Why Victorian Women Fainted So Often: What Science Says Now

On this episode of Our American Stories, picture a crowded parlor in the 1800s. The air is heavy, the fire is roaring, and the women are laced into corsets that leave little room to breathe. In moments like these, fainting became common—so common that homes often had special couches set aside for recovery. What we now think of as a Victorian cliché was, for many women, an ordinary interruption to daily life. Simon Whistler, host of Today I Found Out, explains how fainting reflected the health, fashion, and culture of the nineteenth century.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is Lee Habib and this is our American Stories.
Our next story is the answer to a question why
did women faint so much in the nineteenth century? You're
to tell the story is Simon Whistler from the Today
I Found Out YouTube channel and its sister the Brain
Food Show podcast. Let's take a list.

Speaker 2 (00:33):
Look as if he'd.

Speaker 1 (00:34):
Seen a ghost.

Speaker 2 (00:38):
Dropping like flies, or at least as far as many
stories indicate, it seems as if well bred ladies in
the eighteen hundreds struggled to maintain consciousness when faced with
even the slightest emotional or physical shock. Over the years,
there have been several theories as to why this seemed

(00:58):
to happen. To begin with, Throughout the nineteenth century, among
other times, ladies often wore corsets around the torso. Corsets
were made of a durable, tightly woven fabric or leather,
fashioned with channels running through them in which vertical ribs
were inserted, called boning because they were often made with whalebone,

(01:19):
although ivory and wood were also used. Well Boy Perfect
thirty six OK. While the purpose of the corset changed
over time, sometimes meant to give a flat look, sometimes
meant to give extra curves via tightening. It's the latter fat,
particularly in the Victorian era, that many propose was the

(01:40):
cause of at least some fainting spells. In this case,
the entire device was held together and tightened, sometimes to extremes,
by a system of lacing. Deep breath, Oh, come on, Oh.
The archetype or corset had its laces at the back,

(02:02):
and for the most fashionable ladies these had to be
tightened by another I feel well again, but I can't breathe.
Girls were started in corsets at a very young age,
and for them and ladies after Charles birth, waist training
to shrink the size of the waist via super tight
lacing was very common. As a result of this particular version,
of course it fashion over time, corset whearer's bodies changed.

(02:25):
Their ribs were displaced, their lungs were squashed, some organs
were compressed against the spine, and others were shoved down
into the lower abdomen. Well, I certainly don't relish wearing
this thing, but pride has come of the rescue for tonight.
I'll do anything. It'll be worth it if we can
create a breathtaking effect. It'll be simple to an up

(02:46):
light all the worthwhile men exactly in addition to making
it hard to breathe, hearts struggled to pump, and guts
struggled to digest what little food they could get down,
As one Victorian lady is reported as saying, I had
only eaten two bites of my biscuit. There was no
room beneath my corset for a third. This led to

(03:07):
the great corsid controversy of the nineteenth century. Said one
woman in a letter to the Boston Globe in January
of eighteen ninety three, Those who have been systematically laced
up in proper stays from their childhood are the only
ones who are capable of forming a right judgment on
this subject, And I hope you will allow type lacers
the opportunity of defending themselves against the enemies of trim

(03:28):
lit or waste on the other side of the arguments.
In an article titled the Slaves of Fashion published in
the Chicago Tribune in September of eighteen ninety one, it
was noted it is difficult to imagine a slavery more senseless, cruel,
or far reaching in its injurious consequences than that imposed
by fashion on civilized womanhood during the last generation. The

(03:51):
type lacing required by the wasp waiste has produced generations
of invalids and bequeathed to posterity suffering that will not
vanish for many decades. Whatever side of the tight laced argument,
a particular woman was on, whether by their suboptimal blood pressure,
inability to breathe properly, or low blood sugar. It's thought

(04:12):
this may have been one potential cause for Victorian ladies
reportedly retreating to their fainting rooms and swooning into their
fainting couches. Another fashion based theory is that a well
dressed woman of this era wore an enormous amount of clothing,
and even in the summer, such a lady had, in

(04:33):
addition to the corset underwear, a bustle pad, a full
skirt supported by crinoline read horsehair, petticoats sometimes lined with steel,
and a bonnet. Some may have fainted from overheating, while
others may have collapsed under the sheer weight of their garments,
which would have been more difficult to handle. Combined with
the aforementioned cinching aspects, another potential contributor sometimes pointed to

