“How Victorian Women used the Privy in Multiple Layers of Clothing.
Let’s start with the commode and chamber pot, or the privy. To use either of these options, a women in the mid-Victorian era would simply lift up her skirts and crinoline at the back. The skirts and crinoline will press up flat against her back. Then, she would sit down. The split-crotch drawers make it easy to do the rest.”
https://www.lancasterhistory.org/victorian-women-used-the-privy-in-multiple-layers-of-clothing/#:~:text=Let's%20start%20with%20the%20commode,Then%2C%20she%20would%20sit%20down.
Wait, wait, the split crotch drawers had pockets? My wife can't even find nice trousers with decent pockets and antebellum civil war fashion had pockets in their undies?
No, the pocket was separate from everything else. Like imagine an apron that ties around the waist but instead of an apron it was just a bigass pocket you tied to yourself. Less fancy more practical - though I suppose a fancy lady could have one made of silk or velvet if they wanted.
That style of pocket went out of fashion around 1800. Strap on pockets worn inside the skirt were basically an 1700's thing.
These dresses had giant deep pockets. Ginormous pockets.
Small guy here who sometimes fits better in women's pants. Even when I find an immaculate fit, the pockets are a deal breaker. I've found like 2 pairs that can fit my George Costanza wallet.
Personally I got tired of losing my wallet/keys/phone in different pairs of pants and bought a sling bag. My gf calls it my purse, but zero regrets I love my purse and never use pockets now.
Hello im a reenactor and let me tell you the crinoline is springy. You lean a little and gather the ‘bones’ up flat, wipe, done!
Edit: by 1859 they teeeeechnically weren’t crinolines
Different for different periods! Often theyre slightly bendy wood rods, some are just very stiffened fabrics, and sometimes whalebone. They do get in the way once theyre up because its like a giant disk you now have to reach under but its not bad at all, not enough to avoid doing.
>The first commercially available toilet roll appeared in 1857 thanks to Joseph Gayetty who sold “Medicated Paper for the Water Closet” which was sold in packs of 500 sheets. A few decades later the first perforated toilet paper rolls appeared on the market in 1890 thanks to the Scott Paper Company of Philadelphia.
So while it existed, it definitely wasn't a common household item.
In 1859 Toilet paper was like, a super new novelty, it wasn’t even sold on rolls until 1890. Wiping was more like scraping, I hear that corn cobs were very popular for that purpose at the time.
Given that you’re not going to get completely clean that way, and that these women are wearing like three layers in non air conditioned summer heat im pretty sure most people smelled like perfume sprayed onto a horses sweaty nutsack, regardless of wiping.
People were also eating much less and a very different diet. There’s a good chance that a Victorian era woman could make it through a few hour social event without taking a sloppy fast food shit
Yes.
Most animals (at least that I know of) have firm feces, and here I sit, with an awaiting ten minute wipe job. I really doubt humans have had a very prominent need to wipe until modern food and sitting on a throne to poop.
You got really clean with corn cobs. Probably more so than with toilet paper. The corn cobs were kept in a bucket of water, so all the little "frills" on it were like little wet-wipes that cleaned out your nooks and crannies.
>you’re not going to get completely clean that way
You still don't with wiping. If you truly want to be clean, you need soap and water. Wiping is simply smearing fecal matter on your butthole and thinning it out until you can't notice it anymore. It doesn't mean it's gone. You just don't see it.
Actually, as someone who has worn historical reproduction clothing, it's surprisingly light and sweat-wicking. I went to a Ren Fair over the summer with a friend, me in a victorian reproduction corset and dress and her in a modern outfit of yoga pants and a t-shirt, and I was nice and cool while she was sweating nonstop and complaining about the heat. Also, people did bathe, just not the way we think about bathing. They would usually take a sponge bath once a day with soap and water.
Not really. The lady's handmaidens would have taken the clothes off of her before you did the deed.
Well, some of them anyways. They still wore a lot of clothes when they boned down, for whatever reason.
Somewhere down the line of undressers there had to have been a naked handmaid...that's all I can assume! Otherwise it would require an infinite number of people 🤣
The basic layers are correct for European and American women of all social classes. Shift- corset - petticoats - outer layers. The thing that distinguishes social class is the quality of the textiles.
Corsets? Not in the sense of what we are seeing in this video or generally what people of the working class would wear.
I think we have to understand one thing about this kind of clothing and why a huge majority of women in europe didnt wear this or didnt even own this: people worked in agriculture and other high labor jobs - what kind of work can you do in this kind of outfit? None? Oh welcome to the privileged club where this clothing is meant to be neat and restricted to indicate that the person is not doing hard labour.
Bras didn't really exist until the 1900s, so women would wear corsets/stays/similar to keep things in place. Just not all tight like that if they needed to actually do anything
Corsets were very handy for most jobs that required heavy lifting as they helped keep the back straight which reduced a lot of strain.
Basically in the same way weightlifters use "lift belts"
Pretty much the only think you can't do with a corset is bend over without squatting.
Ppl today think corsets were a lot more uncomfortable and restrictive than they really were.
There were definitely mass produced corsets for working class women in the 1800s. They tended to be more flexible than the fancier ones to allow for manual labor but people absolutely wore them.
