Bras, Basics and Blues

                          A-Master-Passion, The Story of Alexander Hamilton and Elizabeth Schuyler

Amelia Bloomer (1818-1894) "When you find a burden in belief or apparel, cast it off!"

If only I could! I begin with a digression.

Amelia Bloomer! How I hate to leave her behind, this strong woman, born in 1818, (while Napoleon was still kicking) who didn't leave off her earthly crusades for temperance, comfortable underwear, and equality for women, until 1894, just a few years short of the death of Queen Victoria. She advocated not only sensible clothing for women, but for Equal Rights for Women. Consider: She was a woman whose ideas were so far "ahead of  her time" that "her time" hasn't yet arrived.

Bras have been around for a long time. We can see them in Minoan paintings and Roman Mosaics. Minoan women appear to have worn a boned garment rather like the much later stays, however they left the breasts bare--perhaps this was only for priestesses or aristocratic women. Sadly, we can't ask them who dressed this way--was it a status thing, or was it garb for priestesses?  

Minoan Lady and entourage

Later, there are Roman mosaics of female athletes in bandeau, fabric strips tied to secure the breasts during strenuous activity.

Let us not forget the medieval "breast bags," which is the laugh line among all these varieties of bosom management.  One of the two medieval sources for the "breast bags" huffily claims such items of clothing were "indecent."  I'd like to see that fella deal with a pair of 46DDs and see how well he got along without some means of protection and support.

The stays and jumps were the body-shapers of the 16th-18th Century, the ideal to make an inverted cone of the upper body. The stays were boned and tailored to cinch the waist and lift the bosom. 

Margaret Wells in stays & Will, husband and security for her bawdy house.

Hulu's Harlots 

Stays were what decent women wore, and are probably the original of "straight laced." Women who had health problems, who were lounging at home, or those termed "loose," wore jumps, which were laced, but were not heavily boned. Jumps were made of a sturdy quilted material and were widely worn by servants who required more freedom of motion and by pregnant women as bellies grew.

Jumps* pictured at 

http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O13542/waistcoat-unknown/

And on and on I could go--and I will--but would just like to stop here for a moment to say that the jumps are an item of underclothing I'd love to try. After years of enduring various iterations of of the modern brassiere, I've become convinced that this is my dream solution. My most recent attempts to shop for bras during the pandemic--where I cannot visit the fitting room--inspired this article.

After a brief period--Regency, Napoleonic--where young or slender women were released into wrapped corsets--the conservative reaction of the Victorian period came in. This would lead to ever more tailored full body corsets. Whale bone began to give way to metal wire in order to achieve shaping. In the most extreme fashionistas wearing these garments would lead to unhealthy, misshapen vital organs and what appears in fiction of the times as an epidemic of fainting. (And you would faint, too, if you were cinched in like that.) 

Bone, metal, cotton, 1830-35

Brooklyn Museum Collection @

Metropolitan Museum of Art

In 1889 Herminie Cadole of France changed the underwear game with the introduction of a two piece garment. Basically, she'd separated the one piece stay into girdle and brassiere, the later term coined by American Vogue, in 1911. Herminie called her invention a Corset Gorge-one item of underwear for the waist and belly and the other for bust shaping which was supported by the innovation of shoulder straps. 

Consider this:   like a lot of things in a woman's world, not much has changed in the land of underwear. The girdle is rarely worn anymore by girls, but it has made a bang up return lately as the older women of the western world steadily gain weight. Today girdles come in spandex, with "bones" of plastic. 

The Roman bandeau was reborn in the twenties. I remember my grandma telling me how she used to wrap herself up in medical bandages.  This fashion for flat-chested beauty was brief. GMA's story of the twenties was told before the travail of my going bra shopping with her and my Mother. I remember feeling that this event was some dreadful but hallowed middle-class woman's coming of age ritual, this teen age trip to the chilly fitting rooms of a city department store. 

Here my modesty was sacrificed under the eyes of -- not only my august progenitors, but those of a heavy, weary, white-haired sales woman wielding a tape measure. There were humiliations inside this Syracuse store for girls that  A Christmas Story's Ralphie could never know. 

I've had a war on with the brassiere for the last 35 years, a period which covers my transition from middle age to a "senior" body container. During this time, I frankly confess, I've been at least 30+ lbs overweight, much chub settling in my bosom.  

