It was first introduced at the various "water cures" to relieve sick and delicate women, often rendered so by their unhealthful mode of dress, and was strongly recommended in the "water cure" journals.

When women began to go into public work, they could not fail to recognize the disadvantages of the unyielding corsets, heavy, quilted and stiffly-starched petticoats, five or six worn at one time to hold out the long, voluminous dress skirts; and to feel that to be consistent they must give freedom to the body.

The proprietors of the "water cures" were, for the most part, in touch with all reform movements and their hospitality was freely extended to those engaged in them.

In this way the women had an opportunity to see the comfort which the patients enjoyed in their loose, short garments, and began to ask why they also should not adopt what seemed to them a rational dress.
Hon.

Gerrit Smith, of Peterboro, N.Y., the wealthy and influential reformer and philanthropist, became an earnest advocate of this costume, and his daughter, Elizabeth Smith Miller, a beautiful and fashionable woman, was the first to put it on.