City of Corsets Walking Tour
Description
Worcester's canal to the sea (built in the 1820s) and its extensive railway service (since the 1840s) contributed to the explosive growth of many industries by the late 19th century, when the city was a powerhouse of manufacturing. Its durable goods exports included wire, guns, skates, envelopes, abrasives, shoes ... and corsets. From 1860 to 1980 almost 130 businesses in the city either produced corsets, sold them, or provided supplies to the thriving industry. One of those producers -- the Royal Worcester Corset Company -- was allegedly the largest employer of women in the U.S. as the 20th century began. Starting out as a small downtown hoop skirt factory in 1867, it partnered from its earliest days with another Worcester giant the wire maker Washburn & Moen which made hoops for skirts and then stays for corsets, providing an example of one of many corporate synergies in a city of manufacturing. Many employees of Royal Worcester and other local corset factories became business owners themselves, setting up shop as sole proprietors and building up a clientele of women who patronized them year after year for an updated corset when theirs became too worn, stained, or (for wealthier patrons) out of fashion to wear any longer. Half of the city's 126 corset businesses were owned and run by women, including most notably the Ivy Corset factory that employed hundreds from 1905-1961. That company's owner also ran a chain of retail corset shops with a nation-wide reach. Much of this activity happened in the downtown core, within a few blocks of City Hall. Our walk will start at the Worcester Historical Museum which has several Worcester-made corsets in its collection. Then we'll proceed through downtown, stopping to learn more about these factory owners, retailers, and sole proprietor "corsetiere" shops that fitted the city's women for over one hundred years.