Victorian Secrets

by Sarah A. Chrisman

  In a short time, a car parked nearby and a woman with a long gray ponytail emerged, carrying a large cake box and several bags of groceries. This turned out to be my hostess, and I soon found myself swept inside and recruited for arrangement of tea things.

  “Well, you really dressed up for the occasion!” she commented when I took off my coat.

  I looked down at myself.

  “No . . .” I was wearing a cheap polyester dress meant to look like wool. “Not really.”

  As a poor college student ten years previously, I had bought the dress at Target to wear when meeting Gabriel’s parents.

  “I . . . sort of . . . always dress like this.”

  Having thrown out about two-thirds of my wardrobe since I’d started corseting, I had very few choices remaining. This dress had survived the purges largely from sentimental value, and I had sewn ribbons in the back to allow myself to draw it in and show off my waist.

  “You’re kidding!”

  “No, I—I sort of do,” I stammered. I don’t like to contradict people when I’m their guest, but I didn’t want to lie, either.

  The hostess gaped for a minute, then went back to giving directions on how to set up the tea. I tried to stay clear of her waist-length hair as it whipped about her in her scurries around the house, and, when a particularly vehement gesture sent her gray strands streaking through frosting, I made a mental note not to eat any of that specific cake.

  Exiting the kitchen, I looked around for a place where I could display the books and underbust corsets I had brought to show people. I glanced at the coffee table in the living room, already covered with books and half-finished sewing projects, then examined the dining room table, which was soon to be laid out with all manner of sticky sweets and streaked frosting. In the end, I left my private materials in my waterproof pannier.

  When the other workshop attendees arrived, I was glad to see that Polly Esther (she of the neon blue ball gown) was not amongst them. She had never uttered a civil word to me (or to anyone, as nearly as I could tell), and on the way home from the last event Ellen had specifically cautioned me against discussing corsets with her. Half an hour into the presentation, I was quite enjoying the calm atmosphere, the frosting-haired hostess’s insights from her experiences sewing costume corsets, and the polite questions directed at me regarding my own experience wearing corsets on a daily basis. Then, Polly Esther let herself in the door.

  The fact that she was late did not prevent her from taking a front-row seat; she simply unseated an earlier arrival and took her place. When she saw my corset, she screamed that it was too tight, and began storing up an armory of criticisms to fire when the presentation paused for refreshment. At that point, she cornered me in the kitchen.

  “Well!” she exclaimed in a loud, accusatory tone, rolling her eyes. (Polly Esther always accentuates her criticism by rolling her eyes. In a larger woman, it might create resemblance to a horse; in her case, the mental picture generated is more that of a small, rabid rodent.) “I certainly hope that you talked to your doctor before embarking on such a drastic course of action!”

  Would that be the doctor who wanted to perform surgery on my healthy left leg for a broken right foot?

  “There’s nothing drastic about it,” I began, in a much calmer tone than the one used to confront me. “In the past—”

  I would’ve finished my statement with, “all Western women used to wear corsets on a daily basis,” but she cut me off.

  “On Grey’s Anatomy,” her tone of conviction was stronger than that generally used to quote scripture, “they brought in a man who had been wearing a corset, and he died!”

  I stared at her a moment. Was she seriously citing a television show as scientific authority?

  “You do realize that that’s fiction?” I asked slowly.

  “It’s based on fact!” She was fervent, her eyes gleaming.

  I cautiously stepped away, careful not to turn my back on her until I had exited to the next room. For my seat, I deliberately chose a portion of the table that was already crowded so I could not be followed and further harassed. I do not enjoy arguing with zealots, no matter how strange their choice of idols might be.

  It seems a common symptom of the human condition that in any given time period and society, the majority of individuals will accept some fallacies as gospel truths. The specific erroneous beliefs vary over time and between places, yet there always seem to be some of them. For example, the ideas that gypsies steal children and that Jews eat babies were historically popular amongst various communities, and many individuals who held these beliefs could not be persuaded otherwise. Having no evidence themselves to support their ideas never seems to bother such people, and even overwhelming evidence to the contrary often does not disillusion them. Some people are too far gone in their prejudice to benefit from education.

  It is often difficult to pinpoint exactly where and when a certain misconception originates. Someone is disliked or something is misunderstood, a story is created and enlarged for dramatic impact . . . The beginnings of rumors and falsehoods are often so obscure as to be totally untraceable. Sometimes, however, one can pinpoint a nexus for the dissemination of false information—something that sends out an error like a starburst emits light. The most effective of these nexuses are created when an old error is repeated within a popular context; and in modern American culture, there are few contexts more popular than that of moving pictures.

