"How Science is Helping 'Stout' People Look Less 'Stout'"

"How Science is Helping 'Stout' People Look Less 'Stout'"

This newspaper article from 1916 documents the new and increasing stigma around fat bodies. As ready-to-wear clothes replaced hand-sewn clothing thanks to standardized sizing, people with larger bodies were locked out of this progress due to standardized sizing did not fit all bodies. Therefore, stigma was created around body size. Brands such as Lane Bryant, designed specifically for fat bodies, made clothes that were to be corrective or disguise the body shape. This furthered the idea that certain bodies were wrong. New forms of bodily control replaced women's freedom from corsets.

Richmond Times-Dispatch

"Body as Architecture" by Lauren Downing Peters

16 April 1916