Step for a moment outside the box of culture and ponder all of the above. Why do we women believe we must shape our bodies to some exterior standard?  This belief has been part of human culture in hundreds of ways for thousands of years, this requirement that women must alter their bodies in certain ways, ways which constrain our movements, ways which weaken our muscles, especially the upper body. 

I'd like to "cast off" the burden of the bra, but unless I return to my youthful A cup self, this won't  happen. When cutting the hedge, mowing the lawn--or while playing Rosie the Riveter--a figure like mine needs support--containment--call it what you will. That's why I'm intrigued by those jumps. I suppose they'd be hot, but heck, they also wouldn't dig grooves in your shoulders.

~~Juliet Waldron

https://bookswelove.net/waldron-juliet/

Some sources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_bras

http://thedreamstress.com/2013/08/terminology-whats-the-difference-between-stays-jumps-a-corsets/

https://www.amazon.com/Underneath-All-History-Womens-Underwear-ebook/dp/B077YFYWBV/ref=sr_1_5?dchild=1&keywords=underneath+it+all+books&qid=1590719300&sr=8-5

Life Keeps Getting More Complicated--Why I don't Like Puzzles by Connie Vines

memebase.com

While we are all hunkered down during the Pandemic, everyone is discovering hidden strengths, honing new-skills, discovering new hobbies, or in my case--discovering tasks they really, really dislike.

Adulting is difficult and tiring, even in the best of times.
Now, we--well, me anyway, are entering a new dimension--frustration.

When I leave my home, masked, gloved, and careful to observe social distancing--I can't decide if I'm slightly agoraphobic, feral, or simply confused because I'm in the great out-doors.

Did I lock the door?

Did I turn off the oven?  Since I wasn't cooking this morning, odds are the answer is, yes.

I'm concerned about others during these uncertain times.  I worry about family, friends, and those with pre-existing medical conditions.  I also recall, in a time before vaccines were perfected for measles, whooping cough, mumps, and chickenpox.  My parents spoke of  families self-quarantined when a loved one contracted the deadly virus, polio.

Somehow, we are emerged from those difficult times and I trust we will again.

So, I'm blogging, writing, baking, and visiting with my youngest grandson, a second-grader, who is being home-schooled.

Of course, I wish to be supportive.  I listen as he pencils Mandarin characters and explains what he's learned.  At his age, I was fascinated with ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs so we 'share' information.  He also loves puzzles.  I have no problem looking at puzzles online, finding the puzzles he wants--those with zillions and zillions of pieces.  Mount Rushmore--with 4-presidents faces carved in the granite, The San Francisco Bridge over the blue bay and fog-engulfed sky, and other challenges.  Which I happily give to him with a joyous heart.

Sweetie that he is, my grandson is worried that I'm sad, "Grammie, I don't have a puzzle".

Well, I didn't have the heart to tell him that I really, really don't like puzzles.  Oh, I understand the concept.  Find the corners, then fill in the boarders, separate by color then by 'what you think it is: nose, eye, snowman's hat'--whatever.

Perhaps, because I'm the eldest of five-siblings, I'm unfamiliar with the concept of 'personal space'.
My Barbie dream-house couch was stepped and broken by brother number 1, about two-seconds after I pulled it from the box.  My sister (at the age of 4), would systematically pull out every Oreo cookie from the package, eat the frosting and skillfully reassemble the cookie before placing it back in the package. Brother number 2 and brother number 3 would race to the door whenever the doorbell rang.

Please note: A trajectory is the path that an object with mass in motion follows through space as a function of time. Hence, a complete trajectory is defined by position and momentum, simultaneously.

Which means:  Connie, walking the the door to greet her date, was in the trajectory path.

And to add to the daily chaos: 

We had two dogs residing in the household.  My sister's well-behaved Lab/Shepard mix.

And my AKC champion purebred miniature poodle. Smart, trainable, loving, and master of Covert-Ops.

Jacques, ate marbles, crayons, and snagged biscuits to hide under couch cushions..

I hope I've brightened you day with my blog post :-).

