Part of what made these dresses so flammable was the same thing that made them so beautiful. These dresses were meant to give the illusion that women were dreamy, romantic figures, but that also meant they had air flowing around and through them. “If you imagine a sheet of newspaper and a hunk of wood, essentially, chemically, they are the same. But one will catch light way more quickly than the other. So if you have a very flimsy, flowing something that mixes well with air, it will burn quite readily,” says Martin Bide, a professor in the textiles, fashion merchandising, and design department at the University of Rhode Island.

Although photography remains slightly male-dominated — the National Endowment for the Arts estimates that 55.2 percent of photographers are men — women are peppered throughout its history. English botanist Anna Atkins (1799-1871) is not only credited as the first woman to take a picture, but also the first person to publish a book with photographs. And female aristocrats, including Queen Victoria, are reportedly to thank for photography’s emergence from a science to an art. During the turn of the century, Kodak even launched its Kodak Girl campaign in recognition of women’s interest in photography.