In both the scientific and popular works, including women's autobiographical writings, bodily ideals changed from rounded, plump figures to straighter, slimmer contours, and from relatively immobile to relatively active bodies.
Mary Lynn Stewart is a professor in the Department of History and the Women's Studies Department at Simon Fraser University. She is the coauthor of Gender and the Politics of Social Reform in France, 1870-1914, also available from Johns Hopkins.
