They seem to wear corsets sometimes, but it looks to me like the older women did not adopt newer silhouettes that became fashionable in the 20th century. I'm also looking at the younger women's silhouettes, which seem higher and more constrained than I expected, given the date.

There is also video taken at the same time.

The woman borrowing three books from the library appears at 4:10.

Here is another photo of the American relief workers.

I would like to know more about the woman in the (probably not faux) jaguar fur coat. The RANGE of women's clothing in these photos.

www.theworldwar.org/exhibitions/...

This set of photos has a few shots of younger women in working situations, but I can't tell much about their everyday undergarments due to distance/angle. Must keep looking.

Sure! Always happy to meet material culture people!

Great footwear shot — the elderly woman wears slippers, the child has hobnail boots, and somebody's clogs are hanging out in the background.

This is also a fabulous photo—it looks like they might be setting up for some of the other shots. The woman from the first photo in this thread is 3d from right.

This adds another category: young aid workers (probably Americans). Smart uniform, sailor collar, lower busts than the local young women.

Other things I am noticing are shoes (clogs for work, leather boots/shoes with Best Clothes) and hairstyles. Most of the older women have center-part hairstyles with the hair pinned up in back. The younger women's hair is looser, and the dressed-up cemetery visitor has a Gibson girl thing going on.

There's also the added element that they're being photographed by a photographer working with American relief orgs, so there is incentive to show extremes—people in very old clothing and also scrubbed up to the limit.

Yes, it's totally possible that they are wearing styles (or actual garments) that they have been wearing for a long time, and feel most comfortable in. These women are have an odd mix of clothing because of relief efforts. The woman in glasses has a VERY new coat, but those aprons have seen things.

Of course, people don't wear the same clothes all the time. These photos aren't labeled, but I think this woman in the library may be the same woman who was holding the knife and sickle.

I can *feel* the corset in this photo—high, structured, possibly a style she's been wearing for 50 years.

Older and middle-aged women at work

These women are all hard at work, with workworn hands, footwear, and clothing.

They are wearing a variety of undergarments (and overgarments!) but their undergarments don't seem to be lifting/constraining the bust much, if at all.

Young women:
By 1920, a lower bust was fashionable, but these two young women in rural northern France are still wearing a structured, fairly high bust. They are both dressed up in their nice clothes, not doing farm work.

First: middle-aged women

The woman on the left has a clear, high corset line over the middle of the bust, along w/ wide shoulders and center-front buttons. It's 1919, but she could have worn this in 1865.

The woman on the right is covered up, but she is also wearing something firm w/ a high bust.

Huh. They left in the "Memorial" bit.

A perfect set up for "and there was only one copy"

Should I finish drafting this chapter or should I spend four hours zooming in on 19th-century paintings to glimpse farmworkers’ footwear, the eternal dilemma.

Hats are the bane of my life because all my heroes should be wearing hats all the damn time except for the parts where they absolutely should not be wearing hats, and the amount of work I'd have to put into hat management considering that *nobody even wants to read about men's hats* AAARGH