links for interesting commentary:
   https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ausfahrt_im_Sociable_um_1886_-_Verkehrszentrum.JPG
   https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ellimans-Universal-Embrocation-Slough-1897-Ad.png
   https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bicycling-ca1887-bigwheelers.jpg
   https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bloomer-Club-cigars-satire-p-adv054.JPG
   
2. Bloomers (clothing entry- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloomers_(clothing)
3. Madness Monday: Clothes Make the Man- er, Woman!- heritageramblings.net/…/madness-monday-clothes-make-the-man-er-woman
4. “You’ve come a long way, baby!” was a promotional campaign for Virginia Slims cigarettes, marketed to women in the 1970s. One ad’s copy went on to say, “Virginia Slims – Slimmer than the fat cigarettes men smoke.”

Please contact us if you would like higher resolution images. Click to enlarge images.

Original content copyright 2013-2016 by Heritage Ramblings Blog and pmm.

SaveSave

Roberts Family (Click for Family Tree)

Places today are easy- we have so many modes of fast modern transportation to choose from, and if we can’t be there in person, we can Skype, email, or make a free cell phone call- even look at places on a webcam! Not so in the 1800s though. Train travel did make it easier than we may realize, but folks did not travel back and forth for each holiday or special event once they had moved to a new part of the country. Letters had to suffice for most or all of the time, and often the lines of communication broke down over many years. It must have been very sad for parents such as William and Sarah Roberts to watch their son Isaac drive off to head west to Kansas sometime between 1880 and 1900. They probably worried that they might never see him again.

Isaac Henry Roberts had been born to William Roberts (1827-1891) and Sarah (Christie) Roberts (1829-1912) in March of 1863, likely in Adams, Decatur County, Indiana. He was the youngest surviving son of three, and had a sister who did not survive infancy.

Isaac would have grown up on the family farm, and was listed in the US Federal Census as age 7 in 1870. In 1880, he was 17 and listed as “at home” with the family, rather than a farm laborer.

Isaac’s father died in 1891 in Indiana- did Isaac decide to move west after that?

Isaac married Clara Lillian Shrader (b. 1866) about 1894, and they were living in Arion, Cloud County, Kansas at the 1900 US Federal Census. Isaac farmed and raised stock on their land. He owned the farm which was mortgaged, and he was listed on the Agriculture Schedule.

Isaac and Clara had two sons, Lloyd William Roberts (1897-1981), who owned all the photos in the collection we have been posting, and Max Duane Roberts (1898-1980).

The family was still living in Arion in 1905, but in 1910 they were listed in Pomona, Franklin, Kansas, again owning a farm with a mortgage. They were found in the same place through the 1940 US Federal Census, the most recent available. They were still noted as farming in 1940 when Isaac was 77 years old.

Clara died just six years after that 1940 census, on 5 June 1946. Isaac survived her by four years and then was laid to rest quietly beside her after his death on 3 May 1950 (in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma). They share a headstone in  Highland Cemetery, Ottawa, Franklin County, Kansas.

Notes, Sources, and References: 

1. Find A Grave Memorial #158908260 for Isaac Henry Roberts – http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=158908260
2. Find A Grave Memorial #158908315 for Clara Lillian (Shrader) Roberts- http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=158908315
3. Mentioned in biography of his brother George Lucas Roberts in A genealogical and biographical record of Decatur County, Indiana; compendium of national biography, Lewis Publishing Company, Chicago, page 253- https://archive.org/stream/genealogicalbiog02lewi#page/252/mode/2up

Please contact us if you would like higher resolution images. Click to enlarge images.

Original content copyright 2013-2016 by Heritage Ramblings Blog and pmm.

Payne Family (Click for Family Tree)

For generations reformers tried to get women to trade in their restrictive Victorian clothing for looser garb. The madness of tight corsets that moved bones and internal organs, long dresses that carried the filth of streets filled with excrement of horses and chamber pot contents thrown out a window, big heavy hats that compressed women’s neck bones from the weight, multiple layers that overheated women in the days before air conditioning, etc., made movement for women challenging. No manner of  logic, cajoling, or even science was enough for the ‘modern’ woman to not follow the whims of fashion and the required-by-polite-society need for modesty.

Bicycles changed all that! Women would not ride very far if they could not breathe deeply due to a corset, or if their long skirt got caught in the spokes of the wheels. Those huge, heavy, unsymmetrical hats would definitely put them off balance too.

Bicycles were a great form of exercise, and a way for women to have a bit of freedom. The author of this piece suggests that the bicycle was the biggest influence on women deciding to wear clothes that offered more comfort and “larger freedom of action.” Her conclusion was that this change would bring to women a “life of higher opportunity and realization.” (Love that.)

