icks and stones and giving
three cheers and a tiger ending in the loudest of groans.[19] Sometimes
these demonstrations became so violent that the women were obliged to
seek refuge in a store and, after the mob had grown tired of waiting
and dispersed, they would slip out of the back door and find their way
home through the alleys. Their husbands and children refused to be seen
with them in public, and they were wholly ostracized by other women.
Mrs. Bloomer was at this time publishing a paper called the Lily, which
was the organ for the reforms of the day. Its columns were freely used
to advocate the short dress, the paper thus became the target of attack
and, because the costume had no distinctive name, it was christened
with that of the editor, much to her grief. Later a substitute for the
trousers was adopted, consisting of high shoes with buttoned gaiters
fitting in the tops and extending up over the leg, and an effort was
made to change the name to the "American costume," but the people would
not have it and "Bloomer" it will remain for all time. An extract from
one of her unpublished letters will show how all the women felt on this
subject. After protesting against connecting it with the question of
woman's rights, she says:

It is only one of our rights to dress comfortably. Many have put on
the short dress who have never taken any part in the woman's rights
movement and who have no idea they are going to be any less womanly
by such a change. I feel no more like a man now than I did in long
skirts, unless it be that enjoying more freedom and cutting off the
fetters is to be like a man. I suppose in that respect we are more
mannish, for we know that in dress, as in all things else, we have
been and are slaves, while man in dress and all things else is
free. I admit that we have "got on the pantaloons," but I deny that
putting them on is going to make us any the less womanly or any the
more masculine and immodest. On the contrary, I feel that if all of
us were less slaves to fashion we would be nobler women, for both
our bodies and minds are now rendered weak and useless from the
unhealthy and barbarous style of dress adopted, and from the time
and thought bestowed in making it attractive. A change is demanded
and if I have been the means of calling the attention of the public
to it and of leading only a few to disregard old customs and for
on