Bloomers!

by Rhoda Blumberg

Book Overview

How bloomers helped to spread the word about women's rights. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0027116840
• ISBN13: 9780027116847
• Release Date: January 1993
• Publisher: Bradbury Press
• Length: 32 Pages
• Weight: 1.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.3" x 9.3" x 9.8"
• Age Range: 5 to 10 years
• Grade Range: Preschool to Grade 5

Customer Reviews

Historic entertainment!

Since ladies never wore trousers in 1851, the appearance of Libby Miller in Seneca Falls, New York in such shocking attire stopped traffic. Libby's costume was meant to be worn at European health resorts. Libby's cousin was Elizabeth Stanton, a "revolutionary" in favor of voting rights for women. She copied this outfit to the horror of her father and her son. But, these "immodest" bloomer costumes were being worn for real reasons. Do you think it's safe to climb the stairs at night with a baby in one hand and a candle in the other? When the idea for this freeing fashion reached Amelia Bloomer, she reported the story in her journal, The Lily, and requests poured in from other women for sewing instructions, and the newspaper reporters of the day officially named this fashion the "bloomer!" Shortly after, Susan B. Anthony joined the crusade and also cut her hair in the Senaca Falls barbershop. Further defying the standards of the day, Amelia, Elizabeth and Susan started a lecture tour, inviting the criticism and insults from all the expected sources. However, some who came to laugh stayed to listen and learn, and an era of women's rights came to be. Remarkably charming illustrations by Mary Morgan add to this humorous but informative telling of a sensational story. Bloomers! should be in every library and school.

Bought before she was born and now a favorate.

I bought this book for my daughter when I was 5 months pregnant with her and over the years I have read it to her once and awhile, but now she is 6 years old and it has become one of her favorate books and we are always on the look out for more good age approrate Women's History books because the good ones and few and far between and this is one of the good ones.

Liberating, Inspiring, Educational, and with Humor!

A woman dressed in ankkle length blomers arrives in Seneca Falls, NY, in 1851. People are shocked. Women have been bound by corsets and floor length dresses "that sweep the floor." The town fathers read a book called, "Ruling a Wife," which praised wives who "submit and obey." Excuse me! Elizabeth Stanton embarrassed her son by wearing bloomers to his school. Amelia Bloomer printed a picture of these liberating and comfortable garments in her newspaper, "The Lily." "Women needed freedom not only from drunken husbands but also from cumbersome, crippling clothes." Women were "not parlor ornaments or mere playthings for man," and that a woman is "man's equal, and not his slave." Allowing women to run for office and to vote was Bloomer's radical thought. Elizabeth Stanton and Susan B. Anthony traveled the country speaking for woman's rights, wearing bloomers. Before theeir speeches began they were spreading the concept that women be allowed choices and equal rights. I am 50. When I was a child, women were not allowed to wear pants in the workplace. No pantsuits. No kidding. Rhoda Blumberg's book makes this piece of history come alive. Mary Morgan's illustrations are a treat.