Historical English Girls' Clothing: Gym and Sports Clothing/Uniforms
Figure 1.--Here we see a girl named Emily in her field hockey team uniform. We would guess whe attended a private boarding school. She wears a gym slip which was a first a gym/sports garment, but developed into a school uniform style. Americans call the garmnet a jumper. Notice the high top shoes and long stockings.the portrait is not dated, but as it has a postcard back, we know it was taken in taken in the early-20th century and the cabin card front looks like about 1910 to us. The studio was Gibson in Hull.
Gym, sports, and other ecreationally oriented strenous phyical activities are normally associated with boys and men. Ther are variation in gender roles from culture to culture. Mongol women, for example, had far more freedom and power than women in other patriarchal cultures such as Persia, China, and Cristendom. At a time that the Chinese were binding women’s feet to keep then at home amd limit physical activity, Mongol women were riding horseback, fighting in battles, and tending herds. The first girls (but not adult women) we see engaged in sport were Greeks. In modern times, the first girls we see involved in sports were the girls at English private boarding schools. As ar as we know, this was an English development, although Amelia Bloomer was an American. And the uniforms developed for the girls became standars uniforms for girls' gym and sport for many oyher countries. We are less sure about the deveoment of gils' gym classes in America. There seem to have been two early gym/sport uniforms developed for the girls. The first were dark bloomers worn with middy blouses. The bloomers gradually evolved into romper gym uniforms. Second we sunsequently see a new sports uniform for the girls--the gym slkip. Gradually this became a type of regular school uniform rather than just a gym uniform. A good example is the Convent of the Cross School near Plymouth in the early 1960s.
