07/16/2023**Cultural history

Cultural history

See also: Social status, colorism and racism

Tanning has gone in and out of fashion. In the United States and Western Europe before the 1920s, tanned skin was associated with the lower classes because they worked outdoors and were exposed to the sunlight. Women in particular went to great lengths to preserve pale skin, as a sign of their "refinement".[31] Women's outdoor clothing styles were tailored to protect them against sunlight exposure, with full-length sleeves, and sunbonnets and other large hats, headscarves, and parasols shielding the head. Lead-[32] and arsenic-based cosmetics were used to artificially whiten the skin. The preference for fair skin continued until the end of the Victorian era.[33] By the early 20th century, the therapeutic benefits of sunlight began to be recognized.[34] In 1903, Niels Finsen was awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine for his “Finsen Light Therapy”.[35] The therapy was a cure for diseases such as lupus vulgaris and rickets. Vitamin D deficiency was found to be a cause of rickets, and exposure to sunlight would allow vitamin D to be produced in a person. Therefore, sunlight exposure was a remedy to curing several diseases, especially rickets. In 1910 a scientific expedition went to the island of Tenerife to test the wider health benefits of "heliotherapy",[36] and by 1913 "sunbathing" was referred to as a desirable activity for the leisured class.[37] Shortly thereafter, in the 1920s, fashion-designer <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coco_Chanel" title="Coco