The Corseted Skeleton A Bioarchaeology of Binding

Unpacking assumptions about corseting, Rebecca Gibson supplements narratives of corseted women from the 18^th and 19^th centuries with her seminal work on corset-related skeletal deformation. An undergarment that provided support and shape for centuries, the corset occupies a familiar but exotic space in modern consciousness, created by two sometimes contradictory narrative arcs: the texts that women wrote regarding their own corseting experiences and the recorded opinions of the medical community during the 19th century. Combining these texts with skeletal age data and rib and vertebrae measurements from remains at St. Bride’s parish London dating from 1700 to 1900, the author discusses corseting in terms of health and longevity, situates corseting as an everyday practice that crossed urban socio-economic boundaries, and attests to the practice as part of normal female life during the time period Gibson’s bioarchaeology of binding is is the first large-scalar, multi-site bioethnography of the corseted woman.

Chapter 1: Introduction: Shaping the Garment, Shaping the Woman.- Chapter 2: The Corset in our Collective Consciousness: Exotic, Erotic, or Other?.- Chapter 3: The Corset as a Garment: Is it a Representative of Who Wore It?.- Chapter 4: The Corset as Civilization: The Debate on Clothing and Women’s Social Wellbeing.- Chapter 5: The Corset as a Killer: Did Corseting Negatively Impact Longevity?.- Chapter 6: Women’s Experiences in Life, Death, and Burial: The St. Bride’s Parish Records.- Chapter 7: The Corseted Skeleton: Skeletal Remains of St. Bride’s Lower Churchyard.- Chapter 8: Conclusion: Modern Corseting and How We Talk About Today’s Women.

Rebecca Gibson, PhD, is Adjunct Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of Notre Dame, USA.  She is the author of Desire in the Age of Robots and AI: Investigations in Science Fiction and Fact (Palgrave, 2020).