Lately, I've been reading books whose time period was in the 1910's. One series that I just finished gave the girls free rein to all kinds of lacy dainty frocks and automobile accidents experienced in long trailing veils. One part where a girl (Patty) is kidnapped for a ransom, struck me as funny. The author somehow managed to center the kidnapping around Patty's clothes and the awfulness of her having to wear whatever the kidnappers gave her. When she's finally rescued, Patty tells everyone to look at her. Here's what the book relates:
The picture was ludicrous. The hideous calico wrapper, badly cut and ill-shaped, and the coarse shoes were so incongruous to Patty's dainty beauty that they all laughed. All but Phil Van Reypen. He turned away as if from a painful sight.
"It's sacrilege!" he said. "Take her away, quick, and fix her up."
Once her friends "fix" her up, the transformation is described.....
......So the pale blue crêpe de Chine, with its fluttering chiffon sleeves and trailing knots of lace and ribbon, was the greatest conceivable contrast to the fearsome garment she had worn home.
Clothes were a big deal for young girls. Especially since you had so many accessories to go with your outfit. Your style bespoke some of your personality. Patty always wore light shimmery frocks and flowers in her hair while some of her wealthy friends acquired dark heavy garments with chains of gold and gold jewelry in their hair. Here is an expert from a section:
Patty looked her prettiest in a filmy gown of pale blue chiffon with touches of silver embroidery. An ornament in her hair was of silver filigree with a wisp of pale-blue feather and her cheeks were a little pinker than usual.
Notice the "daintiness" of the words the author chose for Patty. I emboldened them above.
Filigree: ornamental work of fine (typically gold or silver) wire formed into delicate tracery.
Filmy: (especially of fabric) thin and translucent.
Touches: a small amount; a trace.
Embroidery: ornamental needle work
Wisp: not quite there
Pale: light in color or having little color.
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Some things that were happening during that time ~
1910 - A boy loved to experiment with different flavors of syrup to make exotic concoctions. He also liked the daughter of his boss, Dr. Pepper. Exasperated, Dr. Pepper finally fired the boy who ended up in Texas. There, he made a combination of flavors that was extremely popular. He marketed it and chose to call it...Dr. Pepper.
1911 - It was in 1911 that the first painted lines appeared on a road. The lines were not drawn by a highway department or by the government, as you might expect. Instead, a Michigan man named Edward Hines painted the white lines by hand on River Road in Trenton, Michigan. He was tired of all the automobile drivers who didn't have enough sense to stay on one side of the road or the other. Evidently, the lines worked. In the next several years, white lines were painted on roads in cities and counties all over the country. Cited from 1910's Timelines by Stewart
1912 - Life savers hit the market; selling for a nickel each roll. They came in one flavor - mint.
1913 - Although automobiles had been around for several years, gas stations were unheard of. People purchased the fuel they need at general stores, in the same way as they bough kerosene for their lamps. In 1913, the first drive-in gas station opened in Pittsburgh. It was owned by the Gulf Company and was open 24 hours a day. The manager reported that the first day was a good beginning. He sold 30 gallons of gas!
Another 1913 - An American named Gideon Sundback came out with a zipper, which he called a "hookless fastener." When zippers were tried as fasteners for pants and dresses, people had to remove them (they rusted so easily) before washing the clothes and then sew them in again. The hookless fastener was named the zipper in 1923.
There are more stories like this in the book 1910s Timelines by Gail B Stewart.
