“* * * I have not worn the short dress for thirty years, and it does seem as though in that time the interest concerning it must have died out. My reasons for abandoning I have in substance stated above. I never set up for a dress reformer, like Anna Jenness-Miller of the present day. Mrs. Miller, if I understand her correctly, really believes the short skirt and trousers the true style for woman’s costume; but that the time for its adoption has not yet fully come. Women are not sufficiently free and independent to dare to strike for health and freedom. Jenness-Miller is going over the country lecturing on dress and disposing of patterns, and is doing a vast amount of good. I am glad to know that she is not assailed and made the butt of ridicule and caricatured by the press.” In reference to the further connection of Mrs. Bloomer with the dress she wrote to a friend, in 1865, as follows: “It is very true that I have laid aside the short dress which I wore for a number of years, and to which the public (not I) gave my name. I have not worn the dress for the last six years or more. * * * As to my reasons for laying aside the dress, they may not satisfy you, though they were sufficient for me. It was not at my husband’s dictation, by any means, but was my own voluntary act. * * * After retiring from public life and coming to this land of strangers where I was to commence life anew and make new friends, I felt at times like donning long skirts when I went into society, at parties, etc., and did so. I found the high winds which prevail here much of the time played sad work with short skirts when I went out, and I was greatly annoyed and mortified by having my skirts turned over my head and shoulders on the streets. Yet I persevered and kept on the dress nearly all the time till after the introduction of hoops. Finding them light and pleasant to wear and doing away with the necessity for heavy underskirts (which was my greatest objection to long dresses), and finding it very inconvenient as well as expensive keeping up two wardrobes—a long and short—I gradually left off the short dress. I consulted my own feelings and inclinations and judgment in laying it off, never dreaming but I had the same right to doff that I had to don it, and not expecting to be accountable for my doings, or required to give a reason to every one that asked me. There were other questions of greater importance than the length of a skirt under discussion at the time, and I felt my influence would be greater in the dress ordinarily worn by women than in the one I was wearing. * * * I always liked the dress and found it convenient and comfortable at all times, and especially so for a working dress. I never encountered any open opposition while wearing it, though I have traveled much in the dress and freely walked the streets of all our large cities.