19 th Century Women’s Fashion of Restriction Station 6 View and read this entire PP on the before you answer the questions!

The Corset

The nineteenth- century corset, often comprised of whale bones and laces, reduced a woman’s waist anywhere from three to fifteen inches.

The corset distorted and deformed a woman's natural body, transforming her shape into an hour-glass figure.

Corsets were introduced to girls at a young age, and after years of pulling tighter and tighter, the waist was expected to be inches around Children’s Corset Ad

Corsets constricted the lungs and heart, put pressure on the liver, pushed the stomach up, squeezed the small intestines and bowels, and compressed the bladder. They could even cause miscarriage.

Autopsies showed livers so altered in shape and so completely lacerated (cut) due to tight lacing that serrations (notches) from the lacing cut a channel into the liver deeply enough to cut the organ nearly in two.

It was estimated that the corset's continual pressure was as "few" as thirty-five pounds of pressure from a loose corset to a greater pressure of eighty-eight pounds; this oppression was inflicted upon a woman throughout her waking hours.

This type of sofa was often called a “fainting couch,” as women fainted frequently--namely because… 1)the corset restricted breathing 2)women were often undernourished from fasting so they could fit in their corset.

Crinolines

By 1850 crinolines were stiffened petticoats or rigid skirt-shaped structures of steel designed to support the skirts of a woman’s dress into the required shape.

Can you imagine wearing this everyday?

1850 cartoon satirizing the difficulties created by the crinoline

1857 cartoon satirizing the crinoline. Which technique is being used? Text Reads - While looking at an older painting, one friend says to the other, “Only to think, Julia dear, that our mothers wore such ridiculous fashions as these!”

1857 cartoon satirizing the crinoline. Which satirical technique does the artist use? IRONY IRONY We logically expect they will realize that what they are wearing is “ridiculous.”

The layers of skirts and petticoats collected mud and debris, adding to their already great weight.

The Bustle

The Bustle—a frame made of steel—added about 10" to the hip measure, and was designed to be worn with the late 19th Century petticoat.

Station #6 Now…answer the questions on your Group Recorder Sheet.