Little-Known Fact

At the turn of the last century, the average woman was actually taller than the average man!

Here's the proof: Some Charles Dana Gibson drawings from the Dover sampler.


"Precious, can you reach me down the pomade from the top shelf of the armoire?"
This stalwart lady is obviously not about to let that (literally) shady character get his misshapen hands on the hard-won egg money in her reticule.


"Pray do not loiter, Papa. I wish to marry in haste."

Yes, women were the larger and therefore the more important sex. They left silly pastimes like voting, wearing pants, and owning property to their little men. It was only after the mysterious Dwindling Epidemic of 1913 that they began to show any interest in such trifles.

(C'mon, haven't you ever noticed there are no photos of the Czar and the Czarina standing together? How can anyone have missed that??

Anyway, it's because she was taller than him. As Czar of All the Russias, however, he couldn't let this show, so one or both of them always sat down for picture-taking.

The ordinary, middle-class American men in these Gibson drawings didn't get to hide the fact that the women in their lives towered over them -- but they didn't run the risk of being shot during a revolution, either.)