1903: The Hatpin Peril & Suffragettes

The Smithsonian shares a curious period before WWI.  The press carried stories about women, armed with lethal hats, harming men in public places.  Groups like the Chicago Vice Commission sought to solve the problem.  Rather than work with men called “mashers,” unchaperoned women were told to dress modestly, including no painted cheeks or skirts that exposed an ankle.  A suffragist is said to say that the “issue lay not with women’s fashion or increasing freedoms, but with ‘the vileness of the ‘masher’ mind.’”  Read more>>>