Corsets and Body Shaming of Women

March is Women’s History Month. NY1920s always centers women’s history; this month we’ll do so a bit more emphatically.

One hundred years ago today… Wednesday would be “corset and petticoat day” according to Hearn’s, one of the biggest department stores in New York, on 14th Street between 5th and 6th Avenues. 

The 1921 NYC newspapers carried corset advertisements every day. Many such ads used body-shaming and similar tactics to promise women that their bodies, and thus their lives, would be transformed by the right corset. “Correct your figure and your troubles will disappear,” proclaimed Rhode’s Nulife Corset Shop, at 18 E. 34th Street.

Lane Bryant, at 21-23 38th Street, off 5th Avenue, billing itself “America’s largest maker and retailer of slenderizing fashions for stout women,” promised that customers would experience the “pride and satisfaction that come with the realization that your corset enhances your appearance.”

New York Times, 13 February 1921, p. 18. Newspapers.com.

Another ad proclaimed “Tact is often traceable to corsets” and the right corset can make the wearer “appear slimmer by about five inches”

Nemo corsets would “meet the individual needs of their wearers by preserving their health and good figure lines…”

Unsurprisingly, experienced corset makers were in high demand, as indicated by the want ads of one hundred years ago today:

– Jonathan Goldman, March 29, 2021

TAGS: women, clothing, garments, fashion, bodies, labor, jobs, shopping, advertising