Stout Woman Research Articles

The nuances of sizing for stouts in the early twentieth century

Mass manufactured garments for women have been around since the beginning of the twentieth century. With mass production, a ‘standardization’ of sizing was needed. Standardization of clothing was difficult as bodies were (and still today) not statistically proportionate and clothing was not one size fits all. To tackle the ‘difficult’ to fit – fat women, known as stout – manufacturers and retailers devised myriad sized numbering systems to accommodate different shaped fat bodies. They introduced half, odd and extra sizes along with stylish, stubby and old-fashioned stouts to create perfectly proportioned and specially designed garments to fit stout women with little to no alterations. These systems were confusing for consumers, retailers and manufacturers as no sizing system corresponded with any sort of standardization among businesses. This frustration further relegated fat women to the fringes of the apparel industry as undesirable and unfashionable.

Luigi Donato Ventura, a Trilingual Self-translator

Luigi Donato Ventura, a Trilingual Self-translator

Body As Architecture: Designing the Stout Body in the Age of Standardization

This article explores the curious intersections of stoutwear design, Gestalt Psychology, and architectural discourse in early twentieth-century American fashion media. In doing so, it focuses principally on trade media, style guides and advertisements that grappled with the perceived flaws of the stout woman’s physique and how sophisticated design principles, if properly handled, could create the appearance of bodily slenderness. By moving beyond the biological determinism of contemporary obesity discourse, this article argues that ideas about stoutness and, more specifically, what constituted a stout body, were produced through attempts to contain, control, and correct the fat, female body in fashion design discourse. By further embedding this research within a broader consideration of the relationship between bodies, dress, architecture, and modernist design thinking, this article argues that the mediums and discourses of fashion can open up pathways for thinking about the body itself as “designed.”

Supporting Acts: Patents for Undergarments for Stout Women, 1891–1956

Women’s support garments including corsets and brassieres have been intimately tied to health and a woman’s outward appearance. Manufacturers strongly urged stout women to wear corsets well into the 1930s when many women had already discontinued their use. Stout women often had different requirements in regard to comfort and fit for their clothing and support garments. Stout women were an important consumer group in the first half of the century (1891–1956), though little research has been conducted. The purpose of this study was to better understand, through patent research, the ways in which inventors sought to solve clothing ills for the stout woman. To explore this topic, a content analysis approach was utilized using patents found through Google Patents. Patents for stout women focused on supporting and improving the body through corsets, brassieres, menstrual products, support devices, and combinations of corset and brassieres.

Flattering the Figure, Fitting in: The Design Discourses of Stoutwear, 1915-1930

Although a mainstay of popular fashion discourse, the notion of “figure flattery” is an enduringly neglected concept in the fashion literature. In seeking to partially fill this gap, this article engages in a close examination of the slenderizing design discourses of the “stoutwear” industry—the historical precursor to today’s “plus-size” fashions—in order to flesh out a working theory of figure flattery. Drawing upon a close reading of extant advertisements and design commentary published in the popular fashion press and industry trade journals dating to between the years 1915 and 1930, or the peak of stoutwear production, this article aims to show how stoutwear was not merely made to fit the stout body, but to also help the wearer to fit in, socially and aesthetically. Through this analysis, this article situates fashion as a productive site in which fashions for the stout woman were not only created, but in which the stout body was itself constructed.

How stout women were left out of high fashion: An early twentieth-century perspective

Abstract Karl Lagerfeld, head designer and creative director of Chanel, made headlines in 2013 when he made comments against fat women on the French television show Le Grand 8 by saying ‘no one wants to see curvy women on the runway’. Excluding plus-size women from high fashion has occurred since the infancy of stoutwear manufacturing (an earlier term used for plus-size) near the start of the twentieth century. It is important to note that stoutwear manufacturers created ready-towear designs for middle-class women, but designers did not make or promote highfashion designs in vast quantities for upper-class women. Stout society women and couture clients were certainly consuming high fashion, but high-fashion advertising, commentary and editorials were not inclusive of stout women. In fact, many high-fashion designers stressed the importance and need to be slender. This article uses primary sources from Vogue, Women’s Wear Daily, Good Housekeeping and Harper’s Bazaar to analyse the commentary during the introduction and emergence of women’s ready-to-wear and the exclusion of high fashion for stout women by designers.

