On this episode of Our American Stories, picture a crowded parlor in the 1800s. The air is heavy, the fire is roaring, and the women are laced into corsets that leave little room to breathe. In moments like these, fainting became common—so common that homes often had special couches set aside for recovery. What we now think of as a Victorian cliché was, for many women, an ordinary interruption to daily life. Simon Whistler, host of Today I Found Out, explains how fainting reflected the health, fashion, and culture of the nineteenth century.
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