Research Paper on:
Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Fashions for Women

Unformatted Sample Text from the Research Paper:
practice in learning how to raise them properly as she walked up steps or curbs. In those days the wasp-waisted look was the height of fashion and women corseted  themselves so tightly as to have doctors fear for their health. Indeed, women were injuring their inner organs with the way the corset tightened the midsection (Womens History 2002).  Daytime fashions found women wearing dresses with long sleeves and collars buttoned up to their necks, but evening dress was less rigid, allowing them to wear short sleeves and low  cut dresses. The corset also served to press the breasts upward that helped to show off their cleavage when in eveningwear (Womens History 2002). HOOP SKIRTS  Women later began wearing hoop skirts in order to push their dresses out even further and that way they could forego the many petticoats. "Ichabod Washburn, the nations largest  wire manufacturer estimated that the annual consumption of three thousand tons of steel is required to expand and give prominence to the ladies dresses in this country" (Womens History, 2002,  PG). The women who wore these skirts were referred to as tilters because it was an easy move to tilt the skirt up slightly in the back in order to  show a little bit of ankle or even the calf of her leg when flirting with a gentleman. Swimwear, of course, was even more bizarre. Up until 1922,  womens swimsuits better resembled nuns habits than anything one might wear to the beach. Ensconced head to toe in woolen knits that included gloves, hats, black woolen stockings, and  pumps laced to the knee, getting into the water was probably the last thing a woman wanted to do wearing all that garb. WOMENS PLACE IN SOCIETY The fashions