Part 2
Women and fashion during World War I --hemlines
The Kent State exhibit shows how hemlines changed. Image: Kent State University Museum.
But women began campaigning for their rights long before. Abigail Adams is often credited as one of the first advocates of equal education and property rights for women. The first Women’s Rights Convention took place in 1848 in Seneca Falls, New York.
Charles Dana Gibson, an illustrator, hinted at what was to come in the 1890s with his “Gibson Girl” drawings, which envisioned independent women who were beautiful, fashionable and talented. Gibson’s sketching featured women riding bicycles, playing musical instruments or hiking in the mountains.
Dresses on exhibit at the Kent State University Museum show the steady rise of hemlines, from an elegant floor-length evening gown (1912) in which the fabric pools in a train to a dress just below the knees from the 1920s.
Soon, dress lengths would go up and down as styles changed.
