Amelia Bloomer

Amelia Bloomer lived in Seneca Falls in 1848, but was not an active participant in the Convention. In 1850 or 1851 she introduced fellow temperance worker Susan B. Anthony to Elizabeth Cady Stanton, initiating a collaboration that would last half a century.

In 1849, Bloomer began publication of The Lily, a monthly temperance paper. The paper soon became a voice for Stanton and other advocates of women's interests. The paper became an active voice for change in women's dress, and the abandonment of restrictive clothing in favor of shorter skirts and knee-length undergarments that came to be known as Bloomers. (The outfit was actually designed by Elizabeth Smith Miller, daughter of Stanton's Cousin Gerrit Smith).

Bloomer was not not an early advocate of all of the other ideas promoted by the early women's rights workers. In 1852 Elizabeth Cady Stanton wrote to Susan B. Anthony:

"I think you are doing up the Temperance business just right. But do not let the conservative element control. For instance, you must take Mrs. Bloomer's suggestions with great caution, for she has not the spirit of the reformer. At the first woman's rights convention, but four years ago, she stood aloof and laughed at us. It was only with great effort and patience that she has been brought up to her present position. In her paper, she will not speak against the fugitive slave law, nor in her work to put down intemperance will she criticize the equivocal position of the church..."

Bloomer began a career as a speaker in 1852, which she continued after she moved to Iowa in 1855. In this work she was recorded as a worker for women's rights and other social reforms