THE CHANGING POPULAR IMAGE OF WOMAN
"To be thin is no longer the acme of feminine desires."
-Marion Harlan 1880 etiquette authority
"American women are constantly having themselves weighed, and every ounce of increase is hailed with delight and talked about with the most dreadful plainness of speech. When I asked a beautiful Connecticut girl how she liked the change, 'oh immensely!' she said. ‘I have gained eighteen pounds in flesh since April.’" -English visitor to America
By the 1860s the Steel Engraved Lady was on the wane. The frail, thin, pale, image of American woman was no longer in vogue as the popular image. She was in the process of being replaced by a more buxom and heavier model of beauty. George Beard, and cultural observer of the times wrote in his book, "American Nervousness Its Cause and Consequences" (1881) that when attending the 1876 Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition he observed
"Most of the American women are now hearty and buxom. The thin and pale women of the antebellum years is evident in only women from the rural areas. The women in all our great centers of population are yearly becoming more plump and more beautiful!"
 There were many reasons for the demise of the Steel Engraved Lady. Health and dress reformers had fought hard to usher in a"healthier" woman who was physically active and could participate in sports. Every form of outdoor activity (even rowing a boat) had been denied women because of the popular attitudes surrounding the Steel Engraved Lady. Women were considered to be incapable of any physical activity or exertion because of their "frail physical conditions." The cultural belief that accompanied the frail model of beauty was that physical exercise would contribute to the many illnesses women were already susceptible to due to their physical weakness.
MODELS LEAD THE WAY
The other social phenomenon that led to the demise of the popularity of the frail model of beauty happened prior to 1850 with the introduction of a heartier model of woman. This model of beauty was introduced in America by visitors from England, German immigrants, actresses and even prostitutes. These new models of beauty were rounder and more buxom. They existed side by side with the Steel Engraved Lady for some years before the heavier model eclipsed and surpassed the thin and dainty model in popularity. The Voluptuous Woman was associated in the beginning with a lower class of woman.
It would take a popular and stunning woman to galvanize support for such a drastic change in the standard of beauty for women. It would also take changing social views on who and what woman could be. The fluctuating times were on the side of theVoluptuous Woman.
THE ADVENT OF THE VOLUPTUOUS WOMAN
Before the Civil War, the Voluptuous Woman was only illustrated by two types of women. In lower class and immigrant cultures that associated weight with success; and in the subculture of sensuality that we associated with the theater world, prostitution, and sectors of the upper and working classes. By the 1850s and 1860s both these groups were assuming new prominence in the United Sates and Europe.
The eating habits of the Steel Engraved Lady were nonexistent. But now the new moneyed people associated eating with wealth. Lavish dinner parties were a predominant part of socializing among the rich who set the standard for beauty for all women in the country. Now that eating in public was fashionable, women's shapes began to grow.
DOCTORS DO AN ABOUT-FACE
The medical profession followed the cues of their rich clients changing fashion tastes. "Expert" advice about weight in the medical journals suddenly did an about face. When thin and frail was fashionable, the medical profession supported the slender frame as the ideal and healthy form for women. However, with the popular notion of beauty changing, physicians now recommended that indeed plumpness, not thinness, was a sign of health. Going a step further to make their point they went so far as to recommend that the heavier women became the healthier they were.
Two influential neurologists of the era were George Beard and S. Weir Mitchell, both of whom were proponents of plumpness. Mitchell provided the physiological argument for their advice
 "The production of a large number of fat cells is crucial to a well balanced personality. Thin people lack a sufficient number of such cells and as a result are querulous and discontented."
Mitchell's rest and healing treatments for fashionable women of the day included large consumption of food. Neurologists also believed and taught in their books that thin people were not happy people. The axiom that "fat women are happy women" was coined during this period in women's culture. "A sweet temper and a bony woman never dwell under the same roof," was another popular reinforcement of the changing tide of woman's beauty.
CALVES, WAIST AND BUST IMPORTANT
Women were now comparing the sizes of their calves, waist and bust. A thirty-six inch bust was considered average but women exulted in forty and forty-four inch bust as popularized by some of the stage actresses of the day. Thirty-five inch thighs were the standard as set by the famous actress Eugenie Doche.
The Civil War, as with all wars, changed society and disrupted the usual roles of men and women in culture. Prostitution became much more of a socially acceptable institution during the Civil War. Even the word "hooker" comes from this era. General Hooker would bring in wagons of prostitutes for his men before a battle. Aphrodisiacs and birth control ads were run in newspapers for the first time. The morals and sexual conduct of America was loosening a great deal and was reflected in the literature and conduct of the times.
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