“Stout Women Can Now Be Stylish”

Prior to the turn of the twentieth century, women had limited access to ready-to-wear clothing. As the women’s ready-to-wear industry developed in the 1890s,“average-sized” women could easily purchase clothing, but was this the same for women considered stout? Larger women, referred to as stout during the 1910s, comprised approximately 12.7 percent of the US population. The term “stout” indicated a figure (often of matronly appearance) with generous bust, back, and hip curves that decidedly did not fit in with fashion’s demands for the slim figure. To explore attitudes surrounding the stout woman and the development of full-figured fashions, the author took a historical method approach using primary sources from the New York Times, Vogue, and Good Housekeeping. This study identified and analyzed the introduction and emergence of stout women’s ready-to-wear clothing, separate retail departments for different-sized clothing, and design details recommended to enhance and hide the figure.

How peculiar is evaluative morphology?

Many languages possess morphological rules which serve to express diminution or augmentation, endearment or contempt; examples are the Breton rule relatingpotr‘boy’ topotrig‘little boy’, the Shona rule relatingchibikiso‘cooking tool’ tozichibikiso‘huge cooking tool’ and the Italian rule relatingpoeta‘poet’ topoetastro‘bad poet’. Because of the possibility of interpreting diminution and augmentation in affective rather than purely objective terms (Wierzbicka, 1980: 53ff.; Szymanek, 1988: 106ff.), morphological expressions of diminution or augmentation are not always discrete from those of endearment or contempt; that is, diminutives and augmentatives are frequently used as expressions of endearment (such as Italiansorella‘sister’ →sorellina‘dear little sister’,donna‘woman’ →donnotta‘fine, stout woman’) or disdain (Italianuomo‘man’ →uomicciuolo‘contemptible little man’,donna→donnona‘overgrown girl’).

Interacting neurotransmitter systems. A non-experimental approach to the 5hiaa-hva correlation in human CSF

The repeatedly observed strong positive correlation between 5-hydroxyindoleacetic acid (5HIAA) and homovanillic acid (HVA) in human cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) prompted an investigation to see if conclusions concerning possible interactions between brain serotonin and dopamine turnover could be reached from human CSF concentrations of these acid metabolites. CSF data from patients with depressive disorders diagnosed according to the RDC from Sweden ( n=140) and from the National Institute of Mental Health ( n=35) were used to test structural hypotheses by two statistical approaches—LISREL analysis and logistic regression. Results from both men and women were unequivocal: 5HIAA “controls” HVA, interpretable as a regulatory action of serotonin turnover on dopamine turnover. In women, only 5HIAA was affected by age, height and body size (higher in elderly, short and stout women); no similar relationships were seen in males. The concept of a serotonergic regulation of dopamine turnover was tested on brain punch analyses of serotonin and dopamine and their metabolites in two sets of dogs in a large number of brain areas. Results confirm a facilatory effect of serotonin on indices of dopamine turnover in many brain regions, especially brain stem and hypothalamus. The animal data validate the data analytic approach in humans.

