the_gneech | Happy Happy Birthday Birthday!

Happy birthday to

aeto! And happy belated birthday to

patchworkjester! Hope you guys don't mind sharing today's Forgotten English!

ettes

Suffragettes; women organized for a political purpose.
—Maurice Weseen's A Dictionary of American Slang, 1934

Birthday of Amelia Jenks Bloomer (1818-1894),

a demure American schoolteacher who became an activist for the abolition of slavery, for temperance, and for the women's and children's rights movements. Her most enduring contribution to the plight of women came as a result of her articles in the women's newspaper The Lily popularizing a comfortable new type of clothing introduced in the 1820s by Indiana's New Harmony utopian society. This practical waist-to-ankle garment offered an alternative to the wasp-waist corsets, layers of petticoats, and long, inconvenient skirts that women felt compelled to wear. It consisted of a loose bodice and a knee-length skirt worn over pantaloons. This fashion […] was quickly ridiculed in newspapers, at social gatherings, and even from the pulpit as being libertine and immoral. Bloomer sensed that the persistent criticism was distracting attention from more important issues, and she and some followers abandoned the distinctive dress. But about 1851 others began to see "Amelia Bloomer's costume" as a symbol of the women's movement. For the next century, the term bloomers denoted a woman's underwear or loose outer trousers.

"Amelia's Libertine Trousers" would make a good name for a rock band.

-The Gneech