  The 1939 film adaptation of Margaret Mitchell’s novel Gone with the Wind did not contain the first media portrayal of a woman grasping a bedpost while being laced into a corset (humorists have been drawing the same picture since at least the eighteenth century), but the immense popularity of the movie guaranteed the dissemination of the image and its implantation in the collective consciousness of American audiences.

  Most modern audiences recognize that the African Americans in the movie—indeed, in the same scene as previously described—are portrayed as racist caricatures. To believe that slaves in the antebellum South actually behaved like those in the movie is absurd. Yet the same people who admit this are often all too eager to accept the equally stereotyped image of white Victorian woman as gospel truth.

  Perhaps part of the reason audiences have become so obsessed with the ­bedpost scene is because the image is such a sexually charged one. The sexual innuendo inherent in a scene where a scantily-clad young woman takes tight grasp of a large pole, her breathing becoming increasingly labored as she makes inarticulate little vocalizations, makes good Hollywood drama. The lascivious nature of the image burns it deeply into the psyche of even innocent viewers with less-than-Freudian minds. The provocative scene was so effective that it was later copied in other movies, including the 1997 blockbuster Titanic.

  However, it is not the memorability of an image that makes it true. (This should be obvious from the fact that a number of movie characters die unforgettable—and often bloody—deaths, yet the actors who portrayed them continue to walk the earth leading extremely vibrant lives.) Tying the laces of a corset, like tying any variety of thin cord into a slipknot, requires a bit of dexterity, but no exertion, and it is really best to leave the furnishings out of it. Groping an article of furniture and adopting the breathing patterns of someone in the early stages of foreplay is no more necessary in order to tie a corset than it is to engage in such activity to tie one’s shoes.

  The bedpost-corset scene is rather more obvious to the camera than when an electric cord is seen dangling from an “oil” lamp later in Gone with the Wind’s story line,35 but these things are equal reminders that what viewers are seeing is a fantasy created for entertainment, not a documentary and certainly not ­reality. It is really a pity that so many people fail to keep this in mind. The image of Scarlett O’Hara groping her bedpost is one that arises with wearying frequency.

  The most memorable of many occasions on which this image was brought up to me stands out by virtue of being so absurdly dramatic. I could
never include it in any sort of fictitious tale precisely because it was too unbelievable. And yet, it happened.

  I was chatting with an acquaintance at a community center one day when a paunchy, red-faced man who was invariably seen about the center (and always complaining about something) blustered over to us. That day’s chosen topic for his tirade proved to be my figure, although I must confess that I was not flattered by the distinction.

  “Those things,” the man roared, pointing at my waist, “are horrible for you!” His triple chins wobbled a bit as he bellowed.

  I stood my ground. “Have you ever worn one?” I asked calmly. I heard a smothered laugh from my companion as she covered her mouth and turned her face away.

  The man’s face shifted from the color of an underripe strawberry to that of a very ripe tomato. He spluttered a bit, paced angrily across the room and back, then launched a fresh attack. “I know all about those things!”

  Oh really? Though the large man was gesticulating wildly at me, I remained exactly where I was.

  “They’re totally unhealthy!” the man continued. “They hurt like hell!”

  “Actually,” I countered, in a tone several decibel levels below his, “they’re quite comfortable. I’m the only one in my family who does not have a bad back.”

  “Like I’m supposed to believe that!” he spit. “I heard of an interview with that actress who was in Gone with the Wind where she was auditioning for the role and all the girls in the audition for that scene—”

  My companion and I were subjected to the tired old pantomime of exaggerated lace-tightening.

  “—had to be laced in, and they were all complaining, and all black and blue!”

  I calmly folded my hands behind my back (a preventive to keep them from forming fists). This man was really getting on my nerves. Certain behaviors and levels of ignorance would inspire pity if not for their being so overwhelmingly exasperating. In such cases, a healthy degree of self-protective frustration rather kills the possibility of sympathy.

  I could have pointed out that, just as sex sells film, the idea of suffering for art increases artist prestige, but I didn’t want to engage that far with this red-faced, irritating man. I just wanted to end the conversation as quickly as possible so he would leave me alone.

  Reaching back to memories of university lectures, I pulled out a rhetorical sledgehammer that I hoped would silence him.

  “Well, if you want to believe an actress, whose entire job revolves around telling lies, as opposed to a real person who’s right here in front of you, that’s your choice.”

  The reason for acting being considered a dubious profession during various historical eras is one whose sentiment I do not necessarily share, but I was irritated enough to use this argument, since it is such a hard one to rebut.

