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Amelia Jenks Bloomer Publisher, Editor, Social Reformer 1818 - 1894

Amelia Jenks was born in Homer, N.Y., in May, 1818. At 22 she married Dexter Bloomer, a remarkably progressive Quaker and publisher of the Seneca Falls County Courier. A man ahead of his time, Dexter encouraged his talented and articulate wife to write articles on temperance, abolition and women's rights for his paper. Laws at the time made everything a woman owned the sole possession of her husband after marriage. Children were legally the property of the father, and women had no say in decisions concerning their welfare. Alcoholism was rampant and the consequences for women and children were often dire, but there were no laws to protect them from abuse.

When a book entitled How to Rule Your Wife was published, Amelia began writing in earnest about the humane treatment of women. She began to campaign against unfair laws and for a woman's right to receive a paycheck in her own name. She fought for laws to protect abused women and children. The demure schoolteacher soon evolved into a confident public speaker.

It was at the Women's Rights Convention in 1848 that Amelia met Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. With their encouragement, she started The Lily, the first newpaper exclusively for women, in 1849. Filled it with articulate, in-depth articles on the rights and dignity of women, The Lily promoted women's suffrage, temperance, higher education for women-Amelia herself had only two years of formal education-and reform of the marriage laws. The paper was a huge success, building a circulation of more than 4,000 readers. And it was through The Lily-but not for it-that Amelia's name became a household word.

Women of the time were squeezed into tight, whalebone-reinforced co rsets that gave them the desired "figure 8 profile"-and often resulted in a number of health problems, including causing their bodies to become permanently deformed. Over these they wore heavy layers of petticoats and other clothing, regardless of the weather. A style of clothing originated by social reformer Fanny Wright and worn by the women at New Harmony, a socialist commune, since the 1820s, was gaining in popularity among the women's right movement. It consisted of a comfortable, loose bodice and a knee-length dress worn over full "Turkish" pantaloons. Lightweight and comfortable, it covered all but the wearer's head, hands and feet. Nevertheless, it was considered scandalous in its day.

Amelia, along with many of her peers in the women's movement, adopted the comfortable style, and she promoted it in The Lily. The fashion quickly became known as "Bloomers," as did the women who wore it. They were derided and mocked, from pulpit to courtroom to newspaper, and so much attention became focused on the fashion that, after several years, Amelia and many other feminists abandoned it in order to refocus attention on the important women's issues.

When Amelia and Dexter moved to Council Bluffs, Iowa, in 1855, she gave up publishing The Lily, but remained active in the campaign for women's rights. From 1871 to 1873, she was president of the Iowa Woman Suffrage Association. Amelia Bloomer died in December 1894.