Mary Lincoln's Fashions

[Eva Elisabeth]

(08-24-2014 01:17 AM)LincolnToddFan Wrote:  Fascinating Laurie, thanks. The depth and scope of your knowledge of Civil War era social customs is always astonishing to me.

I totally second this!! Thanks for all the fascinating info, Laurie! Also I was just going to add the question how much a winter outfit weighed - I guessed a lot, but not 37 pounds!!! Just wearing that seems to me some sort of exercise!

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As for the corsets - Dorothea Dix promoted similar - she lectured young women on that corsets had a baneful effect on women's health. When one unreasonable girl said she would "rather be dead than out of fashion", Dix replied: "My dear...if you continue to lace as tightly as you do now, you will not long have the privilege of choice. You will be both dead and out of fashion."