Passing of the Athletic Girl

1901

The athletic girl, it is predicted, is to be supplanted in popularity this summer by the girl of the olden type, who knew nothing of outdoor sports except a mild game of croquet be included in the list and, furthermore, did not care to know. It is hinted that the men have lost interest to some extent in the self possessed, independent young woman who can row a boat — and sail one too — play tennis, throw a ball straight, make century bicycle runs, tramp for hours without getting fatigued, swim long distances, etc., and that a reaction has set in in favor of the old fashioned type of girl, content to occupy her summer days with purely feminine tasks instead of imitating her sport loving brother.

Golf has not apparently come under the ban of alleged masculine displeasure to quite the same extent as other forms of sport, but the golf girl's skirt has been lengthened until it just escapes touching the ground, for fashion's experts declare that it is not correct to wear skirts that are overshort even on the links.

Whether or not these predictions prove true and the pendulum really does swing back to its former position remains to be seen. Meanwhile the shops are making a brave showing of golfing outfits and other sporting paraphernalia for women, and outfitting costumes have not altogether ceased to attract attention. — Dorothy Quincy in Brooklyn Citizen.

Ye Gods! What'd John L. Have Said to Hair Curling and Brow Arching?

(Click the graphic for better view.)

1920

My dears, you should see that pompadour!

And that isn't half of it. He's having his eyebrows daintily arched, too!

And, to cap it all, his cheeks are adorned with the best grade of milady's rouge carefully handpainted over a field of perfumed pink powder. 'Tis even hinted that for a time he considered wearing a lace-covered corset to accentuate the lines of his form-fitting suit of clothes, but this has later been indignantly denied.

No, Genevieve, your guess is wrong. It isn't Launcelot de Slushe, the hero of "Nine Oceans of Tears" in the movie — it's no less a personage, they say, than Jack Dempsey, heavyweight fistic champion of this universe.

Dempsey won't say whether it's the influence of his recent trial at the movies or the success of his next opponent, Georges Carpentier, the bearcat boulevardier of gay Paree, but —

The erstwhile training camp, 'tis whispered, exudes an odor of lilac toilet water and face powder. Electric curling irons are said to adorn the walls where boxing gloves once hung. Cauliflower-eared attendants no longer take to road work and handball — manicuring and eyebrow-arching is the order of the day now, according to latest reports.

So much did Dempsey admire his first marcel wave at the hands of a Los Angeles society barber that he returned to have his brows arched and has since made it a regular practice, if Los Angeles advices may be believed.

But, ye gods! What would the shades of John L. Sullivan and Bob Fitzsimmons say if they could return to earth and see a modern fistic champion?

—The Saturday Blade, Chicago, Jan. 3, 1920, p. 10.

The Dilatory Woman

1901

When women have an appointment to meet down town at a certain place, each lingers in her own apartment until the hour set for the meeting so that she won't have to wait an unconscionable time for the other at the rendezvous. Femininity is almost invariably late, even for business engagements, and any excuse it offers, however trivial, it thinks should be accepted as valid.

At catching trains and boats the dilatory sex is nevertheless unusually adept. It is said by those who are fond of gathering such statistics that one woman misses a train to about ten men. Madam, however oblivious she may be of time in other matters, if she is going away is sure to be at the station bright and early and with 20 minutes to spare. Whether this proves that the sex is selfish or merely that it is, in the language of the times, "long headed" is a question for consideration.

The Duty of a Woman to be a Lady

1877

Wildness is a thing which girls cannot afford. Delicacy is a thing which cannot be lost and found. No art can restore to the grape its bloom. Familiarity without love, without confidence, without regard, is destructive to all that makes woman exalting and ennobling.

"The World is wide, these things are small,
They may be nothing, but they are all."

Nothing? It is the first duty of a woman to be a lady. Good breeding is good sense. Bad manners in a woman is an immorality. Awkwardness may be ineradicable. Bashfulness is constitutional. Ignorance of etiquette is the result of circumstances. All can be condoned, and do not banish man or woman from the amenities of their kind. But self-possessed, unshrinking and aggressive coarseness of demeanor may be reckoned as a state prison offence, and certainly merits that mild form of punishment called imprisonment for life.

It is a shame for women to be lectured on their manners. It is a bitter shame that they need. Women are the umpires of society. It is they to whom all mooted points should be referred. To be a lady is more than to be a prince. A lady is always in her right inalienably worthy of respect. To a lady prince and peasant alike bow. Do not be restrained. Do not have impulses that need restraint. Do not wish to dance with the prince unsought; feel differently. Be sure that you confer honor. Carry yourselves so lofty that men shall look up to you for reward, not at you in rebuke.

The natural sentiment of man toward woman is reverence. He loses a large means of grace when he is obliged to account her a being to be trained into propriety. A man's ideal is not wounded when a woman fails in worldly wisdom; but if in grace, in tact, in sentiment, in delicacy, in kindness, she should be found wanting, he receives an inward hurt. — Gail Hamilton.