Pants on women was something that raised a lot of eyebrows at the time. Katherine Hepburn and Marlene Dietrich were shocking. Peggy would have gotten dirty looks for walking around on the streets with pants. Heck, I thought she looked overcasual, just a blouse with pants and no hat (I don't remember a hat, at least).

Oh, in Peggy's day I can see women wearing pants being a herald of the downfall of civilization, but I meant the hotel in the 90s. It just seems barely a step removed from requiring people to dress up in Victorian costume.

The place was cheap, and you knew what you were getting into, so I guess that was enough.

This all reminds me of my mother's horror of middle sister wearing blue jeans to school. My sister had to hide upstairs until the bus was at the door, then run out. Early to mid-70s. My mother was a teenager during WWII.

In the '70s, when pantsuits became a thing for women, a number of businesses banned them and there were restaurants that would not allow women wearing them to be seated.

I remember my high school (Church-affiliated private school, late 1970s) tying itself in knots over the idea of allowing the girls to wear pants to school. They finally did allow it, in an attempt to prove how modern and open-minded they were (they really weren't).

In the mid 60s, my father threatened to burn the school down if they did not let me wear pants. It was a sneaky dodge for him that he dressed me as a boy. In the end, the compromise was the once popular "apache skirt', which was two fabric scraps stitched to a pair of trousers.

My mother is very proud of being one of the first women (secretaries) to wear a pantsuit at Bausch and Lomb.

I'm not the only one wondering what Jarvis really did during the war, am I?

Not at all.