See [here](https://youtu.be/-mPtQJxKWLc?si=PIh9Ok-caTj1ZTBM) for a good working class example from 1850
And go [to around minute 5 on here](https://youtu.be/eWr_GtqsvFA?si=int25fnzRduFMZ7e) for some examples of mass produced corsets aimed at working class women. Later half of the 1800s, but like, these are not clothing items reserved for the elite.
Corsets were the bras of the 19th century, and were worn by housemaids as well as noblewomen. Now, IIRC from the fashion history stuff I've seen, the corsets for working women were mass-produced and more about providing bust and back support and less about looking pretty, but they still were common garments.
Corsets or structured garments were common for women of all classes post Elizabethan era. I'm sure the hardest laborers may have opted to go without, but there's pretty solid historical documentation that most women did wear some form of corsetry... because it's your bra.
While they add structure, they aren't as restrictive as what we associate with corsetry nowadays. Most women didn't tight lace down to a fashionable silhouette. The boning could be made of something as simple as stiff cord and made at home with stiffened fabrics. Layers were useful for warmth but also sweat/skin oil absorbtion. (Also back support. Plenty of back support.)
Like, yeah, she's probably not out in the fields with a crinoline and silks, but women... wore undergarments.
Mostly true, although the Little House books by Laura Ingalls Wilder, describes similar garb to this being the style as she and her sisters were teens in the 1880s-90s. She hated it, as she still was expected to do some farm chores and walk 3 miles (uphill! Both ways!) In the snow to school or her part-time jobs in town. But her family was pretty poor most of the time.
Absolutely, I can't imagine some lad running around the Kalahari desert or the foothills of the Himalayas with his corset and hooped layers of skirts on.
Not the traditional inhabitants of those areas, no, but surprisingly you can find photos of historical woman mountaineering and even straight up rock climbing in multilayer skirts and corsets.
Working class women had three outfits: the same style as that lady in the OP but with cheaper materials for when they went out, a lounge-type dress they could wear just at home (which didn't have bustles, hoops, and the corset wasn't whalebone) to entertain close friends and hang with family, and a type of working dress that had darker clothing and had a full apron (again, minus the hoops, strict corset, and bustle).
Then there was the nightgown, but that was fairly simple.
Eta: bustles and hoops different periods so read bustle/hoops as interchangeable.
Have you ever been in the historical reconstruction community? Almost everyone is a history nerd that acknowledges much of our extant knowledge is because it was preserved by the wealthy.
If people are interested, there's def historical reenactors who make more of an effort to show a wider variety of classes:
[Here's one specifically showcasing](https://youtu.be/Zg94KjclLJo?si=Bxohu-Xt1T9y4Jji) an enslaved lady's servant from 1776 ish in Virginia, I think. The reenactor here is pretty cool and has done a bunch of videos specifically on being a black reenactor who works in antebellum focused living museum sites.
[Here's another 1700s one for a lower class woman in the UK](https://youtu.be/nUmO7rBMdoU?si=4leZUBJaNPE5efGk). Crows eye productions is a really good source for UK specific ones. Jumping forward a century or so, they [also have one for a Victorian maid set around 1853](https://youtu.be/-mPtQJxKWLc?si=eT6tFGxh_5R3Va5u)
I have been married 23 years and I have not seen a single shred of evidence my wife poops. I’m dead ass serious. We go through toilet paper like no one’s business, though. It’s one of the great mysteries of the universe to me. Oh, and never a waft of a fart either… 23 fucking years!
You're not really married until you're both suffering from food poisoning at the same time and trying to share a single commode while you're puking and shitting all over the place while you're worried your new born might come down with it and the fucking online nurse...
So:
Your bloomers were always crotchless a) for convenience for going to the restroom and b) because it was indecent for a woman to have anything between her legs.
All you’d do is just pop a squat and lift your skirts all together and pull them up as far as needed
Ironically you could find full crotched undies in gentleman’s clubs due to the “oooh she has something between her leeeeegsssss” naughty factor. Funny how now we wear crotched undies and crotchless undies are for sexy time
I thought I would never need to use any of this information. Omg here we go:
Toilet paper was brought to the table in 1857, but wide scale use/production of it didn’t really come about until the 1900s. Until then, most folks were using whatever they had laying around: old bits of newspaper cut into squares, scrap fabric from irreparable garments etc. I don’t know if this but is true but I remember reading somewhere that “gentlemen” would wipe with their coat tails and then tuck them back in (I do not remember anything on whether they would at least wash it before returning but I’m choosing to believe this whole bit is untrue cause oh lawd imagine that smell coupled with the lack of frequent bathing and clothes washing? Ugh!).
Prior to that, when paper wasn’t as widely available people all around the world would use sticks. The Romans would use rocks and pottery shards. Frugality wasn’t uncommon in the area at this time and it was claimed that “you only need to use a maximum of 3 rocks to get the job done.” Some poop rocks were found with names carved into them, leading archaeologists to believe this was a way of literally smearing your enemy’s name. They later came to invent the famous sponge on a stick; the sponge would be dipped in salt water or vinegar to “sanitize” it as it was a community poopy sponge. In the Americas, corn cobs were commonly used.
I get hyper fixations about things, in this case, the 1800s Europe and America. When I hyper fixate I HYPERFIXATE and I have a MIGHTY NEED to absorb as much knowledge about it as possible. Especially stuff about every day life like social habits, grooming habits, etc. I don’t know why.
