A Note on Bloomer and the Proper Education of Children

You realize how badly history is warped sometimes?  I am writing a thesis on Amelia Bloomer right now (as most of you know) so I decided to read the main book I could find that had been written about her.  Considering it is one of the few books that has been written on Amelia Bloomer since the late 1800s, I was rather excited to learn what the most accessible modern perceptions of Amelia Bloomer might be.  The book is called You Forgot Your Skirt, Amelia Bloomer! and is written for young children. 

Although the author Shana Corey included a note in the back of the book that told the true story of Amelia Bloomer, the actual content of the book was misleading to the point of being wrong on some very important particulars.  It was clearly intended to further an agenda and to paint history in the light of modern society's improved notions and perspectives.  Corey presented Bloomer as a women's rights activist and extolled Bloomer's impropriety as a groundbreaking feat that literally lightened women's load.  Too many aspects of that statement need clarification or correction for me to be able to state them right here.  (This is why I am spending one hundred pages on the topic . . . .)

But I will also mention the extension activity recommended for teachers using this book to teach history in the classroom.  It was neither scientific nor accurate nor safe.  In an activity geared toward five to seven-year-olds, the teach is to allow each child to carry around a twenty-pound bag (accurately representing the weight of women's clothing in the 1840s) and then compare that to the weight of a child's pant and shirt ensemble.  I say unscientific because should would be comparing the weights of adult clothing and children's clothing rather than choosing one or the other.  It is not accurate because historical children's clothing, even when made in the same styles as an adult's, would not have weighed the same amount.  The activity was also unsafe because most five to seven-year-olds are not strong enough to carry around twenty pounds without hurting themselves.