Bra Burning (1968)

[James A. Landau]

In a message dated 3/11/2003 11:24:47 PM Eastern Standard Time,
Bapopik at AOL.COM writes:

>   6 September 1968, WALL STREET JOURNAL, pg. 4:
> _Miss America Pageant_
> _Chosen as the Latest_
> _Target of Protesters_
>   _"Women's Liberation Groups"_
>   _Set Rally at "Coronation"_
>   _Tomorrow in New Jersey_
> (...)
>   "We'll have a freedom trash can for bras, girdles, curlers, false
> eyelashes, wigs, copies of Cosmopolitan, Ladies Home Journal, Family Circle
> and any other women garbage that sisters want to bring," says 27-year-old
> poetess Robin Morgan, organizer of the protest.
>    <snip>
>
>   8 September 1968, NEW YORK TIMES, pg. 81:
>   "We told him we wouldn't do anything dangerous--just a symbolic
> bra-burning."

Thank you Barry for an excellent piece of research.  You've nailed down
"women's liberation" and "bra-burning" in a three-day stretch.

Women's Lib and the so-called "bra-burning" emerged in the year of the Prague
Spring?

Does anyone know how long it took for "women's liberation" to be pared down
to "women's lib"?  I know the "Liberator" bomber/transport of World War II
was known as the "Lib", but offhand I can't recall any uses of "Lib" for
"Liberation Movement" before the citation above.

Note the list in the WSJ article: "bras, girdles, curlers, false eyelashes,
wigs, ..."  I am quite happy to agree that curlers and false eyelashes are
"women garbage" but starting the list with brassieres leaves me puzzled.
More to the topic in question, I wonder if Ms. Morgan had rearranged the
list, might the term "wig-burning"
have emerged instead of the puzzling phrase "bra-burning"?

                     - Jim Landau