Winter Coats 1880-1930: Bundling Up with a Bustle, Feathers, Fur, and Rising Hemlines

Cold is sweeping the Northeast United States where this blogger is located, and it calls to mind past garments for bundling up. This post will compare coats from 1880-1930 and examine the way styles changed throughout these years.

As outerwear progressed, the decoration became progressively simpler and the construction more streamlined. The coats usually reflected the gown or dress styles of the period, for instance, in the 1880s accommodating for the bustle skirt gown, or paralleling the rising dress hemlines of the 1920s.

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1880-1890

The 1880s was a period in which the bustle skirt made a comeback. This meant a large hump at the back of the skirt that needed to be accounted for when wearing a coat. Notice these coats that are hemmed very high in the back. This was done to accommodate for a bustle derriere!

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Left: “The London and Paris ladies’ magazine” (October-December 1885), Jane Pinhorn Thomas, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons; Right: “The London and Paris ladies’ magazine” (October-December 1885), Jane Pinhorn Thomas, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Historic Speaker Series: Clothing and Textiles of the Meadowlands 1890-1915

This month, I gave a talk on Zoom as part of the Meadowlands Museum‘s Historic Speaker Series! This talk covered information from the 2018 exhibit at the Museum, A Stitch in Time: Clothing & Textiles of the Meadowlands,1890 to 1915.

A few highlights from the talk are shown in this month’s post for anyone who was not able to tune in virtually covering! The focus of the highlights is on bleacheries, silk production, and embroidery of the Meadowlands region.

The exhibit, and subsequent talk, is meant to emphasize the power and peak of the textile industry in Northern New Jersey during this period. While most might think of New York City as dominating the garment industry, Northern New Jersey’s silk production and embroidery work were unparalleled in the country at this time. NYC may have dominated the garment trade in terms of completing and selling finished garments, but Northern NJ was a giant in wool and silk fabric production, mechanized embroidery work, and played a significant role in other areas of textile and notion production. The exhibit and talk also bring to light some beautiful garments from the Museum’s collection and how these would have fit into the larger fashion picture, in terms of silhouette and style.

A close-up of the embroidery on this lingerie dress – discussed later in the post

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Threatening Style: Clothing Laws and Enforcement from 1880-1930

This month’s post follows suit from last month’s The Hat-Pin: Fashionably Dangerous. Below are laws and arrests as related to the hat-pin and other fashion items considered morally corrupt, impeding, or dangerous to society….

1 Shorten and Cap those Hat-Pins

Kantluze Hat Pin, “Cannot Injure Scalp, Ornamental Tops,” From @nypl digital collections. http://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47e0-fe48-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99

As the hat-pin became a formidable preventionary tactic from lecherous men, some long hat-pins became worrisome to the public for the potential damage they could inflict. Cities began enacting laws that would regulate the size of the hat-pins to prevent more serious damage. Check out some of the laws that were passed, most of which are noted in the book, The Hatpin Menace[1]:

• March 1910 – Chicago passed a law that banned any hat-pin longer than 9 inches.[2]

• April 3, 1913 – A New Jersey law stated that any hatpin which could inflict a laceration upon another person needed to be covered with a protective tip. Any violators would be fined between $5-$25.

• April 12, 1913 – In Massachusetts, a law went into effect that made it illegal to wear a hat-pin that extended ½” beyond the hat being worn, unless the end of the hat-pin was covered with a protective tip

Photographed in Tallahassee, Florida between 1885 and 1910, Alvan S. Harper (1847-1911), No restrictions, via Wikimedia Commons

The Hat-Pin : Fashionably Dangerous

While hat-pins are no longer considered a necessary finishing touch on our ensembles today, for women in the 19th century, and until the popularity of the close-fitting cloche hats of the 1920s, they certainly were!

Hat-Pin Girl by Charles Dana Gibson, ca. 1905, Public domain

Hat styles changed continuously, reaching their most dramatic proportions in the early Edwardian era, around 1910. The hat-pins this post concerns are those shaped like a long needle. This would have pierced the back or side of the hat material (like a needle threaded through fabric), grabbed the hair of the wearer underneath for stability, and then pierced through the hat again with the middle of the pin covered by the hat material. This simple method secured the hat to the wearer’s head and left both ends of the pin exposed, which provided an opportunity for embellishment.

A high-fashion hat-pin and its box by Cartier. Platinum, sapphires, diamonds, 1910, France, Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum / Public domain

A hat-pin could be a luxurious finishing touch or an innocuous practical measure, but they could even be used as a weapon in a pinch! More like a needle than a knife, hat pins could still inflict damage if necessary. There are actually accounts of hat-pins used as a weapon and it was alluded to in many films and stories.

100th Anniversary of Women’s Suffrage : Brief History and Fascinating, Free Resources

This month FFF is honoring 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment, which was ratified and then certified as an amendment on Aug. 26, 1920 in the United States. This post will cover American women, but if you’re curious about other countries for comparison, this site dates Europe’s suffrage timeline and offers a global suffrage timeline.

Of course, the history of American women’s suffrage is much more complex than this date alone. For one thing, many women voted before they were legally able to, like the three women below in 1917. Some were infamously arrested, like Susan B. Anthony, but others, like Mary Ann Shadd Cary (below), were successful.

“Calm about it. At Fifty-sixth and Lexington Avenue, the women voters showed no ignorance or trepidation, but cast their ballots in a businesslike way that bespoke study of suffrage.” National Photo Company Collection (Library of Congress). National Photo Company Collection / Public domain

African American educator, writer, abolitionist, and lawyer. She was the first African American newspaper editor in North America and successfully voted before 1920. 1800s, National Archive of Canada, Unknown author / Public Domain