Next, for Women’s History Month, we pay a second visit to the Vineland, New Jersey, Dress Reform Convention.

A major element targeted by 19th Century Woman’s Righters (not yet called Suffragettes), was what women wore. Women’s fashions were viewed as part of what kept women in servitude to men, as popular dress designs (for the privileged, at least), made difficult to impractical, work and travel. Women were looking to eliminate the ages old “who wears the pants” argument, by designing fashions that gave them pants, as well.

Click on the above & below pictures, to view the cartoons in detail, and read their captions.

I previously posted the below January 24th, 1874, (New York) Daily Graphic front page, by artist Gray Parker, in which Parker had parodied that year’s Dress Reform Convention. He basically depicted the women’s outfits as ugly, and the participants even uglier. (A basic tactic used up thru the 1970′s, by male cartoonists depicting “Wimmen Libbers”, whether it be by politically conservative cartoonists, or, by mainstream artists in the pages of MAD Magazine.)

Above, the Daily Graphic & artist Gray Parker returned to Dress Reform Convention again, for the front page of the Graphic‘s August 14th, 1875 edition. Given a second opportunity, and a year-and-a-half to think of what jokes he could have drawn the first time, here goes wild with it. As with the majority of cartoons contemporary with the struggle for women’s suffrage, those women seeking equal rights (and the men depicted as emasculated for supporting them) are the butt of the jokes.

Doug Wheeler

NYDailyGraphic