Great Falls tribune. [volume] (Great Falls, Mont.) 1921-current, 1922-07-30

Washington, d. C., July 2S.-hnlck-
erbockers for women seem to be mere
to stay-for a while at least. women
could not be converted to boomers
when they were introduced by inter
lectual feminists as a reform IN dress
back in 1851. But now a few young
flappers stroll off the golf course IN
knickers and 60 down Main street 10
get a soda and the youth of III natlon
acclaims the new style for street wear.
For half a dozen decades there have
been prophets who saw, or thought
| they saw, trousers for women on the
| horizon. A few times indeed some OAR
| ing feminine souls did break away from
| the tyranny of hoops and dust trailing
skirts to appear in boomers or even
trousers. But the experiments gen
orally fizzled out speedily.
There is an old letter written to the
Lowell Courier by a st. Louis woman
regarding four young women "no
passed through Missouri on their way
west wearing mems apparel: Iheir
father and brother accompanied them
and approved of the style.
They were from Philadelphia, and
highly respectable" wrote the cores
pendent, reporting on this startling
news item. Their suits on the boat
were fashionable and fire black dress
coats. black pants, buff vests, and hats
of glossy black. Their hair was cut
short"
She also added that their conduct on
the boat was perfectly ladylike.
This was about the middle of the
nineteenth century. when boomers
were raising such a f~urore, Short hair
was also being advocated by hlghbroW
women as being more comfortable ana
sensible. The idea. was that the short
hair and boomers would almost en-
tirely relieve a woman from the care
of personal adorument. 1t was TINS
angle of approach and not the unat-
tractiveness of boomers and short HAIR
| which left the women of America old:
+ Introduced as a reform, short hair and
boomers were laughed out of existence
in short order.
Boomers Were Misnamed
A flapper who could claim to be the
pioneer wearer of knickers would
doubtless be proud Of the title. But
back in 1851, Amelia Bloomer lamented
the fact that the famous bloomer gar
ment should ever have been associated
with her name. She spent endless time
! explaining that she was not the first
! person to wear boomers; that they
should really be ''millers," as a Miss
Miller was the first wearer. and that
she had been connected with the pro
ject in it's early days only by her artl-
cles favoring this dress reform which
appeared in the Seneca Lily, a paper
which she edited. Later. she explained,
she did appear in boomers, but only
because she believed it right to prac-
tice what she preached. However, in
spite of Mrs. Boomers protests, the
name stuck.
1t is interesting to note that this
garment which aroused SO much ex-
element had about the same relation
TO the skirts of the day that knicker-
bockers have to the skirts Of 1872.
Women's dresses in 1851 were widely
denounced on the ground Of being IN,
healthy: They were long, heavy, ana
! full. They trailed in the dust to catch
germs They gathered mud from wet
streets in rainy weather, and then
flapped about the wearers' ankles to
give them colds and pneumonia. Yet
no lady dared lift her voluminous
skirts high enough to clear the streets.
referring to this fashion one editor
declared that "a false modesty has
caused many a young girl to die of con-
sumption" d
The first boomers were long like
! these skirts. Short boomers would
have been booted off the streets with
out d fighting chance-if it is possible
to imagine the girl of the period APP
p~earing in them. The boomers which
upset the conservatives were ull. ankle
length affairs. A skirt considerably
! longer than our popular knee length
specimen fell over them. The effect
was very turkish. but to our modern
eyes it would be about as daring as a
deep sea diving outfit.
The War on Boomers
Nevertheless, boomers were hotly
denounced or as holly approved by
everybody who talked. wrote. or lee
! turcd amout them. They were taken
seriously by the undecorative blue
stockings, and so they failed to appeal
very much to the younger people who
might have popularized them. They
died a lingering. natural death.
Modern knickerbockers. like the old
boomers. have sought the level of the
skirt in vogue. Skirts go up and down.
! but they have never before gone quite
so high. and they are now wavering
toward a drop. This was the psyche
logical moment-the first in centuries
when knickers might successfully ap-
pear on the streets. They were only
a step from the knee length skirt and
so they attracted very little con-
dennation.
Knockers are now being worn for
{ sports. on the street in the daytime,
for shopping. and in general for in
formal wear. Their popularity as a
permanent feature of women's dress
depends on their possibilities for va
riety. SO long as they have some
touch Of novelty the chances are good
that women will continue to be in
terestcd in them. One enthusiastic
wearer of the tweeds insists that
knickers in soft silks of delicate
shades would be as decorative a cos
tune for evening wear as a skirt, She
admits. however. that unless knickers
become firmly entrenched as an ac-
cepted article Of feminine apparel this
these snares Of the evil one tina,
$500 -, LnJ~~ I'm rIa-pr ,rI ~