I did some extensive research on mid-19th century skirt supports (corded
petticoats, cage and covered crinolines, etc.) for a presentation last year.
Based on manufacturing and sales records, crinolines were widely available
and worn anywhere in the country, including the far west. This is amply
supported by original photographs, extant crinolines, and commentary in
period magazines, newspapers, letters and journals. The average retail price
for a crinoline c. 1855-1865 was $0.25-$2.00 each, depending on the overall
style and the number of steels.
Documentation indicates that the style spread quite rapidly across the
country - within a few months at most.
Our Gold Rush started in 1849. In the circular-skirt-support period there
were substantially fewer women in California, per capita, than in other
parts of the country. So fewer circular-skirt-supports were being
worn. (This includes Chinese and Hispanic women, who were also few and far
between, and much less likely to wear circular-skirt-supports
anyway.) Circular-skirt-supports were less common because women were less
common. As the years went by more women arrived, increasing their
percentage of the population. But by like 1870 very few, if any, women
were still wearing circular-skirt-supports. My point being that women in
hoop skirts never became part of the Gold Rush image. Men wearing Levis
did, to the extent that there's one on the California State Seal.
CarolynKayta Barrows
dollmaker, fibre artist, textillian
www.FunStuft.com
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