The Corset Shop, 1949-1987 (27 & 29 Pleasant Street)

A native of Poland, Bennett Siegal's sales expertise included multiple product lines. This is the second location of his corset shop. Prior to the Pleasant Street location, he owned another corset business (Siegal Trading Co Inc.) located at 326 Main Street. He appears to have worked in conjunction with downtown corsetiere May Cosgrove.

When the May Byrne Cosgrove Corset Shop in Worcester applied for Massachusetts corporation status in 1940, Cosgrove named two corporate officers, one of whom was, strangely, a downtown competitor: Bennett I. Siegal. His 27 and 29 Pleasant Street corset shop locations were around the corner from the block of Pearl Street where May Cosgrove had her store. Bennett Siegal owned the Siegal Trading Company, listed in the city's directory's corsetiere section from 1935-1948 and he ran The Corset Shop which was presumably a spin-off concern. He and May Cosgrove were downtown retail neighbors who had found some common ground.

Born in Mlawa, Poland (Sept. 15, 1897), his first appearance in the Worcester city directory was in 1921. By 1926 his directory listing noted a job for him: shoe salesman. Over the next twenty years he worked as a manager, a jobber (someone who buys from manufacturers to sell to retailers), a dry goods salesman, a woman's clothing store salesman, and a corset shop owner. His obituary reports that he was very involved in the city's Jewish community as a member of the Beth Israel synagogue and its Temple Emmanual brotherhood and as a contributing member of the Jewish Home for the Aged, to which memorial contributions in his name were directed.

Siegal's position on the Cosgrove Corset Shop board of directors shows us Worcester cultures mashing up in this industry, with a female Irish Catholic shop owner/corset maker collaborating with a male retailer immigrant born in Poland and devoutly Jewish. It calls to mind the professional corsetiere partnership of Hannah Johnson and Michael Valva across Main Street in the Burnside Building in 1917, a Swedish immigrant woman and an Italian immigrant man co-running their business. Additional variety arrives with Cosgrove and Siegal's "wing man" on the Cosgrove board of the directors Stella Zook, a girl barely out of high school whose ethnicity was Eastern European Ashkenazi Jewish.

Siegal and Cosgrove likely had many pleasant business dealings as downtown neighbors. She might have been providing corsetiere seamstress work to Siegal's Trading Company and Corset Shop. This alliance speaks to the diverse and collegial nature of Worcester's downtown core and to the assortment of cultures that we see in the city's corset industry.

Worcester City Directories .

A Proper Fit (working title), Anne Marie Murphy. TidePool Press 2025, www.cityofcorsets.com.