Historical Perspective
Just as contemporary perceptions of athletic women are shaped by the mass media and other aspects of popular culture , so too did various forms of popular culture shape and reflect contemporary responses to women’s athletic activity in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, as women engaged in an increasing variety of athletic activity, including bicycling, golf, tennis, and basketball. They learned how to play and dress for sports through pieces in popular periodicals and by reading guides to participation in athletic activities. Advertisements, too, documented the growing presence of athletic women as well as the development of products attractive and useful to them.
Many popular periodicals featured articles about athletic girls and women at the end of the nineteenth century and in the early years of the twentieth that illuminated several topics related to women’s athletic activity as they provided instruction in how to play, guidance about what to wear, and noted the relationship of athletic activity to women’s health. The articles, ranging from the whimsical to the pragmatic, made the new athletic woman a familiar figure to their readers and usually did so in a manner indicating approval of her athletic activity. These pieces created interest in sports for women and in athletic women themselves.
In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, American women engaged in an increasing variety of athletic activity, including bicycling, golf, tennis, and basketball. They learned how to play and dress for sports through pieces in popular periodicals and by reading guides to participation in athletic activities. The articles, ranging from the whimsical to the pragmatic, made the new athletic woman a familiar figure to readers, usually in a manner indicating approval of her athletic activity.
As images of athletic women filtered onto the pages of popular magazines and newspapers, these representations revealed perceptions about such women and suggested how they might be viewed in a cultural context. This chapter offers representative examples of pieces that appeared in popular magazines and newspapers, such as the Ladies’ Home Journal , The New York Times , and Harper’s Bazaar , as well as guidance provided in instruction manuals and rule books for various sports. Articles in magazines and newspapers, advertisements, and stories for and about schoolgirls and college women, as well as instruction manuals and rulebooks, all combined to shape popular perceptions. Through such sources, women could learn about what sort of attire would be required for comfortable activity. Gender ideology informed the guidance that women received about appropriate attire, suggesting how women could engage in athletic activity without challenging conventions of appearance.
Athletic women could be not only active but fashionable. Many sources suggested the importance of clothing that did not appear to be designed solely for athletic functions. Multiple authors addressed the advisability of loose clothing that allowed the wearer to move freely on the tennis court or golf links. No item limited women’s freedom of movement more than the corset, and authors and advertisers alike advocated the use of less restrictive undergarments. A pragmatic tone imbued the advice about appropriate clothing for athletic activity, as authors even noted that the exigencies of fashion must take a back seat to comfort and utility.
Articles and advertisements in popular periodicals suggested how women should dress in order to engage in particular athletic endeavors. Many of these suggestions followed a practical turn and also revealed the conflict inherent in women’s athletic participation at the turn of the century. Women’s participation in athletic activities challenged conventional limits on their behavior, which had insisted that middle-class and elite women focus on and remain in the private sphere. By engaging in public and non-traditional activities, women began implicitly to challenge those conventions. Dressing in conventional clothing kept women from appearing too threatening while they engaged in their athletic activities.
Adelia K. Brainerd and Harper’s Bazaar: A Case Study
Over the course of five years in the 1890s, Harper’s Bazaar columnist Adelia K. Brainerd wrote “The Outdoor Woman,” and the magazine also included her series in an 1896 advertisement for what readers might expect in the upcoming year (Harper’s Bazaar 1897, 1896). In articles such as those described in this chapter, Brainerd addressed matters of fashion, suggesting what could be worn to engage in athletic activity, and advised readers to select clothing that allowed for maximum movement. These articles offer an introduction to how advice about athletic attire was presented in popular periodicals.
Brainerd’s first column, entitled “Sports on the Water,” served as a harbinger of what lay ahead, as she addressed matters of fashion, the importance of proper instruction, and the health benefits of athletic activity, especially for college women. The article covered water sports and immediately drew attention to a critical safety issue. “It is not too much to say that those who spend a great deal of time on the water ought to feel under an actual obligation to learn to swim.” She also framed fashion in a safety context, writing that a woman who falls into the sea in a boating mishap would struggle mightily to swim in ordinary clothing; hence, Brainerd (1894) advocated knowing how to swim as essential in such circumstances and called for instruction in swimming, noting its availability in several women’s colleges.
Brainerd also devoted space in her columns for suggesting what women might wear to engage in athletic activity, her advice focusing on comfort and utility rather than solely on the appearance of the wearer. After noting that women had difficulty producing the full swing that golf required, she speculated that this inability stemmed in part from women’s unfamiliarity with such movement, but also pointed to the tight clothing worn by many women as further hindrance. The design of women’s garments, especially closely fitted sleeves, did not allow for the free motion necessary to swing a golf club successfully. In addition, “the proper movement of the body … is usually impossible on account of the snugness of her corsets” (Brainerd 1896b). She recommended clothing, “carefully selected with reference to the looseness of the armholes,” as well as a wide skirt paired with a sweater, and offered as an example, “[o]ne of the best players in the Morristown club” who was “on the links last week wearing a light-blue shirt-waist with sleeves rolled up to the elbow to give her more freedom, a brown cloth skirt of moderate length, and a brown Tam O’Shanter.” Her columns reflected ongoing discussions about what to wear for athletic activity.
In 1896, she proclaimed the death of the bloomer, noting that, although it had fallen out of favor in New York and the East, it still had the advantages such as enabling safe riding on bicycles. In the long run, though, perhaps the comfort of bloomers led to their downfall due to their then-considered unfashionable appearance: “Pretty and becoming most emphatically they are not, and this has been their death blow.” Brainerd (1896a) astutely observed, “Women are too anxious about their personal appearance to be willing to wear what their own eyes tell them is ugly.” She did, however, suggest that bloomers could be worn under a properly cut skirt that allowed for the movement requisite to cycling. Tight-fitting clothing and corsets inhibited adequate breathing, so should be avoided and be replaced by corsets and waists specifically developed for athletic activity. Tennis, too, required clothing that aided, rather than prevented, mobility on the court. Women who insisted on wearing long skirts, she wrote, “do not realize how greatly they are handicapped by the yards of useless cloth flapping around their feet. Owing to the agility and swiftness of motion required in tennis, it is a sport for which the short skirt is as necessary as it is for bicycling or golf” (Brainerd 1897). For her, a short skirt was one raised a scant few inches above the ground, and she recognized the importance of freedom of movement to women’s successful engagement in sports.
As Adelia K. Brainerd’s columns showed, popular literature that provided information about athletic activity for girls and women served as a variety of prescriptive literature. It suggested guidelines for what sort of clothing would enable its wearer to move freely enough to engage in physical pursuits. Even advertisements joined in, urging readers to wear a more loosely structured undergarment to allow for greater freedom of movement. Descriptions of suitable attire gave women a strategy to pursue their new activities in comfort. By providing guidance and examples, these articles, advertisements, rule books, and even college catalogues prescribed strategies for athletic women to follow in selecting the clothing in which they would engage in athletic activity.
