Bloomer Girl

Bloomer Girl is a 1944 Broadway musical with music by Harold Arlen, lyrics by E.Y. Harburg, and a book by Sig Herzig and Fred Saidy, based on an unpublished play by Lilith and Dan James. The plot concerns independent Evelina Applegate, a hoop skirt manufacturer's daughter who defies her father by rejecting hoopskirts and embracing comfortable bloomers advocated by her aunt "Dolly" Bloomer. The American Civil War is looming, and abolitionist Evelina refuses to marry suitor Jeff Calhoun until he frees his slave, Pompey.