Amelia Jenks Bloomer: Iowa Time Machine December 30, 1894

Iowa Time Machine ⏰: On December 30, 1894, American newspaper editor, women’s rights advocate, and namesake of the popular forerunner to pants “Bloomers,” Amelia Jenks Bloomer, passed away in Council Bluffs.

Born in New York in 1818, Amelia Jenks married law student and newspaper proprietor Dexter Bloomer in 1740. Writing for the Seneca Falls County Courier, Bloomer blossomed as an advocate for women’s rights and temperance even before attending the 1848 Seneca Falls Convention, which is commonly regarded as the first women’s rights convention in the United States.

In 1852, the Bloomers headed west to Iowa and continued their work with the biweekly newspaper she had explicitly started for women, “The Lily.” She worked alongside suffragists Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony and even introduced the two women to one another. During the 1850s, she began advocating for women to wear pantaloons (eventually called Bloomers) to move away from the restrictive nature of corsets and dresses.

In 1854, Bloomer sold ‘The Lily’ after the couple settled in Council Bluffs, and she started the Soldiers’ Aid Society of Council Bluffs to help American soldiers during the Civil War. President of the Iowa Suffrage Association from 1871 to 1873, Bloomer continued to advocate for women’s rights, women’s suffrage, and temperance until she died in 1894. #Iowa #OTD #History #Activism #EqualRights