United Corset Shops 1917-1963 (294 Main Street)
Introduction
Author-Uploaded Audio
This narration was recorded by Anne Marie Murphy, author of A Proper Fit (working title), TidePool Press 2025, www.cityofcorsets.com
Text-to-speech Audio
This downtown shop was one of a nation-wide chain run by the Ivy Corset Company, a Worcester manufacturer in the Junction Shop district. The first location was opened in 1917 and it was listed in the city directory until 1963. United Corset Shops operated in Worcester from 1922 until 1939, but continued in other areas for decades longer. While in Worcester it inhabited multiple addresses.
Images
Advertisement from the Pittsburg Press in 1921 for a shop at 223 Oliver Ave. in that city
United Corset Shop advertises in a Hartford, CT, newspaper in 1927.
A 1932 Boston newspaper advertisement shows overlap of the chain's earlier storefront name (Ivy Corset Shops) and the corporate name (United Corset Shops Inc.). The latter eventually won out, perhaps to emphasize the wider variety of items available at the shops at that time.
A 1942 Boston Globe ad for United Corset Shops included this promise: "Our job is to fit you perfectly." A proper fit had been the goal of corsetieres for decades.
Another wartime ad introduces the "pantie-girdle" with a "detachable crotch for easy laundering." The iconic hourglass corset of the earlier 1900s is now long gone, replaced by upper and lower garments that specialize in… "flattening."
Backstory and Context
Author-Uploaded Audio
This narration was recorded by Anne Marie Murphy, author of A Proper Fit (working title), TidePool Press 2025, www.cityofcorsets.com
Text-to-speech Audio
Incorporated in April 1917, United Corset Shops Inc. was the retail branch of the Ivy Corset Company for decades, selling its products across the United States. Ivy Corset's owner Mary (Gifford) Bowne had worked with Worcester retail shopkeeper William Adrian for several years, featuring her corsets in his high-end downtown shop but he began to produce and market his own line of corsets after the first World War. Bowne decided to take complete control over the sales of her product.
The first local United Corset Shops opened in Worcester in 1922 at 294 Main Street, a mere eight blocks from the source of its goods (Ivy Corset factory, 40 Jackson Street). It moved to 294 Main Street (1922), to 2 Pleasant Street (1927), then around the corner to 32 Pearl Street (1932) where it stayed until 1939, in the same block during the same years as May Cosgrove's Pearl Street shops at 21 and 18 Pearl Street. Corset-making competitors bumped right up against each other in the downtown core.
In 1939 the last Worcester location of United Corset Shops closed for good. The business continued to be listed in city directories with a 40 Jackson Street Ivy Corset factory address, corporate headquarters for the many shops located elsewhere. Bowne's ownership of these retail stores helped convince creditors during her 1938 bankruptcy filing to continue their support of the company. United Corset Shops' last city directory listing was in 1963 just after the factory ceased production in 1961 and just before Bowne's death in 1964.
Sources
newspapers.com
Worcester city directories
A Proper Fit (working title), Anne Marie Murphy, TidePool Press 2025. www.cityofcorsets.com
Image from the Pittsburg Press,1921
Image from the Hartford Courant, April 24, 1927
Image from The Boston Globe, May 1, 1932
Image from The Boston Globe, October 18, 1942
Image from The Boston Globe, March 29, 1942