Bloomers and Woman’s Emancipation This 1851 British cartoon lampoons bloomers, the trouser-like garment worn beneath shortened skirts by two cigar-smoking American women. Bloomers were invented in the United States as an alternative to the uncomfortable, confining, and awkward dresses worn by the “respectable” women on the right. In the 1850s, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and other woman’s rights activists wore bloomers and urged all American women to do likewise. The New York Public Library/Art Resource, NY.