Thankyou for this information

LOL. Petticoats make all the difference. 🙂

I realize I am posting quite late, but I will add it anyway. I went back and re-read all the “Little House” books when I had daughters, and was surprised at how much I caught as an adult.

In the book “These Happy Golden Years” which details Laura’s late teens, courtship, and marriage to Almanzo Wilder, there is a scene in which she describes dressing for Church on Sunday morning. And remember, these were ladies on the *frontier. Yes,De Smet was a small “town”, and a railroad stop, but it was NOT St. Louis, either!

This would have been circa 1885, or so. She was born in 1867 and married at 18.
She describes putting on SIX starched * ironed * muslin petticoats, as. well. as. hoops* !!
Two under and four over the hoops as I recall.

The “hoops” were what we might call “crinolines”, dress shapers and bustle support, not the Civil War Era saucers. Laura, being a petite and sensible girl, “did not like a large bustle, and so buckled the tapes (of the bustle) in the front (of the crinoline), so the dress would fall smoothly”. Hoops. Plus six petticoats. And the dress. Hat and gloves. Shoes.

The next time you grumble at folding the laundry in your yoga pants, be grateful you do not need to sew, wash, *starch, and *iron 3-6 + petticoats for yourself and your mother and three sisters. Wool and quilted petticoats were winter staples. And this was done *before Charles traded a cow for a sewing machine for the family. $$$ 😵
ADD THE PETTICOAT!!!

Oh, there are deep ones. Pick a topic and go! 🙂

Thank you so much for this it’s a great help, I didn’t realised how much of a rabbit hall you can fall down for historical sewing