Getting to the Bottom: Bloomers

Amelia Bloomer didn't design bloomers!

Last week we looked at tops that women cyclists might have worn a hundred years ago. Today we get to the bottom…which in the late 1800s and early 1900s were often bloomers. Bloomers–those baggy pants usually gathered at the bottom–are associated with Amelia Jenks Bloomer (1818-1894).

Bloomer edited The Lily, what’s believed to be the first newspaper in the United States directed at women. The Lily grew out of the temperance movement (educating the public o...