Why Victorian Women Fainted So Often: What Science Says Now

This is Lee Habib, and this is our American Stories. Our next story is the answer to a question: why did women faint so much in the nineteenth century? Here to tell the story is Simon Whistler from the Today I Found Out YouTube channel and its sister, the Brain Food Show podcast. Let’s take a list.

Look as if he’d.

Seen a ghost.

Dropping like flies, or at least as far as many stories indicate, it seems as if well-bred ladies in the 1800s struggled to maintain consciousness when faced with even the slightest emotional or physical shock. Over the years, there have been several theories as to why this seemed to happen. To begin with, throughout the nineteenth century, among other times, ladies often wore corsets around the torso. Corsets were made of a durable, tightly-woven fabric or leather, fashioned with channels running through them in which vertical ribs were inserted, called boning because they were often made with whalebone, although ivory and wood were also used. “Well, boy, perfect thirty-six. Okay.” While the purpose of the corset changed over time, sometimes meant to give a flat look, sometimes meant to give extra curves via tightening. It’s the latter fat, particularly in the Victorian era, that many propose was the cause of at least some fainting spells. In this case, the entire device was held together and tightened, sometimes to extremes, by a system of lacing. Deep breath. Oh, come on! Oh. The archetype or corset had its laces at the back, and for the most fashionable ladies, these had to be tightened by another. “I feel well again, but I can’t breathe.” Girls were started in corsets at a very young age, and for them and ladies after Charles birth, waist-training to shrink the size of the waist via super tight lacing was very common. As a result of this particular version, of course it fashion over time, corset wearer’s bodies changed. Their ribs were displaced, their lungs were squashed, some organs were compressed against the spine, and others were shoved down into the lower abdomen. “Well, I certainly don’t relish wearing this thing, but pride has come of the rescue for tonight. I’ll do anything. It’ll be worth it if we can create a breathtaking effect. It’ll be simple to an up light all the worthwhile men. Exactly!” In addition to making it hard to breathe, hearts struggled to pump, and guts struggled to digest what little food they could get down. As one Victorian lady is reported as saying, “I had only eaten two bites of my biscuit. There was no room beneath my corset for a third.” This led to the great corsid controversy of the nineteenth century. Said one woman in a letter to the Boston Globe in January of 1893: “Those who have been systematically laced up in proper stays from their childhood are the only ones who are capable of forming a right judgment on this subject. And I hope you will allow type lacers the opportunity of defending themselves against the enemies of trim lit or waste.” On the other side of the arguments, in an article titled “The Slaves of Fashion,” published in the Chicago Tribune in September of 1891, it was noted: “It is difficult to imagine a slavery more senseless, cruel, or far-reaching in its injurious consequences than that imposed by fashion on civilized womanhood during the last generation. The type lacing required by the wasp waiste has produced generations of invalids and bequeathed to posterity suffering that will not vanish for many decades.” Whatever side of the tight laced argument a particular woman was on, whether by their suboptimal blood pressure, inability to breathe properly, or low blood sugar, it’s thought this may have been one potential cause for Victorian ladies reportedly retreating to their fainting rooms and swooning into their fainting couches. Another fashion-based theory is that a well-dressed woman of this era wore an enormous amount of clothing, and even in the summer, such a lady had, in addition to the corset underwear, a bustle pad, a full skirt supported by crinoline, read horsehair, petticoats sometimes lined with steel, and a bonnet. Some may have fainted from overheating, while others may have collapsed under the sheer weight of their garments, which would have been more difficult to handle. Combined with the aforementioned cinching aspects, another potential contributor sometimes pointed to in trying to explain some of the swooning could have been a chronic poisoning. During the nineteenth century, while people knew that arsenic was poisonous, they didn’t seem to know or care that environmental exposure from its fumes could have a deleterious effect. As such, and given its utility in certain applications, it was widely used in the manufacturer of everything from fabrics to paints to the paper in which food was wrapped. In fact, by the end of the 1800s, eighty percent of wallpaper was arsenic laced. Arsenic poisoning has a variety of symptoms, including headaches, cold sweats, and fainting. There was an 1880 report of a woman who had fainting fits almost daily until she was moved to another room in a home that wasn’t furnished with arsenic tainted wallpaper, where she recovered a few weeks later. In addition, arsenic, along with lead, mercury, other such toxic substances, were commonly found in makeup during the Victorian era. Lead was also a common ingredient in haired eyes and was frequently found in wine along with arsenic and copper. Together these toxins contributed to more wealthy Victorians suffering from seizures and theoretically swooning when compared with their poorer neighbors who couldn’t afford such luxuries. All that said, it is highly likely that sun or even the majority of this swooning was put on. You see, besides potential side effects from the fad of extreme tight lacing of corsets or other things, for a time, swooning at the least hint of shock also became expected and downright ladylike. This also made it a great literary device in stories. “I’m a victim of circumstance. I’m going to faithful. She has fainded. Get a reclass of water, not whiskey.” Women, particularly of high station, were expected to act the role of a delicate flower, while men were expected to be hard as nails.

“It means be advise, I mean nasty and tired.”

“I eat cattantina wire and bish napor, and I can put around to a fleeceer at two hundred meters.” A swooning was simply one method of a woman showing her delicate nature in the form of an extreme emotional reaction to a particular event. Today, simply gasping might be the best social cue equivalent, so in the nineteenth century, swooning was just another form of accepted social cue for ladies to have in their toolbox, whether they literally were fainting or just more likely, in most cases, making a show of it. Beyond this, the ladies also had another potential incentive for swooning. You see, at the time, well-to-do women often had something called a painting room. This was a room for the women to recover from a fainting spell and other forms of so-called hysteria. Wow! Besides just getting to relax in peace on a comfortable fainting chair, there was another benefit. A doctor or midwife could be called to attend to a woman who was suffering from some form of hysteria, which included symptoms of swooning, among other things. And by “attends to,” we mean give a vigorous pelvic massage, whether manually with their hands or using a water massage. If attending to the women in their office or other location that had won, this went on until the lady in question was relieved, curing her of her hysteria. This was also a boon to doctors at the time, who otherwise tended to be avoided by the general public unless absolutely necessary. Treating female hysteria, though, was something that women who had the money often needed done regularly and were more than happy to pay. However, this was very time-consuming and could require some amounts of physical exertion for the midwife or doctor in question, particularly if they had to attend to multiple ladies in the same day. In this way, doctors lamented that treating hysterics tax their physical endurance. In this case, the husband could potentially also be called in to help. Later, this practice and the cramped hands of physicians throughout Europe and North America led to the invention of the vibrator for quickly relieving hysteria, saving the physician’s significant time and effort. In the early 20th century, as houses wired up with electricity became more and more common, they brings her for this use became something of a common household item for those who could afford one. With it, you didn’t even necessarily need to call the doctor to relief hysteria.

And a terrific job on the production, editing, and storytelling by our own Greg Hengler, and a special thanks to Simon Whistler from the Today I Found Out YouTube channel and its sister, the Brain Food Show podcast. And boy, did we get an answer to: why did women faint so much in the nineteenth century? If men had been subject to the same fetch and styles, we’d be fainting in those fainting rooms too, and getting applications from doctors and treatment as well. The clothing, the corsets, the layers, and in summertime, it was just too much. The story of why did women faint so much in the nineteenth century, answered here on our American Story.