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Yay, the keynote at the Mid-Atlantic/Southeast Regional CSA conference! Corsets at the Centennial: Showcasing Women Inventors, Dress Reform, and American Industry, from Kristina Haugland. 🗃️🪡

A lot of the corsetiere firms displaying at the Centennial Exposition were either fully or partially headed by women! Prior to the 1870s, the corset industry was even more female-led.

More common was for firms headed by men to be selling and showing corsets designed and patented by women like Madam Foy and Madame Griswold.

i don't think my sdad wore long pants as a mail carrier his entire career, even in winter when he had a hat and jacket on. at least, not as long as i knew him (since 1995; he retired in 2019) the uniform shorts are uniquely polyester. well, maybe not unique in the 70s or 80s. never lost the crease

She works at the National Postal Museum postalmuseum.si.edu so if you're interested in the topic, you know where to find out more!

Like the title says, in the 1950s mail carriers started advocating for Bermuda shorts to become part of the uniform for summers; hugely controversial, people thought they were unattractive and undignified.

Next: "Early Baltimore County Elites: Fashion, Taste, and Status in the Household of Captain Charles Ridgely and Rebecca Dorsey Ridgely of Preset-Day Towson, Maryland" by Susan Picinich of Towson U. @towsonu.bsky.social