The Need for Dress Reform

The physicians at the Health Reform Institute, from the very first, had seen the need for a style of dress that would conform to correct principles, saying that “it was not only desirable, but necessary in the treatment of some cases; and that being so, it would be useless and wrong to receive such cases without adopting what they were assured was essential to effect cures.” They also saw that if a healthful dress was not adopted, a certain class of people who most needed the benefits of the institute would be led to go elsewhere where they might be freed from the “cumbersome, prevailing fashion.” The Health Reformer, March, 1868.SHM 166.3

At first general principles of healthful dress were urged, and the individual wearers might consult their own taste and choice as to the length and appearance of the garments worn by them. While such a diversity had its disadvantages, yet it afforded an opportunity to observe and compare a number of patterns, and thus to select the best features in striving for a uniform style and length.SHM 166.4

How this was done is related by Elder J. H. Waggoner.SHM 167.1

At his request the physicians at the institute named a number of its inmates whose dresses they considered the best in make and appearance. He then “measured the height of twelve, with the distance of their dresses from the floor. They varied in height from five feet to five feet seven inches, and the distance of the dresses from the floor was from eight to ten and one-half inches. The medium, nine inches, was decided to be the right distance and is adopted as the standard.” (Ibid.)SHM 167.2

It was the style of costume thus adopted at the Health Reform Institute that had become the prevailing pattern used not only by Seventh-day Adventist women there, but among the churches.SHM 167.3

However, Mrs. White did not unduly urge the adoption of the dress reform. “None need fear,” she wrote, “that I shall make dress reform one of my principal subjects as we travel from place to place. ... I shall urge none and condemn none. This is not the work assigned me.”—Testimonies for the Church 1:523.SHM 167.4