Worcester Historical Museum (30 Elm Street)

The Worcester Historical Museum was founded in 1875 as the Worcester Society of Antiquity. Today, the museum offers exhibitions and programs about the history of the city and region as well as a research library of over 7000 titles and half a million photographs. The Worcester Historical Museum is the only place in the city where one of its most famous exports can still be seen: a black silk ribbon-trimmed Royal Worcester corset displayed in its Fuller Gallery. 

The museum's current home was for many years the local botanical society's headquarters. In February 1988, after significant planning and fundraising, the museum moved to larger quarters at 30 Elm Street, in the heart of downtown. www.worcesterhistory.org/about/museum-history/ For more detailed information on the building, collection, and history, visit the museum's entry on Clio (theclio.com/entry/1614) or the WHM website (www.worcesterhistory.org).

After years of hosting various beautiful and exotic plants 30 Elm Street now houses rarities from the world of industrial clothing production. Its collection includes corsets that date from the 18th century to the middle of the 20th, showing the garment's evolution. Four were made by Worcester manufacturers Ivy Corset Company and Royal Worcester Corset Company. Two are novelty items, not for human wear: doll corsets, often mass-produced to catch the attention of young girls who had been watching their mothers wrestle with this garment (and wondering what they were all about!). Doll corsets gave them a taste of what was to come. Another collection piece is a child's corset from the 18th century.

Although only one of the museum's corsets is currently on display, one of its stored corsets spent years in America's storefront windows as it traveled across the country to advertise the prowess of its maker. Ivy Corset's "Special Diamond Studded Corset" was sprinkled with diamonds, a dazzling calling card that moved around America in a special locked case. A journalist in 1909 was quite impressed: 

"The Oliver street window of the Harley Daylight store is a great attraction for the women of this city at the present time for it contains what is perhaps the most elaborate corset ever seen in Fitchburg, as it is worth exactly $400... While the beautiful corset with its diamond and gold clasps and real Duchess lace trimming is a magnificent article, it is almost too valuable for the average person. The corset company realizes that fact and has a corset to fit the purse of everybody but at the same time this diamond gold embroidered affair is a work of art... it serves its purpose of making the interested multitude stop and look. The corset has solid gold 18 carat eyelets, skirt hooks and hose supporters with buckles of the same material. The clasp and skirt hook is set with 24 carat genuine diamonds."

For contemporary travelers hoping to learn more about corsets, here are some collections in North America and the UK that could be part of your next trip.

- Antique Corset Museum in Vancouver, Canada - This is a collection of several hundred corsets that do not yet have a museum home but are instead "nestled in the back of our (corset) boutique." https://antiquecorset.com/about/ 

- The Met in New York City, USA - The corsets are part of the Brooklyn Museum costume collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection

- Museum at One Garden City, Letchworth, UK - "Showcasing items from the Garden City Collection – which looks after over 250,000 objects from books and bicycles to corsets and cinema seats." https://www.letchworth.com/museum

- Symonton Collection in Leicestershire, UK - https://leicestershirecollections.org.uk/fashion/symington-collection

- Victoria & Albert Museum in London, UK - https://www.vam.ac.uk/

Fitchburg Sentinel, April 13, 1909

Worcester Historical Museum website