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Clothing
: Women's Clothing
: Fashions of Motherhood
by Linda Baumgarten
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Esther Edwards Burr was very active during her pregnancy. She went to public worship services, dined
at the governor's, visited friends, hosted numerous guests in her home, and
rode out in a chaise with her husband, nearly being injured when it overturned.
On February 5, 1756, she attended a gathering of female friends who were planning
yet another social outing, "a wedding Vissit." Esther was unable to attend because
Aaron was born the very next day.
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Quilted
pudding cap made of velvet and stuffed with horsehair protected toddler
from falls.
1952-55. |
New Englander Elizabeth Porter
Phelps rode into town and "drank tea at Brother Warners" one day before she went
into labor with her first child. Frances Baylor Hill, a young Virginia woman,
kept a journal in 1797 in which she described the activities of a pregnant friend,
Sally Row. Sally continued to attend dinner parties less than a month before her
child was born. Perhaps Sally was aware of warnings against vigorous activity,
because at one outing, she quietly sat quilting with Frances while other friends
were dancing.
Women had to cope with the difficulty of dressing for pregnancy in a time when the fashionable figure
and undergarments called for tight lacing that shaped a woman's body into a smooth
cone from the waist up to the breasts. In 1735, Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough,
wrote her granddaughter reminiscing about her pregnancies and the clothing she
resorted to in an attempt at comfort: "I remember when I was within three months
of my reckoning, I could never endure any bodice [corset] at all; but wore a
warm waistcoat wrapped about me like a man's and tied my petticoats on top of
it. And from that time never went abroad but with a long black scarf to hide
me I was so prodigeous big." (It is instructive to note that the duchess did
not avoid going out, but covered herself with a scarf when she did.) The "warm
waistcoat" described by the duchess was probably an unboned sleeveless garment
that fastened at the front. In spite of the availability of looser waistcoats,
some women continued to wear heavy stays or corsets during their pregnancies.
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Historic Triangle