This is an advertisement for the famous “Coraline Corset”, patented by two brothers, Dr Ira & Dr Lucien Warner in 1873. They marketed it as a “health corset”.
Corsets were a staple of women’s fashion (and some men’s) since the 16th century & stayed in fashion until the early 20th century. Corsets were generally made from a stout fabric, with bone or metal inserts. Fastening at the front with hooks, the back closed with adjustable laces
*They are lovely things and everyone should have one.*
In the early 19th century, corsets with metal eyelets started to be manufactured. This simple innovation meant that the corset could now be “tight-laced”.
Tightlacing to achieve a very small waist was actually VERY rare. Most corsets were made to order, didn’t restrict breathing, & were just smashing.
BUT there widespread concern that tight lacing corsets *could* cause all manner of health issues. Many Doctors claimed that tightlacing caused fainting, digestion problems, muscle atrophy, & even bone deformation. rcseng.ac.uk/library-and-pu…
In “What To Wear” (1874), American writer Elizabeth Stuart Phelps wrote..
Even The Lancet, one of the world's oldest medical journals, published articles on the subject -- one on June 14, 1890, entitled Death From Tight Lacing and the second on January 16, 1892, called Effects of Tight Lacing.
BUT, & I can’t stress this enough, despite an abundance of evidence showing medics & the various “rational dress” societies were panicked, there isn’t much evidence that this is true. Even if a few women were tightlacing to an extreme, this just wasn’t practical for everyone else
Dr. Lucien Warner was a prominent American physician who also lectured about the supposed dangers of tight lacing. In an effort to stop the practice, Warner decided to make his own corsets.
In 1873, he designed a corset that provided hourglass shape but was also flexible because it was made of Coraline, a product of the fibers of the Mexican Ixtle plant. He called it “Dr. Warner's Coraline Health Corset”
The following year, Lucien Warner and his brother Dr. Ira De Ver Warner went into business together and founded Warner Brothers Corset Manufacturers.
The success of the Warners’ designs made the brothers millionaires. By 1876, their corset was so popular that the company moved its manufacturing operations to Bridgeport, CT, & employed 1,200 people working 12hr days to produce 6,000 every day.
Many of the women who made those corsets were immigrants who lived across the street at a place called the Seaside Institute. The Warner Brothers built it to provide free housing for the women in their employee.
They also provided free education and schooling. The women who worked at this factory went on strike in 1915. They won an 8-hour workday and a pay raise. You can read more about that strike here bportlibrary.org/hc/bridgeport-…
In 1894, the brothers retired and turned control of the company over to De Ver’s son, D.H Warner who added new corsets - including a rust proof corset.
Warner Brothers also bought the patent for the brassier from Mary Phelps Jacobs, which made them many millions of dollars.
But the fashion for corsets was not to last. The First World War saw women ditch the corset for more practical attire for work. Then the Jazz Age and Flapper movement of the 1920s saw the corset fall further out of favour as women opted for breast-binding bandeaus
The Great Depression of the 1930s was difficult on the clothing industry and Warner was no exception & by 1931 the company was losing millions every year
The company's troubles were made even worse by the behaviour of the CEO, D. H. Warner, who was a terrible alcoholic & determined womaniser (not a good look for someone in the underwear business).
After his wife died in 1931, D.H. continued to finance his debauchery with company profits and drink to excess before dying in 1934 at the age of 66. Control of the company was handed to his son-in-law, John Field.
Seeing there was no market for corsets, healthy or otherwise, Field stopped producing them and focused on underwear and swimwear instead.
The company eventually changed its name to The Warnaco Group & at its height Its products were sold under several brand names including Calvin Klein, Speedo, Chaps, Warner's, and Olga. It was finally acquired by PVH in 2013.
The Warner Brothers corset factory was left empty for years and was only converted into apartments within the last few years. These images are from 2015 and show it abandoned.
And that is how the Warner Brother’s Coraline Health Corsets turned into Calvin Klein & Speedos, while securing the 8 hour working day for working women along the way.
The End
Thank you to everyone who respectfully corrected the errors in the original thread. If you would like to offer further feedback, please do so. History changes all the time. Sometimes I miss the memo & get things wrong & am always happy to make amends.
Kate x
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The philosopher Diogenes (c.412-323 BCE) was described by Plato as ‘a Socrates gone mad'. He lived in a barrel & believed man must embrace nature & reject shame. He openly masturbated in public, saying “If only it were so easy to soothe hunger by rubbing an empty belly”.
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Diogenes rejected all of the norms of “civilised” behavior. He urinated, defecated, and masturbated in public. Later images of him often showed him carrying a lamp in the day, to symbolise his futile search for an honest man.
He was hugely influential and inspired a school of philosophy called the cynics. The name of comes from the Greek κυνικός (kunikos), meaning “dog-like”.
This is the bed of the legendary courtesan Émilie-Louise Delabigne (1848-1910). The writer Emile Zola wrote about it in his novel, Nana. ‘A bed such as has never existed, a throne, an altar where Paris came to admire her sovereign nudity’.
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By the time she died, Louise was a millionaire with a vast estate of grand houses, jewellery, & a substantial art collection. But her beginnings were considerably more humble.
She was the illegitimate daughter of Émilie Delabigne, a laundry maid from Normandy who sold sex to subsidise the pittance washing clothes brought in.
This is the work of African American photographer, Alvin Baltrop (1948-2004). Alvin photographed the gay community at the piers lining Manhattan’s west side in the 1970s. Pier 48 was then an abandoned wooden structure where gay men met to socialise and have sex.
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Alvin didn’t achieve commercial success with this art during his lifetime. He was a poor man who struggled with poverty and often couldn’t pay his rent. He made his money mostly through odd jobs, but photography was his passion.
Born in the Bronx, Alvin’s mother was a devout Jehovah’s Witness who hated his art and regularly threw it away. Eventually, Alvin left home and served in the navy during the Vietnam war. He started taking portraits of sailors during this time.
This is Camille du Gast (1868-1942). She was a balloonist, parachutist, fencer, tobogganist, skier, horse trainer, concert pianist & singer. She was the second woman to compete in an international motor race & was embroiled in the scandal of La Femme au Masque.
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Camille was born in Paris in 1868 & from a young age was described as a “garçon manqué' (tomboy). She married wealthy businessman Jules Crespin in 1890. Crespin was the manager and majority shareholder of Dufayel, one of the largest department stores in France.
The couple has a daughter, but sadly Jules Crespin died young, leaving Camille heartbroken, but a very rich widow
Images from “Gonorrhea in the male - a practical guide to its treatment” by AL Wolbarst, (1911) showing treatment by injecting hot antiseptic into the urethra.
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(CW - graphic medical images)
“The most popular method of local treatment consists of irrigations with large quantities of hot antiseptic fluid. These irrigations maybe administered in three ways.”
“1) By hydrostatic pressure; (2) by the large syringe”