Corset
Medium
cotton, metal, bone
Classification
Corset
Culture
American
Department
Costume Institute
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Brooklyn Museum Costume Collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of the Brooklyn Museum, 2009; Gift of E. A. Meister, 1950
Accession Number
2009.300.3105a–c
Art Historical Context
Step into the elegant yet restrictive world of 19th-century American fashion with this corset from the Worcester Cors Company, crafted in 1876. Made of cotton fabric reinforced with metal and bone—likely steel busks and whalebone or synthetic boning—this undergarment exemplifies the industrial precision of post-Civil War manufacturing. The Worcester Corset Company a leading Massachusetts producer, mass-produced such items to meet the demands of the Gilded Age, blending functionality with the era's obsession for a cinched waistline. Historically, corsets like this one shaped the feminine silho...