Friday Fun Fact: Were people smaller in the past?

It's Elizabeth here, and if you've ever talked to me for more than five minutes, you've probably heard me talk about historical dresses.

Today I want to share one of my favorite LOCAL dresses with you, and do a little historical size myth-busting.

This dress was made in the early 1870s right here in St. Paul, Minnesota!

You can see all the details on this dress at the Minnesota Historical Society page here. If you click through you will notice the measurements, including a 22" waist.

I know what you're thinking. "Wow! That's really small! Women were so much smaller back then!"

But the reality is, no, they really weren't!

Human bodies have always come in many shapes and sizes, and while corsets may reduce a waist by a few inches, they can only do so much.

But why are there so many small dresses?

The reason is simple: the small dresses survive because no one can wear them.

Our great-grandmothers were frugal and practical, and so were theirs, and so were theirs. Fabric was valuable and precious, and a good dress would not be packed away and saved for no good reason.

Items of clothing were worn out, mended, sold, refashioned, handed down, picked apart, and remade until there was nothing left.

But if a dress is very small, there's no one to hand it down to. A tiny dress that doesn't fit anyone gets saved in a trunk for a hundred years and then donated to a historical society.

We can confirm this by looking at the many photos and portraits from the era. Sure, there are plenty of slender women, but there's more diversity than you might think - like the lovely, curvy lady in the photo below.