Susan T. Hessel
Through 21st century eyes, the Leona is a paradox in lace, combining slip, camisole and drawers. It was the cotton drawers portion that proved perplexing.
They are not sewn together at the bottom, but are left open between the legs. Today we find this somewhat scandalous, but in 1909 it was both practical and modest. A woman did not need to undress to answer nature’s call, thus preserving her virtue.
Back then, the Leona was in that class of clothes dubbed “unmentionables” that was not universally worn when the Leona Garment Co. produced it between 1907 and 1920. The end came when flappers changed to “very risky attire” that included shorter dresses baring more chest and legs. Women left their corsets at home, along with the layers of undergarments that went under and over the corset.
The Leona sales catalog claimed it would cut “your laundry bills in two.” It was lighter and easily washable, and it served as a barrier between outer clothes and bodily secretions. Thus, wearers laundered outer clothing less often, something significant when cleanliness and wearing undergarments indicated higher social class.
Linker was apprenticed to a dressmaker at age 12 in Minneapolis, and she opened her own shop in La Crosse in 1895, at the age of 16. Later she also became an agent for the Gossard Corset Co. of Chicago.
A 1900 La Crosse Daily Press article about her first travels abroad for Gossard carried this headline: “La Crosse Girl’s Luck: Miss Foerster goes to Paris:” It described her as “one little La Crosse girl with a happy heart. For not only will she be enabled to see the great World’s Exposition at Paris and travel to other points of interest, but she will do it at no expense to herself and get a salary besides.”
Clearly, her talent went un-noted in that article, replaced by luck. In keeping with the custom of the day, she did not travel alone — instead she had a chaperone in Harry Kirby.
Who knew the Leona would say so much about the role of women in the early 20th century?
This article was originally published in the La Crosse Tribune on December 19, 2015.
