For the women of the family

Ever since watching Miss Kitty on Gunsmoke when we were kids, I've wondered what women wore under those voluminous skirts and tight looking bodices.  I knew only "Miss Kitty's type of woman" would let others see her ankles/legs, and that it had to be terribly uncomfortable for 'regular' women to wear all that fabric while living in a sod house or helping harvest crops, let alone crossing the prairies in a wagon.


So last week when Larry found Eaton's catalogs online, I thought I'd see what was sold for foundation garments in 1913 at least.


Evidently all females wore corsets of one kind or another--even little girls wore them, supposedly as "posture training", and to hold up their stockings.

Now, even if the word Brassiere is used in that ad above, there seems to be nothing specific to address boobs larger than tea cups.  But remember?  Miss Kitty had a grand canyon cleavage...what would that...I mean, how could that effect be achieved with these under garments?


But look: "Bust forms" >  I assume they were tucked into the top of the corset right under your 'tea cups', but why they were lined with rubberized fabric is still a mystery. Maybe so they stayed where you put em?  
Quote from 74-227 below:
"...Will give rounded effect to the undeveloped figure.  Removable bust pads of rubber sheeting filled with down; boning is removable also.  Sizes 32 to 40 inches". Oh, UNcomfortable!

 And for heaven's sake, LOOK where the stocking clips were placed.  They were never comfortable (front and back, on girdles), but all of them in the front would have felt so odd.  Evidently too, corsets served the same purpose as the bustiere Em wore when she worked at the Renaissance Fest--a snug, lace-up vest with a low squarish edge that fit right under the girls and....supported and compressed, you might say.  Looks like the same principal here.

From other pages in the catalog, I think you wore a hip-length shift sort of thing under the corset (the brassiere), and a petticoat layer over it, under the dress or skirt and "waist".  

I think what we wear now is a bit more reasonable, huh?