MUST SHE WEAR THEM?
We do not speak in disparaging tones when we say that a woman who wears bloomers has loose habits.
— Syracuse Post.
*****
The queen of Spain now knows what pain
And woe and ruth are like.
No legs has she; and so, you see,
She cannot ride a bike.— New York Recorder.
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“Woman is still far from her ideals.”“Oh, I don’t know. We don’t wear them as loose as we did.”
— Detroit Tribune.
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There’s a bicycle girl in Weehawken
That has set all the neighbors to tawken;
This feminine biped
Wears bloomers bright striped,
And red is the shade of her stawken.*****
“I hear,” said the cheerful idiot, “that they are talking of revising the costume of the Goddess of Liberty.”“And what will it be pray?” asked the typewriter boarder, who has a wheel.
“Red, white and bloomers,” said the cheerful idiot. –Indianapolis Journal.
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Bobbie — Say, fellers, let us holler “Rats!” as that woman passes.Freddie — What’s the use? Don’t you see she has bloomers on? — Judge.
The Atlanta Constitution (Atlanta, Georgia) Jun 16, 1895
Image from http://empressofdirt.blogspot.com
MORE ABOUT BLOOMERS.
There were more bloomers out on bicycles in this city yesterday than ever before and fewer accidents. The new woman is rapidly ceasing to be a public danger.
— New York Evening Sun.
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It is only a reversal of condition. The society girl wears bloomers on her bodice and the bicycle girl wears sleeves on her pantaloons.— Nashville American.
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“I don’t for the life of me see how you can uphold bloomers,” said the conservative man.“I supposed not,” said the fluffy girl. “The suspenders fad has been out of date more than two years.”
— Indianapolis Journal.
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Bicycle bloomers should be proud of the sensation they have created. They appear as topics of earnest discussion on the lecture platform, in the club, and even in the pulpit. And the agitation is still growing. Not the silver question itself has more hopelessly divided families, separated friends and made sworn enemies than the now end-of-the-century theme — the bicycle bloomers.— Baltimore American.
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“Do you keep bloomers to rent?” she asked, as she sailed into the fashionable dressmaker’s on Fulton street, yesterday.“No,” said the polite saleswoman, “but we keep materials for repairing rents in bloomers. Have you –”
But she was gone.
— Brooklyn Eagle.
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“Mother, may I go out to bike?”
“Yes, my darling daughter.
But when you reach the Schuylkill pike
Don’t tumble in the water;
For if you do you’ll get a fall,
With a melancholy thud.
And then yourself, your bike, and all,
Will be a was of mud.”— Philadelphia Inquirer.
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The bloomers or the knickerbockers of the lady bicyclist of the period present a neat and tasteful appearance. To say that the wearers look like men is unadulterated nonsense. The men who say so themselves disprove the assertion by the very fact that they denounce them and stand on the street corners, as too many of them do, leering and sneering at them as they pass. If they looked like men, these cheap and nasty fellows would not waste a minute looking at them.— New York Recorder.
The Atlanta Constitution (Atlanta, Georgia) Jun 19, 1895
Image from http://costume.altervista.org
BIKE AND BLOOMERS.
Pity the blind. hey have never seen the bloomer-clad woman on a bicycle.
–Sonerville Journal.
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To a Bicycle Girl:
Whenne on two rims of stele this maid doth go,
Within my hedde I fele
A whele
Alsoe.— Washington Star.
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When money for a modish gown
The modern maid desires,
She has a scheme that’s sure to down
The most unkind or sires.
Should he refuse, she does not pout,
Nor into weeping go,
But knocks him quite completely out
With: “I’ll wear bloomers. So!”— Detroit News.
The Atlanta Constitution (Atlanta, Georgia) Jun 30, 1895
The Daily Review (Decatur, Illinois) May 30, 1897
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Previous posts about bloomers:
Amelia Bloomer, Dress Reform and Bloomers
YesterYear Once More 
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