er the dawn, and the horizon
of woman's freedom is broadening:

The fiction that women have no legs is now fully discredited, for
in the show windows of the largest dry goods stores stand dummies
of the female figure dressed only in the combination undersuit
made of wool or silk "tights," covering the whole body, except
the head, hands, and feet. By this time everyone must know that
woman, like man, is a biped. Can anyone give a good reason why
she must lift an unnecessary weight of clothing with every step
she takes,--pushing forward folds of restricting drapery and
using almost constantly, not only her hands, but her mental power
and nervous energy to keep her skirts neat and out of the way of
harm to herself and others?

Much discussion has been wasted over the question whether a woman
should carry the burden of her voluminous drapery from the
shoulders or the hips. Why must she carry this unnecessary weight
at all?

Now let us join hands, all lovers of liberty, in earnest
co-operation to free American women from the dominion of foreign
fashion. Let us, as intelligent women, with the aid and
encouragement of all good men, take this important matter into
our own hands and provide ourselves with convenient garments; a
costume that shall say to all beholders that we are equipped for
reasonable service to humanity.

Conservative critics have so frequently misrepresented those who have
honestly pleaded for dress reform, that it is no longer safe to be
frank, and this fact alone has constrained numbers of earnest writers
from expressing their sentiments who have felt it their duty to speak
in behalf of health, beauty, and common sense; indeed so certain is
one to be misrepresented who handles this subject in anything like a
reasonable and unconventional manner, and so surely will his views be
assailed as improper, owing to the age-long cast of conventional
thought, that were it not that this question so intimately affects
fundamental, ethical, and hygienic laws, and bears such a vitally
important relation to true progress, I frankly admit that I doubt
whether I should have the courage to discuss it. But I find it
impossible to remain silent, believing as I do most profoundly that
the baleful artificial standards so long tolerated must be abolished,
that the fetish of the nineteenth century civilization must be