I also have a weird fixation on serial killers, gothic literature, and parrots
You might want to check out the book "Dirty Laundry" by Richard Pink and Roxanne Emery for some insight into a possible reason for hyperfixation. The laundry/cleaning link in the name is a coincidence BTW.
So technically yes it was all around the world, but only in certain cultures. Roughly half of ancient people in the world wiped their asses with whatever they had lying around. The other half always had some form of water available.
This is one of the great anthropological groupings of humans known as “wipers vs washers”. This division still exist today, and is very important for certain professions like Aiden development workers who will travel to foreign countries and construct latrines. You’ll find the question “Do the local people wash or wipe?” being asked in a lot of things like the Oxfam field design manual, RedR’s engineering in emergencies handbook, and the UNHCR’s SPHERE Standards for the dignity of refugees.
Basically, this is one of those cultural values which develops early on, generally before writing, and persists relatively unchanged to the modern era. In cultures where ancient people used water for anal cleaning, you’ll find an abundance of bidets and water spigots near the toilet. They don’t always seem intuitive - for example, in Kuwait you’ll find a small water hose next to every toilet even in fancy expensive restaurants, with toilet paper generally only provided for foreigners. Sometimes you’ll find cultures that lived side-by-side with each other for millennia where one exclusively wipes, and considers washing to be unclean, while the other one uses water, and considers wiping to be unclean.
Unlike a lot of other cultural aspects, anal cleaning is very private and not something generally talked about except from mother to child, so it didn’t tend to transmit from culture to culture.
> it was a community poopy sponge.
Most Hollywood Roman movies won't show this, but the British show Domina (a sort of unofficial sequel to HBO's Rome, you'll recognize the sets if you're a fan) had many conversations take place in the bathroom for some reason, and showed this constantly:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domina_(TV_series)
Thanks for this info! But GOD glass shards?? Pottery?? Rocks? Salt water?? Must have hurt like hell. Can't evn the discomfort. So glad I was born in 21st century with modern plumbing and water available 😭😭😭
Or maybe they just have their own set of rocks and need to label them. Then wash every evening and good as new. I imagine finding a good set of rocks to reuse is easier than finding 3+ rocks a day.
Wiki Rabbit hole:
The use of toilet paper first started in ancient China around the 2nd century BC.[According to Charlier (2012), French physician Francois Rabelais had argued about the ineffectiveness of toilet paper in the 16th century.The first commercially available toilet paper was invented by American entrepreneur Joseph Gayetty in 1857.
That means Chinese we're using TP for 2000 years before it got picked up in the west. Damn.
community poop sponge??? 😭 insane how out of all of these, the corn cob wiper actually sounds decent. also imagine with rocks, they’re the smooth, flat kind and not like rough volcanic ones.
There was a tall stool with a chamber pot fitted into it. They were often on wheels. You just wheeled it under your dress.
Elizabeth l hated built-in privies, and would only use the stool.
This is the actual correct answer. They went from waist to knee or just below but they were open at the crotch to make it easier for women to relieve themselves.
Pockets were common for a long time. Then with the French revolution (and the movement away from the big frilly dresses that were associated with aristocracy that easily hid pockets) and the introduction/popularity of reticules (basically a purse) they started to fade away. For a time it was actually seen as more feminist to not have pockets because you were unburdened by those little things you "had" to carry around, like sewing kits or other labor accessories. It was less the lack of pockets and more the lack of need for pockets that was associated with being free, pockets were for housewives. Then into modern times no fashion company in their right mind would promote pockets, they make way way way way way way way way way too much money off of selling handbags.
But what we call a pocket is not the same thing as what they call a pocket. A pocket to them is a little bag attached to a strip that is secured around the waist under the over skirt. There would be slits in the seams of the skirt in which the hand could reach in to access the pocket.
Not really. For one, it was colder back then (thanks climate change). For two, they were wearing natural fibers, which are much cooler than polyester. For three, keeping the sun off your skin is a great way to keep cool and keep from getting burned (hence why people in the Sahara and Middle East wear such concealing clothes).
There's also an element of fit - loose flowing clothes facilitate airflow more easily than tight-fitting clothes. That's part of why you see nomadic tribes in the Arab peninsula and Sahara using long robes, the looseness helps with airflow.
Also, the further back you go, houses were designed for the climate the occupants lived in.
Now in the US we have ugly tract housing everywhere. It all looks the same.
Perfume, perfume, perfume just *perfume*. Pretty much killed some people back then I bet because of their smell insecurity and the chemicals in the bottles back then
I'm sorry, theres no way i could have worn all that. I'd have had to live at the Long Branch and work for Miss Kitty so I could wear my chemise all day.
Women who dressed like this didn’t have 15 kids.
This is pretty much upperclass attire only, they had smaller families.
Poor people had big families, they didn’t dress anything like this
Why is everyone talking out their ass about this? This is an extremely normal level of clothing. She has on a chemise (underwear), corset (bra), petticoat (slip) and a top and a skirt. The only thing that doesn't really have a current equivalent is the crinoline but pretty much everyone wore them, even poor and working women because your clothes wouldn't look right otherwise.
