#making copies of this and mailing them to every pop culture fashion historian who gets too myopically pro-corset

[banji-effect]

Here Harriet called out her own apparel as being inadequate for the task at hand.

In our late expedition up the Combahee River, in coming on board the boat, I was carrying two pigs for a poor sick woman, who had a child to carry, and the order 'double quick' was given, and I started to run, stepped on my dress, it being rather long, and fell and tore it almost off, so that when I got on board the boat there was hardly any thing left of it but shreds. I made up my mind then I would never wear a long dress on another expedition of the kind, but would have a bloomer as soon as I could get it.

It was typical of Harriet to be so focused on the needs of others in the moment... that she tripped in the process. She also announced that she desired the practical, split-leg garment that was becoming a visible signifier of women's independence. Here, too, her commentary was social critique, highlighting the confining clothing women were expected to wear. Harriet had said, before the war: "The good Lord was come down to deliver my people, and I must go and help him." Carrying out God's mission, in her view, left room for social analysis, for vanquishing enemies with the sword, and for women's unabashed leadership.

Tiya Miles, Night Flyer: Harriet Tubman and the Faith Dreams of a Free People