

Figure 9. — Bathing hat ol natural color and purple 

 straw, c. 1880. (Smithsonian photo P-65409.) 



would surely ha\e sacrificed appearances and worn a 

 straw hat to avoid an unfashionable sunburn and tan. 



Nevertheless, Homer's sketch reflect.s characteristics 

 seen in certain survi\ing examples from the 1860s — 

 namely that the top was becoming more fitted, being 

 attached completely to a belt with the fuller skirt 

 pleated or gathered to the bottom edge of the belt. 

 In the Design Laboratory Collection of the Brooklyn 

 Museum there is an 1860 black poplin specimen that 

 may be a bathing dress. This example is trimmed 

 at the shoulder seam with epaulets, an example of the 

 extent to which fashion was finally playing a part in 

 bathing costume. ^^ 



The dresses described above appear peculiar not 

 only to 20th century eyes, but they also seem to have 

 amused mid- 19th century correspondents. One writer 

 in 1857 declared that, 



\\'e don't think a man could identify his own wife when 

 she comes out of the bathing-house. A plump figure enters, 

 surrounded with a multitude of rustly flounces and 

 scarcely able to squeeze an enormous hoop through the 

 door. She is absent a few minutes, and presto change! 

 out comes a tall lank apparition, wrapped in the scanty 

 folds of something that looks more like a superannuated 

 night-gown than anything else, and a battered straw- 



chapeau knocked down over the eyes, and stalks down 

 towards the beach with the air and gait of a Tartar 

 chieftain I-"" [fig. 10.] 



Another writer felt that he 



. . . must say — even in the columns of Frank Leslie s 

 Illustrated — that they don't look very picturesque or pretty 

 when a la .Xaiark. . . . Rather limp, sacks tied in the 

 middle, eel-bottles, hydropathic coalheavcrs and "long- 

 shoremen," and pretcrnaturally dilapidated Bloomers, 

 would appear to be the ideals aimed at.'" [fig. 1 1.] 



This use of the term "Bloomers," referring to long full 

 drawers or trousers, is a reminder of how similar the 

 1855 bathing gown with drawers (see fig. 8) was 

 to the reform dress introduced in 1848 and worn by 

 Amelia Bloomer, the feminist, in 1852. 



Despite the evident use of a new waistline treat- 

 ment, the most popular bathing costume of the 

 1870s, according to Harper's Bazar, continued to 

 feature the yoke blouse that reached at least to the 

 knee. This combination of blouse and skirt was held 

 in position at the waist by a belt. The high neck was 

 finished with a sailor collar or a standing pleated 

 frill, while the long sleeves and full Turkish trousers, 

 buttoned on the side of the ankle, concealed the 

 limbs. In 1873 a column on New York fashions 

 reported an effort to popularize short-sleeved, low- 

 throated suits then in favor at European bathing 

 places and which had been illustrated in the Bazar. 

 Ne\'ertheless, the writer hedged this report by adding 

 that 



It is thought best, however, to provide an extra pair of 

 long sleeves that may be buttoned on or basted in the 

 short puffs that are sewn in the arm holes. Sometimes a 

 small cape fastening closely about the throat is also 

 added.'- 



Nevertheless, sketches of bathing scenes from the 

 seventies indicate that some American women wore 

 even shorter sleeves and trousers than those pre- 

 scribed by the fashion magazines. 



Linen and wool fabrics were both suggested in the 

 1840s, but by the 1870s flannel w'as most frequently 

 used for bathing dresses, with serge also being recom- 

 mended. Navy blue, and to a lesser extent, white, 

 gray, scarlet, and brown were popular colors in 



'9 Photograph and pattern appears in Bl.ancii Payne, History 

 oj Costume (New York: Harper & Row, l>)(i.')), pp. .')18, 

 583-584. 



PAPER 64: women's BATHING AND SWIMMING COSTUME IN THE UNITED STATES 



*" ".-\n Excursion to I.ong Branch," Frank Leslie's tlluslraled 

 Newspaper (.\ugust 22, 1857), vol. 4. no. W. p. 182. 



<' Loc. cit. (footnote 18). 



« "New York Fashions," Harper's Ha-ar (July !•.», 187:0, 

 vol. (3, no. 29, p. 451. 



19 



