Discussion and book signing with Phyllis Wong, author of We Kept Our Towns Going: The Gossard Girls of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula and Anne Marie Murphy, author of the forthcoming book: City of Corsets
Wednesday October 26, 2022 5:30pm at TidePool Book Shop, 372 Chandler Street Worcester 508-753-2500
Some backstory from Anne Marie Murphy about this book project…
“Visiting Tidepool earlier this year I found on the shelf a brand new book with an 1890s corset on its cover. In my hand was Phyllis Wong’s history of the Gossard Company in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Wong tells the story of a specific company and its people which becomes a story of the region as well. City of Corsets tells the story of a specific industry and its people in a specific town. Both books are very much about women at work in the early part of the 20th century. We’ll have much to discuss, compare, and contrast at the book shop later this month.
I’ve been working for a while on what is probably the last chapter of City of Corsets: profiles of the six corset businesses that worked out of the Slater Building in downtown Worcester. Once that chapter is complete, I’ll combine the chapters in a new way, see what’s missing, and fill in the blanks. An encouraging cup of coffee with an interested publisher this summer blew some helpful wind into my sails. There’s still a bit more digging to do, though.
I’ll leave you with an image from what I’ve been working on during the last few months:”
The corset in the middle photograph allowed the glum and slouchy woman in the left-hand photo to become the cheerful and confident one we see on the right. A protruding rear side was not in fashion in the 1930s so the lower half of this corset would ideally smooth out those unsightly protrusions.
The hourglass waste of the Edwardian area is gone.
Worcester Historical Museum Library and Archives 