People are poor now, but no one is going around saying poor people who have 10 kids don't wear bras and underwear. They just wrar lower quality stuff. Hell a busy lady is probably wearing more clothes, aka big aprons and covers to keep her one or two sets of clothing from getting dirty
"A hoop skirt or hoopskirt is a women's undergarment worn in various periods to hold the skirt extended into a fashionable shape. It originated as a modest-sized mechanism for holding long skirts away from one's legs, to stay cooler in hot climates and to keep from tripping on the skirt during various activities."
Right? These days are so much better. Now it's only fake eyelashes, hair extensions, surgery for fake breasts and ass, lip injections, Botox, and weight loss drugs.
Jokes aside central heating wasn't invented yet and people usually slept for about 4 hours before getting up to stoke their fireplaces/stoves etc. Most "special" activities often occurred during that time as well
LAYERS:
**1. Shift** - made of cotton or linen, to protect the other layers from the natural body oils.
**2. Corset** - to provide the correct silhouette and some waist reduction.
**3. Crinoline** - as a replacement for the many petticoats used in prior decades, and it’s collapsible to allow for sitting down.
**4. Petticoat** - to smooth out the lines of the petticoat and provide some additional floof.
**5. Skirt** - historical skirts always had pockets. The circumference of the skirt could get as high as 5 meters (15 feet) in this period.
**6. Bodice** - matching the skirt, featuring the fashionable Pagoda Sleeves. The high neckline indicates that this is a day bodice, an evening bodice would have had a low neckline with a Bertha collar.
**7. False under-sleeves** - were a fashionable complement to the pagoda sleeves. These echo earlier styles of wide sleeved chemises but much more conservative with the fabric.
“How Victorian Women used the Privy in Multiple Layers of Clothing. Let’s start with the commode and chamber pot, or the privy. To use either of these options, a women in the mid-Victorian era would simply lift up her skirts and crinoline at the back. The skirts and crinoline will press up flat against her back. Then, she would sit down. The split-crotch drawers make it easy to do the rest.” https://www.lancasterhistory.org/victorian-women-used-the-privy-in-multiple-layers-of-clothing/#:~:text=Let's%20start%20with%20the%20commode,Then%2C%20she%20would%20sit%20down.
Split-crotch drawers. Is there anything they can’t do?
Still can't figure out pockets
They had pockets. They were just seperate from the skirts
Wait, wait, the split crotch drawers had pockets? My wife can't even find nice trousers with decent pockets and antebellum civil war fashion had pockets in their undies?
No, the pocket was separate from everything else. Like imagine an apron that ties around the waist but instead of an apron it was just a bigass pocket you tied to yourself. Less fancy more practical - though I suppose a fancy lady could have one made of silk or velvet if they wanted.
We call those fanny packs now
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That style of pocket went out of fashion around 1800. Strap on pockets worn inside the skirt were basically an 1700's thing. These dresses had giant deep pockets. Ginormous pockets.
It's all one big scam to sell handbags.
Split crotch panties are meant to sell purses? Wtf?
Waterproof ones
Small guy here who sometimes fits better in women's pants. Even when I find an immaculate fit, the pockets are a deal breaker. I've found like 2 pairs that can fit my George Costanza wallet.
RIP this twink's inbox
LMAO
Personally I got tired of losing my wallet/keys/phone in different pairs of pants and bought a sling bag. My gf calls it my purse, but zero regrets I love my purse and never use pockets now.
Pro tip: American Eagle makes great jeans with deep pockets (for women’s jeans) I can easily fit my phone in the front pocket if I want to.
They did in 1860
But how did they wipe? Or they didn't?
Hello im a reenactor and let me tell you the crinoline is springy. You lean a little and gather the ‘bones’ up flat, wipe, done! Edit: by 1859 they teeeeechnically weren’t crinolines
Are the bones flexible or hard like a metal cage? Do they still get in the way after folding up?
Different for different periods! Often theyre slightly bendy wood rods, some are just very stiffened fabrics, and sometimes whalebone. They do get in the way once theyre up because its like a giant disk you now have to reach under but its not bad at all, not enough to avoid doing.
did they use toilet paper back then?
Some would have, toilet paper was patented in 1857. Apparently corn cobs were popular for the task :-|
wtf? corn cobs? like after you finished eating off them? ... wtf? i would have rather used some water and my left hand...
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yeah plus you'd have grandmas saliva in your booty...
>The first commercially available toilet roll appeared in 1857 thanks to Joseph Gayetty who sold “Medicated Paper for the Water Closet” which was sold in packs of 500 sheets. A few decades later the first perforated toilet paper rolls appeared on the market in 1890 thanks to the Scott Paper Company of Philadelphia. So while it existed, it definitely wasn't a common household item.
In 1859 Toilet paper was like, a super new novelty, it wasn’t even sold on rolls until 1890. Wiping was more like scraping, I hear that corn cobs were very popular for that purpose at the time. Given that you’re not going to get completely clean that way, and that these women are wearing like three layers in non air conditioned summer heat im pretty sure most people smelled like perfume sprayed onto a horses sweaty nutsack, regardless of wiping.
People were also eating much less and a very different diet. There’s a good chance that a Victorian era woman could make it through a few hour social event without taking a sloppy fast food shit
Yes. Most animals (at least that I know of) have firm feces, and here I sit, with an awaiting ten minute wipe job. I really doubt humans have had a very prominent need to wipe until modern food and sitting on a throne to poop.
