“ The press handed the matter about and commented on this new departure from fashion's sway, until the whole country was excited over it, and Mrs. Bloomer was overwhelmed with letters of inquiry from women concerning the dress. All felt the need of some reform that should lift the burden of clothes from their wearied bodies. Though many adopted the style for a time, yet under the rod of tyrant fashion and the ridicule of the press they soon laid it aside. ”

“ She was first attracted to public life AMELIA BLOOMER. through the temperance reform, which began to be seriously agitated in 1840 and was continued for some years under the name of "Washingtonian." The agitation of that question soon led her to understand the political, legal and financial necessities and disabilities of woman, and, when she saw the depth of the reform needed, she was not slow to espouse the cause of freedom in its highest, broadest, justest sense. At that early day no woman's voice had yet been heard from the platform pleading the rights or wrongs of her sex. ”

“ On the first of January, 1849, a few months after the inauguration of the first woman's rights convention, she began the publication of the "Lily," a folio sheet devoted to temperance and the interests of woman. That journal was a novelty in the newspaper world, being the first enterprise ot the kind ever owned, edited and controlled by a woman and published in the interest of women. It was received with marked favor by the press and continued a successful career of six years in Mrs. Bloomer's hands. ”