Program Information

Leadership in one field often emerges from convictions in another. Amelia Jenks Bloomer began by advocating temperance, but her vision came to include the wider rights denied women.

A Moment in Time is a brief, exciting and compelling journey into the past. Created to excite and enlighten the public about the past, its relevance to the present and its impact on the future, A Moment In Time is a captivating historical narrative that is currently broadcast worldwide.

Transcript

Lead: Leadership in one field often emerges from convictions in another. Amelia Jenks Bloomer began by advocating temperance, but her vision came to include the wider rights denied women.

Intro: A Moment In Time with Dan Roberts.

Content: Amelia Jenks was born in 1818, the daughter of a clothier. Despite a meager formal education, she was a prodigious learner and evolved into an excellent writer. Marriage in 1840 to Dexter Bloomer, an attorney and the editor of the County Courier in their hometown of Seneca Falls, New York, opened new opportunities for publication. He encouraged her to write on a variety of subjects. In 1848 she attended but did not participate in the Seneca Falls Convention, the first national woman's rights gathering. Four months later she launched The Lilly, a monthly women's journal that at first focused primarily on temperance but at the urging of her Seneca Falls neighbor, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, increasingly became a forum for women's rights.

One of the issues that animated The Lilly and gave a huge boost to its popularity was the reformation of apparel. Amelia was one of the first to advocate lighter, more functional clothing for women, including a combination pant/dress that came to bear her name. Bloomers were considered scandalous by polite society and soon became the fad that faded, but Mrs. Bloomer did not hesitate to wear them if they would draw a crowd so that she might address the much more important issues of women's rights, a cause she enthusiastically pursued until her death in 1894.

The producer of A Moment In Time is Steve Clark. Research assistance by Cassie King as a part of this series recognizing the tenth anniversary of the Jepson School of Leadership at the University of Richmond, this is Dan Roberts.

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