Can you imagine–my birthday is also Bloomer Day! The fun and riotous event to celebrate a significant and serious historical convention–The First Women’s Rights Convention held at Seneca Falls NY 19 July 1848.
Deposited in the Kansas Historical Society are more than 700 autobiographical sketches written by Women’s Rights advocates who lived in Kansas. Read the account in American Heritage (Vol 28, December 1976) of how these sketches were discovered in the attic of Lilla Day Monroe who commissioned the women to record their lives.
Monroe’s great-granddaughter, Joanna L. Stratton, a Harvard University student at the time, found the memoirs. She has listed the names of the women in her book: Pioneer Women: Voices from the Kansas Frontier. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1983. Copies of this popular book can be found in many public libraries across the United States.
Your favorite genealogist of choice, Arlene Eakle
PS Watch your own daughters and granddaughters and perhaps even your great-granddaughters wardrobe in 2008. The most popular new addition is leggings worn under short skirts. The leggings reach below the knee–much like bloomers did during the Women’s Rights days–so they are visible.
PPS And watch for the Birth, Marriage, Death Records Checklist for Pedigree Ladies in this Genealogy News Sheet.