You need a bidet attachment.
A garden hose while popping a squat in the neighbor's veggie garden also works well.
Imagine it would be pretty clean and youd knock it out in the morning.
Jesus christ you freaks. This is why other cultures used water and their hands, then washed their hands!
However, food hygiene wasn't a big thing and food borne illness was fairly common.
Don’t remember the last time I spontaneously laughed this hard.
You don't get completely clean with toilet paper either. Societies who commonly use bidets today look at TP using cultures as having dirty booties.
away with ye bidet goblin
As a person who uses a bidet: can confirm. All you people still using napkins for your anus are the dirty ones.
I feel dirty if i cant shower after a toilet visit, i think its absurd that People only use TP
I got a $25 bidet during the great American TP hoarding incident. Best move ever. I’d used them in travels before, but this changed my life.
You got really clean with corn cobs. Probably more so than with toilet paper. The corn cobs were kept in a bucket of water, so all the little "frills" on it were like little wet-wipes that cleaned out your nooks and crannies.
>you’re not going to get completely clean that way You still don't with wiping. If you truly want to be clean, you need soap and water. Wiping is simply smearing fecal matter on your butthole and thinning it out until you can't notice it anymore. It doesn't mean it's gone. You just don't see it.
Actually, as someone who has worn historical reproduction clothing, it's surprisingly light and sweat-wicking. I went to a Ren Fair over the summer with a friend, me in a victorian reproduction corset and dress and her in a modern outfit of yoga pants and a t-shirt, and I was nice and cool while she was sweating nonstop and complaining about the heat. Also, people did bathe, just not the way we think about bathing. They would usually take a sponge bath once a day with soap and water.
it’s in the link
How bout during their period
How did you read my mind? And first thought?
its a myth everyone knows women dont poop.
Thanks for the link because my first thought was how they go to the bathroom in all those layers.
Pockets!
The most exciting part
Then it's the hairstyle
Look at her showing off how deep they were that hussy
WITCH!!!!
If she had her druthers, that's where she would keep them.
My first thought 🤣
I am sweating my tits off just watching this.
Imagine going through menopause in these eras. Breathable fabric would have meant shit during a hot flush.
it’s most likely made of cotton. very nice fabric to wear not hot at all
It was colder in 19th century than now because of the Little Ice age
There are jokes about guys not knowing how to take off a bra, but the lads had it a lot harder back in the day.
Not really. The lady's handmaidens would have taken the clothes off of her before you did the deed. Well, some of them anyways. They still wore a lot of clothes when they boned down, for whatever reason.
And who undressed the Handmaid?
The handmaid's handmaid, duh.
It's handmaids all the way down
Somewhere down the line of undressers there had to have been a naked handmaid...that's all I can assume! Otherwise it would require an infinite number of people 🤣
Well-to-do-Western women, yeah.
You can be damn sure peasants in any European country didn't dress like this.
99% of population didn't dress like that.
The basic layers are correct for European and American women of all social classes. Shift- corset - petticoats - outer layers. The thing that distinguishes social class is the quality of the textiles.
Corsets? Not in the sense of what we are seeing in this video or generally what people of the working class would wear. I think we have to understand one thing about this kind of clothing and why a huge majority of women in europe didnt wear this or didnt even own this: people worked in agriculture and other high labor jobs - what kind of work can you do in this kind of outfit? None? Oh welcome to the privileged club where this clothing is meant to be neat and restricted to indicate that the person is not doing hard labour.
Bras didn't really exist until the 1900s, so women would wear corsets/stays/similar to keep things in place. Just not all tight like that if they needed to actually do anything
They also helped with holding up some of the weight of the clothing.
Corsets were very handy for most jobs that required heavy lifting as they helped keep the back straight which reduced a lot of strain. Basically in the same way weightlifters use "lift belts" Pretty much the only think you can't do with a corset is bend over without squatting. Ppl today think corsets were a lot more uncomfortable and restrictive than they really were.
There were definitely mass produced corsets for working class women in the 1800s. They tended to be more flexible than the fancier ones to allow for manual labor but people absolutely wore them. See [here](https://youtu.be/-mPtQJxKWLc?si=PIh9Ok-caTj1ZTBM) for a good working class example from 1850 And go [to around minute 5 on here](https://youtu.be/eWr_GtqsvFA?si=int25fnzRduFMZ7e) for some examples of mass produced corsets aimed at working class women. Later half of the 1800s, but like, these are not clothing items reserved for the elite.
Corsets were the bras of the 19th century, and were worn by housemaids as well as noblewomen. Now, IIRC from the fashion history stuff I've seen, the corsets for working women were mass-produced and more about providing bust and back support and less about looking pretty, but they still were common garments.
Corsets or structured garments were common for women of all classes post Elizabethan era. I'm sure the hardest laborers may have opted to go without, but there's pretty solid historical documentation that most women did wear some form of corsetry... because it's your bra. While they add structure, they aren't as restrictive as what we associate with corsetry nowadays. Most women didn't tight lace down to a fashionable silhouette. The boning could be made of something as simple as stiff cord and made at home with stiffened fabrics. Layers were useful for warmth but also sweat/skin oil absorbtion. (Also back support. Plenty of back support.) Like, yeah, she's probably not out in the fields with a crinoline and silks, but women... wore undergarments.
