Miller, Annie Jenness (b. 1859)
Miller, Annie Jenness (b. 1859)
American dress reformer, author and lecturer. Name variations: Mrs. Jenness Miller. Born in the White Mountains of New Hampshire on January 28, 1859; daughter of Solomon Jenness and Susan (Wendell) Jenness (both of old New England stock); educated in Boston by private tutors; married Conrad Miller, in 1887.
Annie Jenness Miller was widely known as an advocate of dress reform for women. About 1885, she became editor and proprietor of the Jenness Miller Monthly, in which she advocated her views. Miller gave over 1,000 lectures in the U.S. and Canada on athletics and dress, and designed a costume for women which she claimed "fulfilled the requirements of both hygiene and art." She wrote: "One who carefully examines the pages of fashion magazines, and looks into the history of dress, will find the conclusion forced upon him that there has never been any attempt upon the part of fashion makers to clothe the body consistently. Novelty, exaggeration and display have been the ends sought. The body has been cramped and distorted, its requirements for health and comfort disregarded accoding to the caprice of fashion's arbiters." Her books included Mother and Babe (1892) and Creating a Home (1896).