| Chapter 1: | The Uncorseted Bostonian: Health, Physical Culture, and Dress Reform for Women in Nineteenth-Century Boston |
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Despite national resistance, New England was at the forefront of pioneering education for women in an effort to overcome these biases. Innovator Mary Lydon (1797–1849) created an endowment for the first female academy at Mount Holyoke in 1837.16 Despite heavy opposition from Massachusetts clergymen, Lydon raised more than fifteen thousand dollars in two years from average American women and opened the school with low tuition to encourage enrollment. To allay fears among men that higher education for women was destined to upset social norms, Mount Holyoke and like institutions advertised that academies would not “spoil girls for family duties.”17 Most female students who attended Mount Holyoke descended from a rising middle class of Americans who had professions such as tradesmen, liberal ministers, or proprietors.18 Upper-class women were still educated at home and sent abroad to complete their preparation for domestic life. Early academies were aware of health concerns surrounding higher education for women and added calisthenics to the general curriculum of science, geology, physiology, hygiene, botany, and composition.19
Catharine Beecher (1800–1878) was a pioneer of early calisthenics systems for women. Beecher came from a well-esteemed Boston family and used her respectable lineage to promote books on calisthenics for women.20 She worked closely with the physician Elizabeth Blackwell (1821–1910) to develop new exercise regimes. Having suffered most of her life from unknown ailments, Beecher sought Blackwell's help to regain her health. Blackwell, a family friend, recommended exercise and gave Beecher several books on “European forms.” When Blackwell had studied in England, she had been exposed to Ling's Swedish gymnastics, a system that eventually had a strong impact on expressive movement and will be investigated further in chapter 2. Blackwell referred Beecher to a New York disciple of the system, George H. Taylor. Taylor was a fellow physician who adapted exercise plans to individual health needs. A primary component of his plan was to increase chest size, enabling the body to take in more oxygen.21
Beecher combined ideas from existing exercise plans such as Taylor's into her program and set them to music that could be sung by the participants as they exercised. She was also a firm believer that women needed