About Womens Life After 1850

dress has always reflected the dynamic changes in society; the exclusive handmade dresses-in a period where animal and human muscles were the only source of power - gradually gave way to the popularity of tailor made clothes as textile factories dotted the landscape of early 19th century northern England. Victorian sartorial elegance in its various modes depicted Englands prosperity as the worlds economic power. By the 1850s England was undoubtedly the greatest power in Europe; her breakthrough in steam power in 1790 and the subsequent mechanized production of goods made England the envy of the world. While Europe and the rest of the world were still relying on an agrarian economy, Victorian England was experiencing a whole new lifestyle which largely revolved around machines. The Industrial Revolution in England spawned a prosperous middle-class, numerous and important enough to direct and set the political and socio-economic standard in Victorian England. The power of machines, however, both fascinated and alarmed Victorians; the socio-economic structure of 19th century England was swiftly changing; middle-class families became highly hierarchical as only the husbands went out to work; this gave them more power because they were now sole breadwinners. Wives remained at home and became ladies of the house in every sense of the word; Victorian upper class women were now idealized (but it was spiritual worship that confined women in the home), and most of them portrayed the Victorian ideal of womanhood: chaste, ornamental women who were societys moral guardians, but still dependent on the goodwill of their devoted male worshippers. Victorian middle-class women and men like everything else they did-took their roles as ornamental ladies of the house and chivalrous providers very seriously. Their high-minded seriousness were in part nurtured by Puritan and utilitarian ethics.

Industrial England by mid-19th century made available to middle-class women fashionable clothes of quality which, hitherto, only aristocrats could afford.

Corsets and tightlacing to some dress reformers were seen as devices that mutilated women; not only did these beauty devices reshape the body, they were believed to have caused miscarriages, the birth of inferior babies, illnesses and even licentiousness. Medical theorists argued that this made blood become impure and corrupt, caused disease to the brain, and inevitably led to impure feelings. Weak-minded ladies were, therefore, easy preys of temptation.

Fashion in womens dress is characterized by constant small changes in decoration and design, leading slowly to changes in general style and silhouette. Thus the bell shape peaked in the mid-1860s, to be superseded by a straight front line with a pile of material over the buttocks known as a bustle. This silhouette remained dominant until the 1900s. In 1899, in The Theory of the Leisure Class, Thorstein Veblen presented the principle that, while ...