Assignment # 3/4

I have been spending a lot of time this week researching about my topic. I have found a lot of good information about the transition that occurred at the turn of the century towards a thinner ideal of women.

Here is a beginning outline of what I want to talk about in may paper and also the subjects that I need to research more:

Pre 1890: voluminous

1890: Gilmore Girls Era- Charles Gibson (small waist, corsets)

1920: The Flapper/Progressive Era (thin, boy-like figure, bound breasts)

1940: Christian Dior, "The New Look" (thin, big breasts, girdle, change from post WWII)

1950: Marilyn Monroe Era (voluminous)

1960: Twiggy (thin models)

1970-90: progression of the thin ideal, the super model.

I have really started to question why it was in the 1900s that there was this first shift EVER in the ideal body. Some possibilities that I have been thinking that I need to research more about that may have caused this:

• the industrial revolution, (the change in how goods are produced, movement to the cities)
• women suffrage (equality with men)
• free thinking by women (the need to oppress this)
• the development of the media, (the ability to control/change the ideal easily)

Here are a bunch of articles that I have found for my research. These are the article that helped me come up with my beginning outline.

http://jrscience.wcp.muohio.edu/humans_web_04/beauty/feminine.pdf

http://www.timetoast.com/timelines/40315

http://www.diet-blog.com/07/female_body_shape_in_the_20th_century.php

http://www.fashion-era.com/mid-late_victorian_fashion.htm

http://www.ivillage.com/renaissance-runway-body-shapes-over-ages/4-a-106826?p=1

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-789X.2010.00754.x/pdf

http://www.healingthehumanspirit.com/pages/body_img2.htm

http://nortonbooks.typepad.com/everydaysociology/2009/08/thinking-like-a-sociologist-understanding-changes-in-the-ideal-body-size.html

http://ap.psychiatryonline.org/article.aspx?articleid=50181

Rethinking my thesis

I have been doing some research on my subject to see what is out there on the subject. I purchased History of Beauty this past week. In reading parts of the book I have found that I don't want to talk much about ancient time, (Rome and Greece). The reason is because there isn't much written on this particular subject. I was thinking about just focusing my paper on comparing the 1800 to the 1900 and focusing on the change that occurs between the two decades.

As I have been thinking about this, I have decided that I am going to focus on the social standards of beauty and what was required of women during these times. I haven't looked much into what happened in the early 1900 that the ideal body changes so this week I am going to look into materials involving that.

I am not planning on mathematically comparing the bodies from each decade. I am more concerned with the why it occurred not the physically comparison.