I don't want to suggest that women in large numbers were running round in trousers in the mid 19th century..However it was far more common than we have been lead to believe. Many farming and sea faring women made their own versions of trousers for many reasons...comfort, affordability, and safety. I have a picture in my office of five women making hay in Eastern Canaada in 1866..they are all wearing homemade trousers. It would be interesting to know more about this topic..would it not. A subject far more appealing than the book which, to be honest, I found awfully stilted and melodramatic.