In the 1850s, many women rebelled against the restrictive fashion of full, dragging, weighted skirts by adopting what was called first “Turkish dress” and finally became known as the “Bloomer dress” — ...

It's hard to imagine how the invention of bloomers could be a momentous event in women's history. But when a group of 19th-century suffragists decided to shed the heavy floor-length draperies known as ...