Warner (theater, Univ. of Massachusetts) examines a heretofore untapped area of US social history: how informal clothing developed in the 1800s in response to middle-class leisure activities, competitive sports, and attitudes related to health. With wit and personal anecdotes, she reveals the rationale for the evolution in fashions from body-restricting women's Victorian styles to loose, comfortable, informal modern wear. Warner separates public outdoor sports, where women usually wore fashionable styles and participated with men, from private indoor exercises involving only women, where experiments in clothing emerged. In the 1850s, women wearing conservative but slightly adjusted wide skirts with crinolines first engaged in lawn croquet and ice skating, later tennis. Bathing and swimming presented the biggest challenges for dressmakers because clinging fabrics reveal body shapes and modesty surpassed efficiency in 19th-century design criteria. Big changes came around 1900 with women's involvement in the Olympics--first in tennis, golf, archery; later, figure skating, swimming, and gymnastics. Noteworthy is Warner's extensive documentation of early exercise clothing worn in private women's colleges during the late 19th century, for calisthenics and basketball (gym suits) and the many varieties of crew outfits worn at Wellesley. This pioneering work should spawn further women's history studies. Contains 79 "charming" illustrations. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All levels/libraries. B. B. Chico Regis University