This is what people were required to wear at a public beach in 1900. Suddenly, your life doesn’t seem so bad, eh?
Note: This is part of a whimsical on-going experiment at Bonnywood. Details found here.
Categories: Past Imperfect
Past Imperfect – #143
Bonnywood Manor 
But where are the masks? 😉
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Well, there are restrictions. Clearly marked NJ – No Jerseys.
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Hahaha. 🙂
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Where was that? Do you know? Looks like California, Atlantic City, but maybe, Brighton, England?
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Lower right of the pic it says “Atlantic City NJ – c1900”.
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Thanks. I swore I saw it said Atlantic City somewhere
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No problem 🙂
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Wet wool… *shivers*
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Wet wool can lead to discomfort, deception and eventual madness… 😉
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Additionally, the WOOL dress skirts had weights in them to ensure they didn’t rise up at all.
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It’s a wonder anybody had the strength to get back out of the water… 😉
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Y all they wore black full dresses at beach ? Wht kind of cloth was they wore clothes?
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Many of the outfits were made of wool. And it was often considered inappropriate for a woman to expose her ankles, which is why many of the women are wearing stockings…
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These costumes are at least slenderising. Just saying.
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It was an aerobic workout just to wear them, so yep, slender… 😉
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Did a mail order bride cruise ship sink?
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Oh, you’ve got me thinking with that one. Perhaps some disappointed commentary as they walk onto the beach?
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Perfect.
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Or is it laundry day before the invention of washing machines?
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This was also before the invention of air conditioning. I think I’d be throwing my fully-clothed ass in the water as well…
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I actually love that photo. First the quality of it is absolutely amazing. Second when you love the water and the waves, it really doesn’t matter what you wear to enjoy them.
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Fair enough. I would happily do whatever it took to enjoy the water. I can’t definitively recall where I found this photo, but a faint bell is ringing that it might be from the Atlantic City Historical Society…
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Then you pull a Twilight Zone and swap one individual from that time with one from this..
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That’s another great idea, with a time-slip conversation melding the past and present…
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But of course… she says with a grin..
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Wow. So this is what happens when Republicans revamped the Green Card system?
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And all the new green-card holders appear to be white. Hmmm.
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Slap a red cap on the head of them new pure White arrivals and I’m sure Republicans will be just dandy with these new arrivals.
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What requirements existed? How much was style people preferred? Did people complain?
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I wasn’t actually there, so I can’t speak to the complaining, but it was shortly after this that the Roaring Twenties exploded and progressive women wore increasingly less, so I’m thinking there was a bit of dissatisfaction with the couture… 😉
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Good deduction. You saved me some googling!
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No kidding.
Thanks, Brian.
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We’ve come a long way, baby… 😉
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Several women are wearing stockings, right? Or my eyes are playing a trick on me. And probably high heels too. LOL. At least half of the women have their upper arms covered too. And probably even wear gloves. Was 1900 still the Victorian era?
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It was the end of the Victorian Era, and it was still considered shocking for a woman to bare her ankles in public, which explains all the stockings…
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It looks like a beach up here in Mennonite country. (They’re like your Amish, and dress like that to hit the sandy shores).
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There were some Mennonite communities in Oklahoma whilst I was growing up. (I’m assuming some of them still exist, not sure.) I can remember getting stuck in traffic behind one of their horse-drawn carts and not being very impressed with the situation… 😉
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They still exist around here AND their horses. A lot of them carry cell phones now—very ironic.
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Okay, since I had firm hold of the wrong end of the stick and was saving all my gems until you returned for really reals, you’re going to get nine different comments on nine of your short blogs. Here’s the first:
Brian originally wrote a little something about ‘haute couture circa 1900″ (emphasis on “haute” only spelled “HOT” because you just know some of those pictured folk were choking in/on their bathing costumes). I thought I’d draw the thread out a bit more and offer the following tidbits (seeds) Brian may wish to take and run with in some future time when things left unfinished are finally all tidied up and put away neatly (aka never).
The bathers frolicked in the invigorating ocean, never knowing the risk they took. To themselves and to future generations because that ocean was laced with all sorts of nasty, not friendly to humans waste and offal (in some cases literal offal). Nuclear waste might be coming in the future, but the slag from the industrial revolution was toxic enough. No visible regulations of dumping that stuff were in place in those long ago halcyon days. You could spew where you wanted and be damned to Millies who worried about things like water quality and environmental impact. Just ask anyone from Massachusetts where whole rivers became so polluted, the three headed fish was considered commonplace. It impacted several species of sea life as well, causing the birth of a huge white mutant shark who went on to Hollywood Stardom in an odd little movie entitled with the not yet trendy ‘one word title’. (if you’re clueless, give this a listen (right click the dum —> dum dum dum) is it all coming back to you now?)
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Yep, your seeds are already germinating in my mind. Working title: “The Day the Glowing People Walked out of the Ocean and Everything Got All Jacked Up”. (Clearly, said title needs some finessing.) This will most likely be a multi-part series, with one entire episode dedicated to a disgruntled jellyfish who is displeased that other creatures can create their own light but he cannot, due to a vitamin deficiency that is never fully explained. Meryl Streep will make a cameo in Episode 4, reprising her Karen Silkwood character from back in the day when Cher really, really wanted us to take her seriously as an actress. (Alas, Cher will not be joining Meryl in the reprise, since Cher is genetically incapable of wearing any outfit that covers more than 20% of her body.)
See? Already germinating. I look forward to your other seeds with great relish. And a little bit of mustard…. 😉
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https://dilrangapereradrama.wordpress.com/
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