Corset controversy

I have been in corsets ever since I was eight years of age, and I am now past my teens, and though I am five feet four inches tall and broad in the shoulders, I only measure nineteen inches, and I am in capital health.The editor of the "Women's Chats" section of the West Australian advocated "tight lacing in moderation"[12] I will always assert that corsets improve an indifferent figure and add to the beauty of a good one, and I will even admit that for a woman who aspires to look fashionable something might be said for tight lacing in moderation.

I have not worn stays or any substitute for them since my school days, and many friends who have paid me the complement of wishing to imitate my carriage have left them off too, and have never returned to them, finding that their figures suffered no more than mine from the freedom which is too delightful to give up.The Lancet felt compelled to reply as well, expanding on its medical arguments[15] The writer of a letter to 'The Times', who signs herself "not a Girl of the Period", takes up the cudgels on behalf of the tight lacers, and impugns the accuracy of our options that the practice is as injurious to the health as its effects are monstrous to the eye.

By this she is saved, but her safety is purchased at a ruinous expense.And we do not hesitate to say that to the practice of tight lacing is due a very large number of distressing female ailments, over and beyond those derangements of digestion and circulation to which we have already referenced in our former article.

—The LancetOther readers wrote to extol the virtues of tight lacing[15] ... though few ladies may be able to attain the coveted size of "16 inches that may be spanned", such is the flexibility of the female frame that with properly fitted stays – not the flimsy ready-made article generally sold – most ladies may, without discomfort or injury, attain a smallness of waist that would delight both themselves and their friends.The distinguished anatomist William Henry Flower in 1881 published a book[16] demonstrating by text and illustrations the deformities caused to female anatomy by corsets.

Its 1941 publication date takes it out of the "discussion" period, but as it was written as a children's book for girls, its account is unlikely to be spurious or a fantasy, so it serves as a reliable testament of some of the more curious practices such as sleeping in corsets.

I have been led to take this step because the hundreds of letters which have reached me from the young asking advice how to achieve a narrow waist, and from older ones giving their experience and describing their sufferings, all proved, what I had not previously imagined, that the tight-lacing habit had become a sin and a scandal.

They were also of course made a little longer, and the position of the shoulder-straps slightly altered; by these means their figures were directed, instead of forced, into a slender shape; no inconvenience was felt, and my daughters, I am happy to say, are straight, and enjoy perfect health, while the waist of the eldest is eighteen inches, and that of the youngest seventeen.

I am convinced that my plan is the most reasonable one that can be adopted.By this means 'tight-lacing' will be abolished, for no tight-lacing or compression is required, and the child, being accustomed to the stays from an early age, does not experience any of the inconveniences which are sometimes felt by those who do not adopt them till twelve or fourteen.Another letter, in the Boston Globe,[25] is similar: ...I know many mothers who are not only enthusiastic lacers themselves, but are very strict in employing this article of dress in the foundation of their children's figures.

As the child grew, more bones were added, and the chest and hip measure was increased, but no alteration was made in the waist, and no expansion being allowed during the hours of sleep, its tenuity was retained and there was no necessity of resorting to tight-lacing, which becomes requisite where corsets are not worn until the figure has grown large.

"Kingston" offered her remedy:[26] I have a very simple plan to prevent my children cutting their laces at night when they are first put in tight stays, to obtain a temporary relief from the pain which is undoubtedly severe at first.

[...] After six months my waist, having been reduced from twenty-two to sixteen inches, was considered small enough and no further attempt was made at reduction.I found that this enforced wearing of the corsets at this period of the girl's growth begets an unwholesome appetite for tightlacing.

Fancy a girl of sixteen not having been made to do so long ago; .... Miss T— showed me mother's letter, saying that she had seen Lady de W—'s daughter at a house ball, who danced beautifully, and created a great amount of admiration with her 14in waist.

So Miss T— says that I am to be made the same size.How I shall be able to eat and move about I can't think; but Madge O—, who left last term, and who was that size, said you feel awfully smart, and, in fact rather a pleasant sensation when you get used to the pulling in.

I have been abroad for the last four years, during which I left my daughter at a large and fashionable boarding school near London; I sent for her home directly I arrived, and, having had no bad accounts of her health during my absence, I expected to see a fresh rosy girl of seventeen come bounding to welcome me.

'She then told me how the most merciless system of tight-lacing was the rule of the establishment, and how she and her forty or fifty fellow-pupils had been daily imprisoned in vices of whalebone drawn tight by the muscular arms of sturdy waiting-maids, till the fashionable standard of tenuity was attained.