There was most probably a wealth of causes for these changes, including the women’s suffrage movement. The bicycle surely did play a part, though there was one article in an old newspaper that stated women who rode bicycles were actually prostitutes going off to visit their customers! Casting aspersions on a woman’s reputation was definitely a way to keep most from taking advantage of newfound freedoms.

At least one of our ancestors, Lynette Payne, had the courage to ride a bicycle and she even wore bloomers! She is said to have been the first woman in Newton, Iowa, to ride the new contraption, and Lynette was a suffragist as well.

Lynette had grown up in liberal Berkeley, California, and many commented on her sophistication after she moved to small Newton, Iowa. Sure wish that we had more photos of Lynette in those early years- would really love to see her on her bicycle! Pure madness, indeed.

Notes, Sources, and References: 

1. Bicycle Dress Reform. The Pacific Unitarian, Vol. 6, No. 5, Page 129. March, 1898, San Francisco, California, via GoogleBooks.
2. Victorian clothing and its dangers are discussed in the BBC’s “Hidden Killers of the Victorian Home.” Thankful that corsets are no longer required…
   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sy7iUoWi_-U
   The BBC also made “Hidden Killers” episodes for the Tudor (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zSyjyLAWWM) and Edwardian (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7kxUyvkXjw) eras. The Tudor episode discusses death by drowning (40% of Tudor deaths), including the weight of women’s clothing once wet that often led to drowning.
3. Maureen Taylor, “The Photo Detective” has a number of books that show clothing from various eras to aid in photo identification, including two coloring books: Victorian Hats: A Coloring Book, and Coloring the Past: the 1860s. Her books are available on her website, MaureenTaylor.com, or on Amazon. She also has a blog at http://photodetective.blogspot.com. Maureen’s classes and webinars are wonderful as well if you are interested in old photos or vintage clothing.
4. Family photo of Lynette (Payne) McMurray.

Please contact us if you would like higher resolution images. Click to enlarge images.

Original content copyright 2013-2016 by Heritage Ramblings Blog and pmm.

Botetourt County, Virginia- Mountain View

Murrell Family (Click for Family Tree)

Botetourt County, Virginia, is the earliest residence that we know of for Wiley Anderson Murrell. He was married there in April of 1834, to Mary Magdalene Honce, also from the area. It can help give us a feel for the context of their lives to know a bit about an area where a family lived.

The eastern edge of Botetourt County follows the Blue Ridge Mountains, and the Appalachian Mountains run along the western. The beautiful James River cuts across the county, between the two mountain ranges.

For the Murrell family, it must have been a difficult change to move from the Virginia mountains and valleys to the flat prairie of first Illinois, and later Iowa. The lure of the rich soils of the western lands must have had a stronger pull than that of the mountains.

Notes, Sources, and References: 

1. 1895 Botetourt map- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Botetourt_County,_Virginia#/media/File:Botetourt_County_Virginia_1895.jpg
2. Landscape images by Dread Pirate Jeff on FLICKR, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/), only modified size. Thanks, DPJ, for sharing your beautiful images!Mountain image: https://www.flickr.com/photos/justageek/2159754578/in/photolist-4hRiMU-5BqQoC-NSjt-9gkSZr-8Efc8r-6w6gBe-62czZq-ybhxL8-8BheHw-8BhfhE-8k8EV7-cKEjVN-cQD5vb-xdzSvY-pQkEr-4dKp7n-k41k33-xT6Dtn-5joS5b-4hRjbq-8k5tck-g6xtN-pdfVZc-y9H8jq-8k8DuE-8BhfQL-5RExrR-nLHNFo-6w5fyR-8EiaPA-7XoE4A-eifXaC-6ESqom-69BVsT-cQD5Pf-dkn4Ji-eZHjpU-4dKpcn-9VDrK4-dtPxL4-em6JCH-ExRBr5-bE28u9-79t1gk-ybhfw8-pv8Pf6-51zUnK-7Xkt2t-8QtPxN-y8hPa7
   Valley image:
   https://www.flickr.com/photos/justageek/2159766380/in/photolist-4hRnio-8Bhf9d-8LV8cU-8AWGDE-7pQ3q5-4dKp9t-rMDBSE-6w9prw-eifWQQ-8Ei7Zb-8Bhfvm-8k8DML-7XAssC-8k5t6Z-69BVtX-q7HHB3-7XxSER-5A9PrR-xSZSrs-cQD3YJ-7Xx8Qi-xdzHSW-8QquCB-dCpfZf-8QA18e-7pLeGk-69BVrg-qQYhBi-xSYKjq-4hRngd-7XoBDb-cQD4js-6w9iqL-fLFzhS-6w9frL-4rQrjQ-4hRmrq-8k8FCG-xSYQCb-8QqGsB-4hMdtM-8Beaig-5WPp5F-dcB5ch-errBNd-6ENgCe-8Be88M-8k5snX-8Be8hp-5WTFoo
3. This post was also put up on our new blog, MurrellFamilyGenealogy.net. This blog was begun as a one-name study in hope that we might eventually find the parents of Wiley Anderson Murrell.