I'm thrilled to share my "cover-reveal" for my next BWL release:

an anthology for women who like romance Cajun style

BWL LINK  Visit BWL site for my releases and much more!

my website and all social links


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A brief history of the written word - Part One - by Vijaya Schartz

CURSE OF THE LOST ISLE CELTIC LEGENDS - "Edgy Medieval, Yay!" 5-stars Amazon - B&N - Smashwords

I was always fascinated by the multiplicity of languages, cultures, and different kinds of writing. My research about the origins of the written word only proved that not all the experts agree, but this is what I gathered. 

In every Asian country, there is a legend saying that writing was a science of the gods, and they taught it to man as a means to impart their knowledge. This explains why the most ancient writings are religious in nature and tell of the life and exploits of the ancient gods, as well as ancient teachings, like the knowledge of medicinal plants, acupuncture, etc.

 

In China, Cangjie, who, according to legend, brought writing to the court of the Yellow Emperor, was a very unique individual. He was described as having four eyes. Not your typical human being. 

A Chinese character is an entire word in itself, often a graphic representation, an image that evolved over time. The pictogram for rain, for example, represents a stylized window and the falling rain seen through that window, with a flat cloud above. The writing is read from top to bottom and from right to left, allowing continuous writing on long scrolls. 

Since Chinese is an agglutinant language, it doesn’t use prepositions or other small connecting words. The placement of the word inside the sentence clarifies the meaning (who is doing what to whom, how, why, where, whether it’s a noun, a verb, an adjective, etc.)

 

In the late 6th Century AD, a mass political exile saw large numbers of Chinese emigrating to Japan. They took with them the teachings of Confucius and their system of writing. Since the native islanders of the time (the ancient Ainu tribes) didn’t have writing, they used the Chinese ideograms to write their own language. Then different emigrants came to the islands and mixed with the Ainu and the Chinese to form the Japanese people. They wrote with Chinese characters, same meaning, different pronunciation, using the same brush strokes. 

However, the Japanese used a number of one-syllable connecting words to form sentences, and there were no phonetic syllables in Chinese. So, they added a number of small, simple connecting characters, called Hiragana, representing phonetic syllables, which are also used today to teach children to read and write, before they can memorize the thousands of complicated pictograms or ideograms (Kanji) necessary to read and write the main language.

 

Legends of India say that the Mahabharata, an ancient epic depicting the exploits of the gods during their time on Earth, was recited by the sage Vyasa from the oral tradition, while Lord Ganesha himself (the Elephant God) penned it down… implying that only the gods could write.

 

Other legends of India also portray the gods teaching writing to their people. Sanskrit is one of the oldest forms of sophisticated written language, used to write the Vedas. But it doesn’t use images, only letters linked together to form sounds and words. Sound is very important in India. Some sacred sounds are so powerful (like the mantras) that they are believed to manifest divinity.

 

In 3400 BC a cuneiform type of writing developed in Mesopotamia. Legend says it was given to the Sumerians by their Anunnaki gods, those who from the heavens came. The oldest tablets tell of the interactions of the Anunnaki with their human workers, stories of the flood, etc. The characters represented stylized Sumerian or Akkadian objects. Soon, these symbols were also used to represent specific sounds.

 

Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs seem to have derived from Sumerian cuneiform writing. Sometimes they represent an object, an animal, a river, a sacred symbol. However, a bird doesn’t necessarily mean a bird, but the phonetic sound of the bird’s name, which is used as a syllable in a longer word or name. To indicate that, the full name of a Pharaoh, for example, is enclosed into a cartouche. 

Since I want to keep this post brief, I will continue this history of the written word in parts 2 and 3, in the next two months.

In the meantime, you can read my CURSE OF THE LOST ISLE series, where history and Celtic legends collide. Years of research went into it, and the result is an edgy medieval fantasy saga. Find it at - Amazon - B&N - Smashwords and more.  

From history shrouded in myths, emerges a family of immortal Celtic Ladies, who roam the medieval world in search of salvation from a curse. For centuries, imbued with hereditary gifts, they hide their deadly secret, stirring passions in their wake as they fight the Viking hordes, send the first knights to the Holy Land, give birth to kings and emperors... but if the Church ever suspects what they really are, they will be hunted, tortured, and burned at the stake.

HAPPY READING!

Vijaya Schartz, author
Strong Heroines, Brave Heroes
http://www.vijayaschartz.com
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