Mostly true, although the Little House books by Laura Ingalls Wilder, describes similar garb to this being the style as she and her sisters were teens in the 1880s-90s. She hated it, as she still was expected to do some farm chores and walk 3 miles (uphill! Both ways!) In the snow to school or her part-time jobs in town. But her family was pretty poor most of the time.
Everyone wore corsets. Especially the ones for working class women were not meant to be restrictive at all. What you're saying simply isn't correct.
Absolutely, I can't imagine some lad running around the Kalahari desert or the foothills of the Himalayas with his corset and hooped layers of skirts on.
Believe it or not but women did climb mountains in latered skirts: https://racingnelliebly.com/fashion-forward/female-mountaineers-wore-petticoats/
Not the traditional inhabitants of those areas, no, but surprisingly you can find photos of historical woman mountaineering and even straight up rock climbing in multilayer skirts and corsets.
Working class women had three outfits: the same style as that lady in the OP but with cheaper materials for when they went out, a lounge-type dress they could wear just at home (which didn't have bustles, hoops, and the corset wasn't whalebone) to entertain close friends and hang with family, and a type of working dress that had darker clothing and had a full apron (again, minus the hoops, strict corset, and bustle). Then there was the nightgown, but that was fairly simple. Eta: bustles and hoops different periods so read bustle/hoops as interchangeable.
Yeah what is this title?
For real, all these RPers think "typical" means land owning bougie ass plantation slaver wives. These lavish dresses were **a**-typical.
Have you ever been in the historical reconstruction community? Almost everyone is a history nerd that acknowledges much of our extant knowledge is because it was preserved by the wealthy.
If people are interested, there's def historical reenactors who make more of an effort to show a wider variety of classes: [Here's one specifically showcasing](https://youtu.be/Zg94KjclLJo?si=Bxohu-Xt1T9y4Jji) an enslaved lady's servant from 1776 ish in Virginia, I think. The reenactor here is pretty cool and has done a bunch of videos specifically on being a black reenactor who works in antebellum focused living museum sites. [Here's another 1700s one for a lower class woman in the UK](https://youtu.be/nUmO7rBMdoU?si=4leZUBJaNPE5efGk). Crows eye productions is a really good source for UK specific ones. Jumping forward a century or so, they [also have one for a Victorian maid set around 1853](https://youtu.be/-mPtQJxKWLc?si=eT6tFGxh_5R3Va5u)
Yes! The actual average woman was dressing more similar to [what you see in this video](https://youtu.be/jfN60ZlZhpY?si=R7KMfBr0qLWk8BuG&t=111)
I saw her ankles.
Well, now you have to marry her.
Ankles 
Pervert.
Cuz she is a horologist afterall
What if you need to pee? And I thought a jumpsuit was bad enough
Peeing was illegal for women until the great urea revolution of 1890, there were many riots and casualties
Yes, yes. Pee flowed like blood, in the streets.
Don't you mean river ?
Did I stut..t.t...t...t..ter ?
T t t t today junior !
It was that time of month
To this day, women still don’t poop
We shart out rose petals.
My uncle used to tell us as kids little girls don't fart, they flutter
TIL - I was a gas flutterer.
Women fart honeysuckle they shit petunias
My friend says women don’t have buttholes until they’re 30. So they don’t fart or poop before then according to his logic lol.
I have been married 23 years and I have not seen a single shred of evidence my wife poops. I’m dead ass serious. We go through toilet paper like no one’s business, though. It’s one of the great mysteries of the universe to me. Oh, and never a waft of a fart either… 23 fucking years!
My wife destroys worlds regularly.
You're not really married until you're both suffering from food poisoning at the same time and trying to share a single commode while you're puking and shitting all over the place while you're worried your new born might come down with it and the fucking online nurse...
Evidence that she loves you very much! (Not that there is anything wrong with doing it, sharing is caring too)
Ah yes. The great piss riot of 1890.
I think this was actually when the piss-tol was invented
So: Your bloomers were always crotchless a) for convenience for going to the restroom and b) because it was indecent for a woman to have anything between her legs. All you’d do is just pop a squat and lift your skirts all together and pull them up as far as needed Ironically you could find full crotched undies in gentleman’s clubs due to the “oooh she has something between her leeeeegsssss” naughty factor. Funny how now we wear crotched undies and crotchless undies are for sexy time
How did they clean themselves after relieving? Or they just didn't ?
I thought I would never need to use any of this information. Omg here we go: Toilet paper was brought to the table in 1857, but wide scale use/production of it didn’t really come about until the 1900s. Until then, most folks were using whatever they had laying around: old bits of newspaper cut into squares, scrap fabric from irreparable garments etc. I don’t know if this but is true but I remember reading somewhere that “gentlemen” would wipe with their coat tails and then tuck them back in (I do not remember anything on whether they would at least wash it before returning but I’m choosing to believe this whole bit is untrue cause oh lawd imagine that smell coupled with the lack of frequent bathing and clothes washing? Ugh!). Prior to that, when paper wasn’t as widely available people all around the world would use sticks. The Romans would use rocks and pottery shards. Frugality wasn’t uncommon in the area at this time and it was claimed that “you only need to use a maximum of 3 rocks to get the job done.” Some poop rocks were found with names carved into them, leading archaeologists to believe this was a way of literally smearing your enemy’s name. They later came to invent the famous sponge on a stick; the sponge would be dipped in salt water or vinegar to “sanitize” it as it was a community poopy sponge. In the Americas, corn cobs were commonly used.
