Women's History Month is upon us.
Here are two stories from the Record-Eagle History Project bound to raise eyebrows, elicit chuckles and increase 21st century awareness about how growing freedoms for women played out in more than voting booths.
Knickers in a twist?
The 19th Amendment gave women the vote nationwide in 1920, but their right to wear knickers in Traverse City was up in the air in 1922.
Mayor Lafayette Swanton issued an edict on May 22 banning women in knickers from city streets.
Maybe Swanton expected praise for protecting his standard of morality, but attracted only snickers and protests after police Chief John Blacken ordered two 14-year-old Williamsburg girls off city streets for wearing the popular outdoor attire. They had just come from a school picnic and were shopping downtown with one of their mothers.
The mom was incredulous. She complained to the city attorney, who backed Swanton and Blacken. The Record-Eagle got wind of it, and the story frolicked for several days on front pages here and elsewhere.
The mayor issued a public statement giving Chief Blacken authority to decide if women wearing knickers were "displaying their wares" and to arrest them, if necessary.
Women planned a parade of protest. Chamber of Commerce official W.J. Hobbs called the ban "all wrong, absolutely ridiculous."
"We know tourists wear them," Hobbs said. "My own daughter wears knickers. I wish my wife did. They are not only nice, modest and decent, but they are pretty."
Record-Eagle writer Jay Smith poked fun at Swanton. Papers "all over the Midwest" had a ball at Traverse City's expense. The Record-Eagle published a wire story from Grand Rapids on its front page under the headline: "Read, Mr. Mayor, And Then Think This All Over."
The headline on the Grand Rapids story followed: "And Say, Knicker Girls, You're Welcome in Grand Rapids Any Day"
Knickers kousin?
It's seems strange today that knickers aroused such passion in 1922 -- four years after the J.E. Greilick Manufacturing Co. asked its women workers to wear "woman-alls."
"Factory Girls Don Overalls for Work Garb: Costume Deemed Ideal," the Record-Eagle reported May 18, 1918.
They were safer than long skirts around "flying machinery entails" and "mussy work," work supervisors told the newspapers.
The paper's description of woman-alls sound suspiciously like knickers. They were "a two-piece affair of khaki cloth, consisting of full, ankle-length bloomers, attached to a belt, which buttons on a smart little blouse. The generous patch pockets and neat tailoring give a very swagger air to the outfit."
Only one woman objected and most female workers already could see the benefits -- the "great reduction it will make in their laundry and the coolness it will afford during the warm weather."
"Our dressing so will have no effect on our outside life," one woman said. "I am sure we will all be glad to return to our frills and furbelows when the day's work is done."
Furbelows? No wonder knickers became so popular.
Furbelows, by the way, were not fur undergarments, just a mangled French word for ruffles or flounces.
Contact Loraine Anderson at landerson@record-eagle.com, or 231-933-1468. For more area history stories, go to www.record-eagle.com/150
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