From "Illustrated Police News", June 26, 1870
In the autumn of 1888, Mrs. Annie Jenness Miller visited Cincinnati to present a lecture at Odeon Hall on “Correct Dress.” One of several “dress reformers” active at that time in the United States, Mrs. Miller announced that she would illustrate her recommendations with a display of “varied and beautiful costumes, suitable for every occasion.”
Although she disapproved of many aspects of contemporary couture, Mrs. Miller funneled her disdain in particular at that dreadful implement of feminine torture, the corset. She told the Cincinnati Post [November 13, 1888] that women were destroying their health by clinging to fashions that require a “hideously tight waist.” Her designs featured flowing lines and what might be called an empire waist.
Cincinnati women were not universally impressed by Mrs. Miller’s designs or by her opinions on the then-fashionable corset. One correspondent, signed only “A Sensible Woman,” fired off a testy note to the Post, chastising the newspaper for promulgating the ravings of a crank:
“I will leave the question of the unhealthfulness of the corset to Doctors Thorpe, Osborne, Kirk, or any other physician, male or female in Cincinnati. I have never asked these lady physicians above named about the matter, but believe that they will maintain with me that the corset is a support and a healthful adjunct of the toilet.”
Another letter arrived from “Progress,” a self-proclaimed fan of dress reform:
“There is always a class of bustle-and-corset-bound bigots that cry down anyone who tries to make an improvement upon the horrible, uncomfortable deformity of the present style of dress by calling these apostles of beauty and comfort ‘cranks’ and ‘loud-mouthed reformers.’ By the way, imagine Helen of Troy in a tight corset and bustle!”
Throughout the whole brouhaha caused by Mrs. Miller’s visit, no one mentioned the real reason so many “dress reformers” were active just as the restrictive whalebone corset reached the pinnacle of its popularity—death by tight lacing. Despite the absence of clear proof that corsets could kill, death by tight lacing was a popular Victorian meme. Was it just an early urban legend?
Much like the urban legend about the girl with the bullet-proof bouffant hairdo, shellacked into place with continual hairspray applications, whose brain was devoured by roaches dwelling in her coiffure, death by tight-lacing always seemed to happen to someone a friend of a friend knew.
The Cincinnati Enquirer [September 13, 1888] carried the story of a young lady from Delray, Michigan, who, in the midst of a quadrille, dropped dead to the dance floor.
“An examination revealed the fact that she had died from tight lacing, the stays in her corset having been drawn so tightly that her flesh lay in folds beneath, so that the exertion of dancing caused the bursting of a blood vessel.”
The Cincinnati Gazette [November 26, 1870] told the sad tale of Susan Riekert of Springfield, Ohio, who, seated at her vanity preparing for an evening among friends, dropped dead. A doctor attributed her death to her tightly laced corset, a verdict supposedly seconded by the coroner.
A “young married woman, moving in very fashionable New York society,” died suddenly according to the Enquirer [March 6, 1880]. The coroner’s report pointed an accusing finger at her corset, laced so tightly that “the heart was found to be so impeded in its action as to render life impracticable.”
The Cincinnati Star [October 17, 1876] warned readers about a poor damsel in Montreal who, on arriving home from a fancy ball, found herself so tightly confined in her corset that she could neither extract herself nor utter a cry for help.
“When they found her, she was the deadest girl you ever read about.”
Notice that none of these deaths occurred in Cincinnati, nor close enough to easily verify. Despite the possibility these deaths were just rumors, there was a general agreement among the medical doctors of the day that squeezing your innards into a tiny cylinder was going to give you trouble sooner or later.
From "Illustrated Police News", January 1, 1876
In a 1906 book so popular that it was often banned and censored, Woman’s Guide To Sexual Knowledge, Or, What Every Woman Should Know, doctors Frederick Wilson Pitcairn and Elizabeth J. Williard assert:
“The breathing in tight lacing, however, is not only impaired by interference with the diaphragm, but also by the constriction of the ribs. In the act of respiration the ribs move freely up and down, but when the body is gripped by a corset, the movement of the lower ribs can be scarcely possible.”
This observation was supported by science. The Enquirer [February 4, 1889] described an experiment conducted at some unnamed institution in which a dozen young women ran a quarter mile in standard bloomer-style gym clothing and the same distance strapped into their corsets. The tight lacing caused an alarming increase in heart rate. The newspaper rushed to judgement:
“‘Wasp girls’ are what they call those who have become conspicuous for small waists, as well as tight lacing, and for whom an early grave is cheerfully predicted.”
While threats of death did little to lessen the fashionable woman’s addiction to tight corsets, the physicians noted that tight lacing had an unfortunate side effect that might deliver a blow to a lady’s vanity. Pitcairn and Williard subtly explain:
“A visible disturbance of the blood circulation of the face has long been popularly associated with the tapering waist, and it is a common taunt to assert of a much constricted woman that her corset is too tight to allow her to sit down without her nose becoming red.”
That theme was picked up by the Cincinnati Lancet-Clinic [January 12, 1889], the journal of the local medical society:
“Talking about red noses, I would say that it is not fair to accuse a man or woman of intemperance with liquors because he or she has a red nose, since there are other things that will do it. Tight lacing will also cause it. Look out for those girls with wasp-like waists— sometimes their noses will hang out the red flag, showing that some part of their internal machinery is out of gear.”
It took a long time for corsets to loosen their grip on feminine fashion. Was the threat of sudden death the main factor? Or the possibility of a ruddy schnozz? Or was it merely the ever-flowing tides of fashion?
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