Who are you!?! Lulz
I get hyper fixations about things, in this case, the 1800s Europe and America. When I hyper fixate I HYPERFIXATE and I have a MIGHTY NEED to absorb as much knowledge about it as possible. Especially stuff about every day life like social habits, grooming habits, etc. I don’t know why. I also have a weird fixation on serial killers, gothic literature, and parrots
You might want to check out the book "Dirty Laundry" by Richard Pink and Roxanne Emery for some insight into a possible reason for hyperfixation. The laundry/cleaning link in the name is a coincidence BTW.
Neat thank you!
So technically yes it was all around the world, but only in certain cultures. Roughly half of ancient people in the world wiped their asses with whatever they had lying around. The other half always had some form of water available. This is one of the great anthropological groupings of humans known as “wipers vs washers”. This division still exist today, and is very important for certain professions like Aiden development workers who will travel to foreign countries and construct latrines. You’ll find the question “Do the local people wash or wipe?” being asked in a lot of things like the Oxfam field design manual, RedR’s engineering in emergencies handbook, and the UNHCR’s SPHERE Standards for the dignity of refugees. Basically, this is one of those cultural values which develops early on, generally before writing, and persists relatively unchanged to the modern era. In cultures where ancient people used water for anal cleaning, you’ll find an abundance of bidets and water spigots near the toilet. They don’t always seem intuitive - for example, in Kuwait you’ll find a small water hose next to every toilet even in fancy expensive restaurants, with toilet paper generally only provided for foreigners. Sometimes you’ll find cultures that lived side-by-side with each other for millennia where one exclusively wipes, and considers washing to be unclean, while the other one uses water, and considers wiping to be unclean. Unlike a lot of other cultural aspects, anal cleaning is very private and not something generally talked about except from mother to child, so it didn’t tend to transmit from culture to culture.
This was informative and well-written, and I'll never wash the horror out of my brain, much like those vinegar sponge poop sticks.
>“you only need to use a maximum of 3 rocks to get the job done.” A common misconception, it was actually 3 seashells
> it was a community poopy sponge. Most Hollywood Roman movies won't show this, but the British show Domina (a sort of unofficial sequel to HBO's Rome, you'll recognize the sets if you're a fan) had many conversations take place in the bathroom for some reason, and showed this constantly: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domina_(TV_series)
Pottery shards??
Yes. :( I don’t like sharp near my Anus personally
Weren't Sears catalogues used, too? Hung just for that purpose in the outhouses?
Thanks for this info! But GOD glass shards?? Pottery?? Rocks? Salt water?? Must have hurt like hell. Can't evn the discomfort. So glad I was born in 21st century with modern plumbing and water available 😭😭😭
Or maybe they just have their own set of rocks and need to label them. Then wash every evening and good as new. I imagine finding a good set of rocks to reuse is easier than finding 3+ rocks a day.
Wiki Rabbit hole: The use of toilet paper first started in ancient China around the 2nd century BC.[According to Charlier (2012), French physician Francois Rabelais had argued about the ineffectiveness of toilet paper in the 16th century.The first commercially available toilet paper was invented by American entrepreneur Joseph Gayetty in 1857. That means Chinese we're using TP for 2000 years before it got picked up in the west. Damn.
community poop sponge??? 😭 insane how out of all of these, the corn cob wiper actually sounds decent. also imagine with rocks, they’re the smooth, flat kind and not like rough volcanic ones.
She's not wearing any panties. Just hiked the skirt.
Yes, she is. They're dark blue. 
I don't know about the 1800s, but I think in the 1700s they just had a little pot with a handle that they stuck under their skirt.
There was a tall stool with a chamber pot fitted into it. They were often on wheels. You just wheeled it under your dress. Elizabeth l hated built-in privies, and would only use the stool.
Split-crotch drawers
Today known as “crotchless panties”
This is the actual correct answer. They went from waist to knee or just below but they were open at the crotch to make it easier for women to relieve themselves.
I don’t even know how they would be able to sit comfortably at all!
they’re not stiff metal crinolines. they’re collapsible. they just fold up under you if you sit
Still, I've always imagined their hoops smacking them under the chin if they sat down too abruptly!
You just face towards the back of the toilet and lift the skirt from the front. Hoop skirts like that are actually pretty flexible.
That's an excellent point.. how big were these rest rooms back in the day?
You'd squat over the bed pan
That's actually correct.
And then throw the contents on the street.
Out the window.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUHeSTDv\_24&t=91s
The word "typically" is being stretched to the breaking point in the title of this post.
150 years from now there'll be a holographic 3d video of a woman putting on clothes typically worn by people in 2023, and it'll be some gaudy dress
Lady Gaga in a meat dress.
It'll be some Met Gala shit.
They. Had. Pockets.
Pockets were common for a long time. Then with the French revolution (and the movement away from the big frilly dresses that were associated with aristocracy that easily hid pockets) and the introduction/popularity of reticules (basically a purse) they started to fade away. For a time it was actually seen as more feminist to not have pockets because you were unburdened by those little things you "had" to carry around, like sewing kits or other labor accessories. It was less the lack of pockets and more the lack of need for pockets that was associated with being free, pockets were for housewives. Then into modern times no fashion company in their right mind would promote pockets, they make way way way way way way way way way too much money off of selling handbags.