Please contact us if you would like higher resolution images. Click to enlarge images.

Original content copyright 2013-2016 by Heritage Ramblings Blog and pmm.

Roberts Family (Click for Family Tree)

The state of Indiana has great, rich, bountiful soil, and our Roberts ancestors farmed it for generations. Hard work, long days, and weather that could not be controlled was, and still is, the daily life of a farmer. A whole year’s work- and income- could be lost in a minute with one big storm. That’s the workday world of a farmer, and his family.

John W. Roberts tilled the land as did his father, William Roberts (1827-1891). As a boy William would have also learned, at his father’s side, the intricacies of working with Mother Nature, as did his own father, John S. Roberts (1805-1875). And John’s father, our (currently believed) immigrant ancestor Edward Roberts (abt 1775-1830), worked in agriculture too, per the 1820 US Federal Census for Ripley County, Indiana- the household had 3 persons engaged in agriculture. So at least four generations of Roberts men tilled the land, and likely many more.

John W. Roberts was the oldest of the surviving children of Sarah Christie (1829-1912) and her husband William Roberts. John was born on the 1st day of the new year of 1849, in Ripley County, Indiana. His young life would have been filled with the busy outdoor life of an Indiana farm boy during the third quarter of the 1800s. The family had moved to Adams, Decatur County, Indiana, about 1860. His brother, George Lucas Roberts, was born there in November of 1860; John was 11 years old at that time. His second brother, Isaac Henry Roberts was born three years later, in 1863, in the midst of the Civil War.

Although Indiana was a strong supporter of the Union during the Civil War, there were pockets of southern sympathizers. We can only surmise the political leanings of the Roberts family, since William’s father, John S. Roberts, had been born in Kentucky, a slave state. However, the 1810 and 1820 US Federal Censuses for the Edward Roberts family (John S. was a son) did not include slaves. The family had moved to Indiana by about 1825, so may have changed sympathies if they had indeed been pro-slave. Or maybe the move to Indiana was to escape the politics and economics of living in a slave state.

John W.’s father had been required to register for the 1863 Civil War draft, but was listed as Class II due to his age and marital state, thus most likely would not be drafted. John was only 14, so exempt. The family must have let out a collective sigh of relief, although the young brothers may have been itching to go off to war, as young boys are wont to do.

It was in Adams, Indiana, that John W. married Sarah J. Anspach (1854-1931) on 6 February 1879. They had five children together:

Tressvylian “Tressa” Roberts born in December of 1879; never married, d. 10 Sept 1945 in Butlerville, Warren, Ohio.

Candace Roberts, born 14 Mar 1883, in Boone Co., Indiana per some sources. She married Winfield S. Shepherd and died 31 Dec 1950 in Decatur Co., Indiana.

Clyde C. Roberts, born 14 Nov 1885 in Indiana but died at age 18, on 15 Aug 1903.

Leon Roberts was born in April of 1891 in Indiana. He married Lucile G. Bristol on 16 Sept 1917 in Lansing, Michigan, though he was then living in Detroit. Leon died in December of 1976 in Lansing, Michigan.

Glennie or Glenna Roberts, born July 1893 in Indiana per some sources, but others, including Find A Grave, state that John W. Roberts died on 10 September 1900. Adding Glenna’s birth and John’s death date to the “more research needed” list.

John W. and Sarah lived in Greensburg, Decatur, Indiana in their later years. He worked in the insurance business.

John died 10 September 1900, possibly in Greensburg; their son Leon was born the following April.

Sarah continued living in Greensburg, and was enumerated in the 1910 US Federal Census as widowed, head of household with son 18 y/o son Leon, who was a driver for a delivery wagon, and daughter Glennie Roberts, 16, a typesetter in a printing office living in the home. Sarah worked on her own account as an agent in the dry goods business.

Sarah was living with her daughter Glenna who had married Ernest Maple, plus their two children in Liberty, Shelby County, Indiana, at the 1930 US Federal Census.

Some Ancestry trees list the death of Sarah J. Ansbach Roberts as 28 February 1937 in Greensburg, Indiana; others claim 25 December 1931 in Fremont, Ohio. We have not been able to verify either, but Sarah had remained a widow for 37 years. They are both buried in South Park Cemetery in Greensburg.

Notes, Sources, and References: 

1. Lloyd Roberts Family Photo Collection.
2. Ancestry.com for US Federal Censuses, City Directories, marriage records.

Please contact us if you would like higher resolution images. Click to enlarge images.

Original content copyright 2013-2015 by Heritage Ramblings Blog and pmm.