![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
landofnowhereThe Once and Future Witches, Alix E. Harrow. Fantasy with witches in the US women's suffrage era. Generally good fun so far, though it's really about the modern feminist movement LARPing as historical suffragette witches, rather than being grounded in its historical era.
One reason I like reading period suffragette fiction is to get a sense for how historical activist movements and the culture around them compare and contrast to present-day activism, and more generally to explore the ways in which the past is a different country. You're not getting this here. But on the other hand you are getting modern intersectional feminism and not having to worry about getting gratuitous period racism.
I particularly wish there was more detail on clothing and where it's coming from. There's a comment about how dresses without pockets are a tool of the oppressive patriarchy, but nothing about women altering their skirts to add pockets. There's a shirtwaist factory that burns down in the background, but no indication as to whether anyone's wearing these shirtwaists.
The Extraordinary Case of the Boole Family, Moira Chas. Linked byoursin -- this is actually from 2019, I would have seen it in print at the time, but I don't remember it that well. At any rate, it's good stuff -- both on George Boole's career trajectory from a self-taught shoemaker's son to, after many years and much hard work, a professor and namesake of Boolean logic -- but also the stories of his lesser-known female relatives, including his daughter Alicia Boole Stott, who was skilled at visualizing the fourth dimension. Written for an audience of mathematicians, but most of it is accessible to a general reader.
One reason I like reading period suffragette fiction is to get a sense for how historical activist movements and the culture around them compare and contrast to present-day activism, and more generally to explore the ways in which the past is a different country. You're not getting this here. But on the other hand you are getting modern intersectional feminism and not having to worry about getting gratuitous period racism.
I particularly wish there was more detail on clothing and where it's coming from. There's a comment about how dresses without pockets are a tool of the oppressive patriarchy, but nothing about women altering their skirts to add pockets. There's a shirtwaist factory that burns down in the background, but no indication as to whether anyone's wearing these shirtwaists.
The Extraordinary Case of the Boole Family, Moira Chas. Linked by
oursin -- this is actually from 2019, I would have seen it in print at the time, but I don't remember it that well. At any rate, it's good stuff -- both on George Boole's career trajectory from a self-taught shoemaker's son to, after many years and much hard work, a professor and namesake of Boolean logic -- but also the stories of his lesser-known female relatives, including his daughter Alicia Boole Stott, who was skilled at visualizing the fourth dimension. Written for an audience of mathematicians, but most of it is accessible to a general reader.
no subject
Date: 18 Mar 2021 21:26 (UTC)https://i0.wp.com/skirtfixation.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/342px-Golfing_costume_1907.jpg?w=342
The Folkwear pattern company used to base all of their patterns on actual garments. In the 1980s, I made three of these, including one that I altered to have set-in pockets. If I can do it, other people might have done it.
https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fi.ebayimg.com%2Fimages%2Fg%2F2o8AAOSwNcBfh7jp%2Fs-l300.jpg&f=1&nofb=1
Speaking of Folkwear, there is this pattern of a skirt and shirtwaist. The term shirtwaist at the time was used for what was basically a blouse, sometimes with a drawstring at the waist. Sometimes buttoned in the back. I have a vintage one in my attic, but I'm not at home, so I can't look at it carefully.
https://www.folkwear.com/products/216-schoolmistress-shirtwaist-skirt?variant=35453261390
The answer to the question - I would strongly suspect that the adult women, at least, who were working in the Triangle (shirt)Waist factory would have worn them on some occasions. Here is a photo from the Lawrence Bread & Roses protest march in 1912, responding to the conditions that caused so many deaths in the fire
http://uprisingradio.org/home/graphics/bread_and_roses.jpg
Unless Duckduckgo is messing about with their images - the first march was in January 1912, in Massachusetts. They don't seem to be wearing enough layers for the presumed weather.
I don't know what the teenage or kid workers would have worn.
no subject
Date: 18 Mar 2021 21:53 (UTC)