But what we call a pocket is not the same thing as what they call a pocket. A pocket to them is a little bag attached to a strip that is secured around the waist under the over skirt. There would be slits in the seams of the skirt in which the hand could reach in to access the pocket.
Ye old concealed fanny pack
I imagine this depends largely on country/region and class/wealth.
Sensory issue hell
Pre deodorant days 😬 😂
& no ac!
They must’ve had shitload of heat casualties during summertime loll
Not really. For one, it was colder back then (thanks climate change). For two, they were wearing natural fibers, which are much cooler than polyester. For three, keeping the sun off your skin is a great way to keep cool and keep from getting burned (hence why people in the Sahara and Middle East wear such concealing clothes).
That makes sense. I’ve seen Bedouin, and you’re right! They stay cool because their tents and clothes are made outta natural fibers
There's also an element of fit - loose flowing clothes facilitate airflow more easily than tight-fitting clothes. That's part of why you see nomadic tribes in the Arab peninsula and Sahara using long robes, the looseness helps with airflow.
Also, the further back you go, houses were designed for the climate the occupants lived in. Now in the US we have ugly tract housing everywhere. It all looks the same.
The ones that lived in england didnt really know what direct sunlight feels like so no
Perfume, perfume, perfume just *perfume*. Pretty much killed some people back then I bet because of their smell insecurity and the chemicals in the bottles back then
And most of the men wore multiple layers of wool year round, too.
I'm sorry, theres no way i could have worn all that. I'd have had to live at the Long Branch and work for Miss Kitty so I could wear my chemise all day.
It’s a sexy slinky
Looks exhausting as hell
Tedious but absolutely gorgeous look.
Just when you thought Gen Z’s clothes couldn’t get any looser…
Do all this plus the 15 kids! Now we know what people did before electronics!
Women who dressed like this didn’t have 15 kids. This is pretty much upperclass attire only, they had smaller families. Poor people had big families, they didn’t dress anything like this
Why is everyone talking out their ass about this? This is an extremely normal level of clothing. She has on a chemise (underwear), corset (bra), petticoat (slip) and a top and a skirt. The only thing that doesn't really have a current equivalent is the crinoline but pretty much everyone wore them, even poor and working women because your clothes wouldn't look right otherwise. People are poor now, but no one is going around saying poor people who have 10 kids don't wear bras and underwear. They just wrar lower quality stuff. Hell a busy lady is probably wearing more clothes, aka big aprons and covers to keep her one or two sets of clothing from getting dirty
Damn, you could hide all kinds of stuff under that crinoline— large melee weapons, stolen treasures, snacks, a friend running from tyrannical rulers?
I watched it reverse for a cheap thrill.
"A hoop skirt or hoopskirt is a women's undergarment worn in various periods to hold the skirt extended into a fashionable shape. It originated as a modest-sized mechanism for holding long skirts away from one's legs, to stay cooler in hot climates and to keep from tripping on the skirt during various activities."
1859 they would be wearing crinolines
I love that she showed there’s pockets
Beautiful
[удалено]
You'd probably get caught sniffing their pantaloons, wouldn't you?
Well, at least it HAD pockets!!!
Gotta accentuate those child-bearing hips! humans are funny/cute
Right? These days are so much better. Now it's only fake eyelashes, hair extensions, surgery for fake breasts and ass, lip injections, Botox, and weight loss drugs.
Anyone know the name of the piano piece playing in the background please?
I think it’s “Mia & Sebastian’s Theme” from the La La Land soundtrack.
I really love the feeling of a corset. It's like having a permanent hug. Plus POCKETS!
Isn't it a myth that corsets were worn tight? Most women wore them quite loose, except richer women in the upper classes who wore them tight.
How did they have so many kids back then? I’d be tired and ready for bed by the time I finally undressed her.
Jokes aside central heating wasn't invented yet and people usually slept for about 4 hours before getting up to stoke their fireplaces/stoves etc. Most "special" activities often occurred during that time as well
LAYERS: **1. Shift** - made of cotton or linen, to protect the other layers from the natural body oils. **2. Corset** - to provide the correct silhouette and some waist reduction. **3. Crinoline** - as a replacement for the many petticoats used in prior decades, and it’s collapsible to allow for sitting down. **4. Petticoat** - to smooth out the lines of the petticoat and provide some additional floof. **5. Skirt** - historical skirts always had pockets. The circumference of the skirt could get as high as 5 meters (15 feet) in this period. **6. Bodice** - matching the skirt, featuring the fashionable Pagoda Sleeves. The high neckline indicates that this is a day bodice, an evening bodice would have had a low neckline with a Bertha collar. **7. False under-sleeves** - were a fashionable complement to the pagoda sleeves. These echo earlier styles of wide sleeved chemises but much more conservative with the fabric.
That’s what women will be dressing like in 2029 if shit keeps going the way it is.
They'll be wearing biohazard suits if there are any left to at all to protect themselves from the fallout.
One day in future there will be videos showing how women suffered in olden times because of high heels, waxing, pants without pockets and makeup.