Dowager's Hump?

Factual Questions
21

Perhaps; the sense I got from those articles was that young women (“debutantes”) were affecting a slouchy posture in the 1910s, which other, more uptight (i.e., older) people thought was untoward and not feminine-looking – the “that could become dowager’s hump!” caution in the one article feels, to me, like a scolding/warning, which may not have had any solid evidence behind it, that that particular behavior could have unwanted consequences later in life.

They aren’t quoting doctors or medical professionals in those articles – the first one mostly relies on opinion from a physical education director at a local YWCA branch (and has all sorts of other, “interesting” opinions on how tight skirts and pointy shoes make your face ugly), and the second one seems to be just an unattributed opinion piece.

It feels akin to “warnings” like “if you sit too close to the TV, you’ll go blind!”, or “if you crack your knuckles, you’ll get arthritis!”

22

I don’t know that medical accuracy is, traditionally, a key attribute for the rise of slang. No broken os coxae are actually, medically related to people who have “busted their butt”.

Saying that it looks like an unscientific, medically dubious usage doesn’t strike me as a mark against it as the origin of the phrase.

That it’s a single usage, with no particular indication that this connection between the two terms is common past this one author, is what makes it a tenuous hypothesis.

23

I wasn’t saying that, and I apologize if you misunderstood me because I was not being clear.

What I was saying was that, in the article you cited, there was (IMO) a potentially dubious connection being made, by someone who wasn’t a medical professional, between young women slouching, and then developing dowager’s hump later in life because of that poor posture when they were younger.

Again, I suspect (barring any newfound evidence to the contrary) that the term “dowager’s hump” came into parlance because it was primarily seen among older women. That’s all.

24

Yes. “Older” people are very good at catastrophizing the results of actions they don’t like among younger people. I once came across a booklet of interesting tombstone epitaphs. One, for a girl who had barely lived 20 years, stated that she had died of an ailment contracted “through wearing thin-soled shoes”. I could just hear the constant back-and-forth.

Mom got the last word.

25

Looking earlier at Chronicling America brings up a connection between dowager and hump, if not the phrase.

The short-stock sun-umbrella with the enormous knob for the hand had its origin in the necessities of a rheumatic hump-backed old dowager…

In newspapers.com, that 1919 story was syndicated nationally with the first hit being in the Kansas City Star on October 4. Half a dozen other papers printed it before Glenn Falls. I have no idea why Chronicling America doesn’t pick these up.

It also doesn’t find several other mentions early mentions.

Dr. Agnes Ferguson blamed dowager’s hump, round shoulders, and a flat chest on women’s shoes in a speech to the Pittsburgh YMCA, according to Pittsburgh Daily Post, 11 Feb 1920, Wed · Page 2.

An ad in Winfield Daily Courier, 07 Dec 1920, Tue · Page 8, says “The debutante’s slouch becomes the dowager’s hump.” Wear Lynne’s corsets to prevent that.

Dowager’s hump should never be confused with debutante’s slump. That was an invented term, first seen in The Baltimore Sun, 04 May 1913, Sun · Page 17, to demean younger girls who stopped wearing corsets.

What this says to me is that the effects of osteoporosis were recognized for a very long time. Just like the snake oil salesman of the 19th century, some people, whether well-intentioned or just pushing a product, latched on to the term. It always was used for older ladies and mostly well-to-do ladies (An article in The Richmond Item, 06 Feb 1927, Sun · Page 7 associates it with women driven in limousines). Everybody knew what they looked like and everybody knew that whatever the cause was, work wasn’t involved.

26

FWIW, a dowager was originally and typically an aristocratic woman who wouldn’t normally have to take in washing or do other humble work. More specifically, a dowager is the widowed mother of the current holder of a peerage in the United Kingdom. If the substantive title holder is Earl Black, then his mother is the Dowager Countess Black, so called to distinguish her from her DIL, the current Countess Black. It’s somewhat similar to the status of a Queen Mother, provided she exists.

27

The obvious example being Downton Abbey’s Dowager Countess of Grantham, as played by Maggie Smith (though she doesn’t have the hump). Rich people had a better chance of living to an age where this could become a problem.

28

Just in case anyone was wondering, a “dowager’s hump” is not at all akin to a “widow’s peak”.

29

Your theory that this was largely a marketing term, targeted to older, wealthy women does seem to match what I see in the newspapers. The term seems prevalent in advertisements.