At the 2025 National History Day Delaware State event in April, Hagley Museum and Library was honored to award the Hagley American Innovation prize to a group participating students.
The American Innovation Award – Awarded for the best project related to the design and development of new ideas, methods, or products in the United States and its territories.
Winners: Amanda Mao & Risha Setty
The Bloomer Movement: Unveiling Freedom Beyond the Skirt
Category: Senior Division – Group Website
School: Newark Charter School – Mr. Brent Freccia
Mao and Setty's website explores the history of Amelia Bloomer, women's rights activist and advocate for changing women's dress standards, as well as her long-lasting influence on American culture. Bloomer supported women's rights to wear pants. Due to her involvement in the "rational dress movement," early pants for women became known as "bloomers." Such pants, and the knickerbocker and trouser styles that followed, gave women freedom of movement that skirts prevented. Women and girls could now function more easily and, in some cases, more safety without heavy skirts to worry about.
For more on bloomers, hear from Helen Edwards, one of the DuPont Company's Bloomer Girls, young women who worked in powder yards and wore pants for safety (see right). Her story is preserved as part of Hagley's Brandywine Valley Oral History Project just as the history of bloomers themselves are preserved in the work achieved by Mao and Setty.
The annual NHD competition allows American students in grades 6-12 to explore their passion for the past. They enter projects in one category, from the traditional paper essay to exhibits and websites, and the category winners advance to the next stage. Competition happens at the school, regional, state, and national level. Students also have the opportunity to be nominated for special awards.
NHD Delaware is hosted by the Delaware Historical Society and was held for the second year at the Stanton Middle School in Wilmington. Awardees were nominated by the judges for their category and selected by Special Awards judges to receive the American Innovation Prize.
We congratulate these students on their stellar work investigating the history of innovation in our nation!
Hannah Spring Pfeifer is the Library Coordinator at Hagley Museum and Library