Comments on: She Had a Question, 1913

By: Tracy M

Tracy M — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 07:10:11 +0000

I just read that whole book- and honestly, I found it kind of charming, with quite a lot of good advice. I mean, there were a few dated things, of course, but I liked how she was teaching her daughter about caring for her whole body, not just about sex (which she never actually got around to).

By: Tracy M

Tracy M — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 06:41:18 +0000

Hooray! New entries will be most welcome!

Off to read Researcher’s link. I love this stuff.

By: Maurine

Maurine — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 06:07:24 +0000

I had the same thoughts as Ellen (#3) about the perfect body or the hiding of not-so-perfect parts of a normal woman’s (or girl’s) body. I also found myself wondering what brought about the question about guardianship, especially because it was written by a mother.

By: Ardis E. Parshall

Ardis E. Parshall — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 01:51:22 +0000

I’d tell you how we do it, Clark, but Researcher and I are both women of mystery.

Thank you all for sharing you reaction to these clips. When I checked today, it looks like I’ve skipped over a couple of years, so there may well be additional entries in this series to come.

By: Clark

Clark — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 21:35:29 +0000

Great stuff. I don’t know how you dig it up, or researcher finding the link to “Confidences,” either.

By: Alison

Alison — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 20:09:10 +0000

I love the word “reposeful”!

By: bfwebster

bfwebster — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 20:09:08 +0000

Priceless, as always, and great advice to boot.

No, we do not approve of such a low cut gown.

Yeah, as the father of six (now grown) daughters, plus a few semi-adopted ones, I’ve said things that pretty much parallel this. Repeatedly. Sigh….

By: Martin

Martin — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 20:06:46 +0000

Ardis, I love all the stuff you dig up.

I gotta say, the responses seemed pretty rational. I’ll bet we’d have more time-period quirkiness in an equivalent forum today.

By: Lurker

Lurker — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 18:36:09 +0000

I’m not sure if anyone’s commented on this before, but a couple of these (LC/Minne, Miss RR) and some on others posts seem like some standards were provided to the girls from parents, church leaders, etc., and they write to the YW Journal hoping that they would get approval there to lower their standards.

I just get a kick out of that, as if a church magazine is the place to go for a second opinion. I would think a fashion magazine would be more likely to approve of low cut dresses.

By: Hunter

Hunter — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 15:54:07 +0000

I’ve heard that high-heeled shoes can be bad for the foot, as well as for the posture, but I’ve never heard that high-heels strain the body “so that the lungs do not get a sufficient quantity of pure air.” Wow – the lungs? Who knew?

Otherwise, the health advice here seems to comport with most of our own contemporary notions of good health.

Thanks for these.