THE HEREDITARY FACTOR IN OBESITY

Definite progress in the treatment of obesity has been made in recent years. Studies in water balance, a better understanding of the glands of internal secretion and their function, a more intelligent conception of dietary requirements and, finally, the pressure of modern fashion, which sends so many stout women to the physician, have all made important contributions to this progress. Yet, when one attempts to classify many cases of obesity, either on an etiologic or on a clinical basis, confusion and uncertainty remain. As early as 1910 Lyon 1 clearly indicated this difficulty, and Jarlov, 2 in his exhaustive work, well illustrated the disagreement and difficulties in classification, even when the etiology was entirely disregarded. If etiology is considered, there is even more confusion. The arguments for endogenous obesity versus exogenous obesity are familiar. 3 The appetite theory, the relationship of occupation to obesity and the depression of metabolism 4

Tragedies of the abdominal incision

Under tragedies of the abdominal incision are included disruption of the abdominal wound with protrusion of viscera, deaths due to infections of the abdominal incision, incisional infection and postoperative hernias. At the Joseph Price Hospital we use through-and-through sutures of silkworm gut; the only buried sutures we ever use are silk sutures in incisional ventral and umbilical hernias where there has been wide separation of tissues and occasionally in a very stout woman with abnormally thick abdominal walls. In fifty-six years' experience Dr. Joseph Price and I have had no case of disruption of the abdominal wound nor any death from an infected abdominal incision. The through-and-through suture is void of causing any molecular death in the incisional surface and is a drainage suture. It is preeminently void of all unnecessary trauma. During the last fifteen years at this hospital there has been no closure of an undrained incisional hernia; possibly some unknown hernias exist. The technique depends upon proper insertion of the through-and-through suture. We use the long straight abdominal needle. The correct method is illustrated.

CEREBROSPINAL RHINORRHEA: A REPORT OF TWO CASES

During the past year I have had two cases of cerebrospinal rhinorrhea, both of which were most instructive. One was spontaneous; one was traumatic. One patient is living; one is dead. Both presented points of interest; one perhaps contains a lesson, and I believe that both should be recorded. In the hope that they will prove of value, the history of each is presented herewith. THE SPONTANEOUS CASE History .—A woman, aged 60, was referred by Dr. John Ritchie on July 2, 1930. She was an unusually stout woman, weighing 225 pounds (102 Kg.); she had been obese since childhood, but had always enjoyed good health. In February, following an attack of influenza, she noticed a watery discharge from the right side of her nose. Recovery from the influenza was uneventful, and she resumed her household duties, but every morning awoke with a severe bitemporal headache. At 9 or 10

HEMOGLOBINURIA IN HEMOLYTIC JAUNDICE

My purpose in presenting this paper is to supplement the evidence in favor of the occasional occurrence of spontaneous hemoglobinuria in hemolytic jaundice. Three cases of this type in which the diagnosis of hemolytic jaundice is well established and an occasional case of questionable diagnosis have been reported in German and French. However, I have been unable to find a case reported in the English literature. In view of the rarity of the condition and the interesting phenomena which are associated with the mechanism of hemolysis, the case which I shall report is of more than ordinary interest. REPORT OF CASE History. —Mrs. A. F. (Case A 3S4493), an extremely pale, somewhat jaundiced, short, stout woman, aged 32 years, presented herself for examination in April, 1921. She had enjoyed unusually good health until she had suffered a moderately severe attack of influenza three and one-half years before. Convalescence had been protracted

IMPACTED URETERAL CALCULI RELEASED BY FULGURATION

This case is of interest in that it shows an error of diagnosis and offers a suggestion as to a new method of treatment. <h3>Patient.</h3> —Mrs. B. G., a large, stout woman, aged 49, referred to me by Dr. E. W. Peterson. Uneventful menopause. Ten normal labors and one miscarriage. Admitted to the Post-Graduate Hospital July 16, 1912. <h3>History.</h3> —Eleven years previously she had a sudden attack of pain in the right lumbar region, radiating downward to the bladder. This lasted for a day or two, and she passed some gravel and had moderate hematuria. There was no similar trouble until three months ago when she had a recurrence of the attack of eleven years ago. Since that time she has had frequent and urgent urination, and at times sudden cessation of the urinary flow, before the bladder was empty. She has noticed that the urine is turbid and contains