I am also quite ready to confess that I am not in ill health, though I often feel languid and disinclined for walking out, nor do I think a girl whose constitution is sound would suffered any injury to her health from moderate lacing; but I must beg that you will allow me to declare that when stays are not worn till fourteen years of age, very tight lacing causes absolute torture for the first few months, and it was principally to deter ladies from subjecting their daughters to this pain, in similar cases, that mamma wrote to you.I am sure any young lady who has (like myself) begun tight-lacing rather late, will corroborate what I have said, and I hope some will come forward and do so, now you kindly give the opportunity.

For my own part I have always paid particular attention to the figures of the young ladies entrusted to my care, and being fully convinced that if the general health is properly attended to, corsets are far from being the dreadfully hurtful things some people imagine, I have never hesitated to employ this most important and elegant article of dress, except in one case where the pupil was of a consumptive tendency, and I was specially requested not to allow her to dress at all tightly.All my pupils enjoy good health, my great secret being regular exercise, a point which is almost always disregarded.

With regard to no doubt caused by her not having been accustomed by degrees to a close-fitting dress before she went to the school.I find that girls who have commenced the use of stays at an early age, and become gradually used to them, do not experience any uneasiness when they are worn tighter at fourteen or fifteen.

We have heard of a young lady whose mother stood over her every morning, with the engine of torture in her hand, and notwithstanding many remonstrative tears, obliged her to submit to be laced so tightly as almost to stop the power of breathing.Another, entitled "The Absurdity of the Custom as Well as the Effect upon the Health of Slaves to the Fashion", begins:[36] There would be no tight lacing if girls could be made to understand this simple fact: that men dread the thought of marrying a woman who is subject to fits of irritable temper, to headaches and other ailments we need not mention, all of which, everybody knows, are the direct and inevitable product of the compression of the waist.Other articles suggested more dire consequences.

Although precisely what was meant from this warning is impossible to ascertain, reformist and activist Catharine Beecher was one of the few to defy propriety norms and discuss the gynecological issues resulting from lifelong corset usage, in particular uterine prolapse:[This] distortion brings upon woman peculiar distress: The pressure of the whole superincumbent mass on the pelvic or lower organs induces sufferings proportioned in acuteness to the extreme delicacy and sensitiveness of the parts thus crushed.

But I quote the case of my wife to show that even when a girl is grown up she can obtain a good figure with a little pains.Girls working in "fashion establishments", as they were then called, wore corsets to suit the dictates of their employers.

[41] The editor of "The Ladies Page" of The Western Mail wrote[42] In a large establishment in the West End of London the standard is 19 inches, and any assistant who does not reach those dimensions within six months of her engagement is discharged.

I was told that, though my figure was superb, my waist—which, as it measured about 20in, I had considered reasonably small—was too large, and that consequently, ere I was fitted for the dresses which were to be supplied for my wear, I must visit Léoty and obtain a couple of corsets which would reduce my waist to a trifle less than 18in.

Amongst our clientele, which comprised many of the smartest, richest and most beautiful women in the French capital, and also many smart Americans, there were, many who openly envied me my good looks, and—from a fashionable point of view—superb figure.The practice was described by a shopgirl:[44] When I first accepted my situation, my waist was twenty inches.

Probably nothing can be done until all women are sufficiently sensible, to realize that there is no beauty in a wasp's waist, that the majority of men do not really care a bit about it, and that there is real danger in tight-lacing, but surely the dreadful events which have happened lately ought to do something to emancipate schoolgirls and debutantes from their perpetual imprisonment in locked corsets.

Elder women who compress on their own account are responsible for their own folly, but something ought to be done to put an end to this form of girl-torture.Another wrote:[46] Girls in the more fashionable London stores make the most amazing statements in reference to dress regulations.

Make a bonfire of the cruel steels that have lorded it over your thorax and abdomens for so many years and heave a sigh of relief, for your emancipation I assure you, from this moment has begun.Louisa May Alcott devoted Chapter 18 ("Fashion and Physiology") of her 1875 young adult fiction, Eight Cousins, to advocating for dress reform in the form of the "freedom suit," which is described as being different from and more socially acceptable than bloomers.

their husbands would not walk in the streets with the wearers of such a garb, their fashionable friends begged to be spared the visits of such unconventional creatures, and the clergymen in the churches asked that their congregations be not disturbed by thoughts of a woman's dress.It seemed that change would be glacially slow at best.

More and More Women Are Doffing Their Stays – But It Still Takes High Courage to Join Their Ranks.The receipt of several letters asking The Times to give some designs suitable for making up gowns to be worn without corsets has suggested the article here presented.

There is no plea I have made oftener of my Heavenly Father than that He would give me strength to persevere in this thing'".From 1908 to 1914, the fashionable narrow-hipped and narrow-skirted silhouette necessitated the lengthening of the corset at its lower edge.