(04:56):
in trying to explain some of the swooning could have
been a chronic poisoning. During the nineteenth century, while people
knew that arsenic was poisonous, they didn't seem to know
or care that environmental exposure from its fumes could have
a deleterious effect. As such, and given its utility in
certain applications, it was widely used in the manufacturer of

(05:17):
everything from fabrics to paints to the paper in which
food was wrapped. In fact, by the end of the
eighteen hundreds, eighty percent of wallpaper was arsenic laced. Arsenic
poisoning has a variety of symptoms, including headaches, cold sweats,
and fainting. There was an eighteen eighty report of a
woman who had fainting fits almost daily until she was

(05:37):
moved to another room in a home that wasn't furnished
with arsenic tainted wallpaper, where she recovered a few weeks later.
In addition, arsenic, along with lead, mercury, and other such
toxic substances, were commonly found in makeup during the Victorian era.
Lead was also a common ingredient in haired eyes and
was frequently found in wine along with arsenic and copper.

(06:00):
Together these toxins contributed to more wealthy Victorians suffering from
seizures and theoretically swooning when compared with their poorer neighbors
who couldn't afford such luxuries. All that said, it is
highly likely that sun or even the majority of this
swooning was put on. You see, besides potential side effects
from the fad of extreme tight lacing of corsets or

(06:20):
other things, for a time, swooning at the least hint
of shock also became expected and downright ladylike. This also
made it a great literary device in stories. I'm a
victim of circumstance. I'm going to faithful, she has fainded.
Get a reclass of water, not whiskey. Women, particularly of
high station, were expected to act the role of a

(06:42):
delicate flower, while men were expected to be hard as nails.

Speaker 1 (06:46):
It means be advise, I mean nasty and tired.

Speaker 2 (06:50):
I eat cattantina wire and bish napor, and I can
put around to a fleeceer at two hundred meters. A
swooning was simply one method of a woman showing her
delicate nature in the form of an extreme emotional reaction
to a particular event. Today, simply gasping might be the
best social Q equivalent, So in the nineteenth century, swooning

(07:11):
was just another form of accepted social cue for ladies
to have in their toolbox, whether they literally were fainting
or just more likely, in most cases, making a show
of it. Beyond this, the ladies also had another potential
incentive for swooning. You see, at the time, well to
do women often had something called a painting room. This
was a room for the women to recover from a

(07:32):
fainting spell and other forms of so called hysteria. Wow.
Besides just getting to relax in peace on a comfortable
fainting chair, there was another benefit. A doctor or midwife
could be called to attend to a woman who was
suffering from some form of hysteria, which included symptoms of swooning,
among other things. And by attends to we mean give

(07:53):
a vigorous pelvic massage, whether manually with their hands or
using a water massage. If attending to the women in
their office or other location that had won this went
on until the lady in question was relieved, curing her
of her hysteria. This was also a boon to doctors
at the time, who otherwise tended to be avoided by
the general public unless absolutely necessary. Treating female hysteria, though,

(08:16):
was something that women who had the money often needed
done regularly and were more than happy to pay. However,
this was very time consuming and could require some amounts
of physical exertion for the midwife or doctor in question,
particularly if they had to attend to multiple ladies in
the same day. In this way, doctors lamented that treating
hysterics tax their physical endurance. In this case, the husband

(08:41):
could potentially also be called in to help. Later, this
practice and the cramped hands of physicians throughout Europe and
North America led to the invention of the vibrator for
quickly relieving hysteria, saving the physician's significant time and effort.
In the early twentieth century, as houses wired up with
electricity became more and more common, they brings her for
this use became something of a common household item for

(09:03):
those who could afford one. With it, you didn't even
necessarily need to call the doctor to relief hysteria.

Speaker 1 (09:12):
And a terrific job on the production, editing and storytelling
by our own Greg Hengler, and a special thanks to
Simon whistler from the Today I found out YouTube channel
and its sister the Brain Food Show podcast, and boy
did we get an answer to why did women faint
so much in the nineteenth century. If men had been
subject to the same fetch and styles, we'd be fainting

(09:35):
in those fainting rooms too, and getting applications from doctors
and treatment as well. The clothing, the corsets, the layers,
and in summertime it was just too much. The story
of why did women faint so much in the nineteenth
century answered here on our American Story