  “Lies?!” Mr. Tomato Head spluttered, his round face a deep crimson. “You think actors are liars?!”

  “They’ve historically been seen that way,” I responded cheerfully.

  Strictly speaking, it is the truth: an actor is literally someone who is paid to lie. That was what made the argument so difficult to refute.

  Mr. Tomato Head strode angrily away, my conversational companion retreated to a place where no one could see her laughing, and I used the opportunity to exit.

  The next day, the woman with whom I had initially been chatting and who had witnessed the entire altercation, saw me walking home from the store and asked if I would like a ride.

  “You know that guy you were talking with yesterday?” she asked as I settled into her passenger seat. “Well, you were talking,” she corrected. “He was screaming.”

  I laughed, then shrugged with a sigh. “Yeah.”

  “He had a heart attack later.”

  “What?!” I stared at her, dumbfounded. “An actual heart attack?” My jaw dropped halfway to my chest. “You’re kidding, right?”

  “No, he really did.”

  I was inclined to think she was putting me on, until I again encountered the man himself several months later. He was considerably more subdued as he confirmed that he had, indeed, experienced a cardiac attack after the last time he had seen me, when, as my friend put it, I had been talking and he had been screaming.

  “I guess I gotta stay calmer, huh?” he concluded.

  “Might be a good idea,” I agreed, nodding. I fought against a devilish impulse, then gave into it. “And maybe be more careful about telling other people their lifestyles are unhealthy?”

  He had, after all, been quite nasty to me on numerous occasions.

  He looked surprised, then he grinned almost sheepishly.

  “Yeah,” he said slowly. “Maybe.”

  Accident to a Young Man with a Weak Heart (1900). Illustration by Charles Dana Gibson.

  15

  Votes for Women

  The Weaker Sex. (1903). Illustration by Charles Dana Gibson.

  Occasionally, an event that seems entirely minor can have more ramifications than ever anticipated. Such was to be the case of a small notice Gabriel had forwarded to me from the Washington State History Museum’s monthly email list. At the time, however, neither of us could have known where that mild little missive was to lead us.

  The announcement had read as follows:

  High Tea Reception for the Publication of Women’s Votes, Women’s Voices: The Campaign for Equal Rights in Washington

  Oct. 17, 1 to 3 p.m.

  State Capital Museum

  211 SW 21 AVE

  Olympia, WA 98501

  Suggested donation $2

  A celebration in honor of the publication of the book Women’s Votes, Women’s Voices: The Campaign for Equal Rights in Washington, by Shanna Stevenson, Women’s History Consortium coordinator, in con-junction with the suffrage centennial. Wear your 1910 period dress and enjoy a traditional high tea with the author and members of the advisory board of the Women’s History Consortium. Enjoy performances, sing-alongs, and special remarks by Stevenson, Senator Karen Fraser, and Washington State Historical Society Director David Nicandri. Stay for a book signing and tea, all in the elegant Lord Mansion.

  The aspect that caught my eye the most was the injunction to “wear your 1910 period dress,” but the location was attractive as well. I had lived in Olympia for my first year of college, and although I had subsequently transferred and graduated from a different school, the town itself had a certain sentimental appeal for me. It had been there that I had met Gabriel. I had also made a number of other friends during that period with whom I had lost touch over the years, and any time an occasion arose to return, a part of me hoped that this might result in a serendipitous reunion. (I was, ultimately, to meet someone of significance that day, although it would not be an old friend, as I had expected, but somebody entirely new to me.) I marked my calendar and eagerly anticipated the date.

  Gabriel was undecided as to whether he would join me or not. He didn’t want to drive the DeLorean into bad weather (Olympia is located at the edge of the Hoh Rain Forest), and the trip is well over two hours each way by bus. My husband liked excuses to dress up with me, but he wasn’t sure he was quite that desperate for one.

  The weather on the morning of the event cemented his decision to stay home: it was absolutely pouring. Rain was coming down at a sideways angle in massive gray sheets, thick enough to obscure the buildings across a two-lane street. The storm had the force and violence of those more typically seen on the East Coast, but the staying power of Pacific Northwest weather that has no intention of coming to a hasty conclusion.

  Through our window, which normally gave a view of the entire Seattle skyline and the Olympic Mountains beyond, the only thing visible was a sallow halo of light from a drowning streetlamp. Gabriel looked outside, then to me, then outside again. “Are you sure you want to go out in that?” He turned to me once more. “In your good clothes?”

  I had been planning to wear my antique linen dress, silk petticoat, linen jacket, and Gibson Girl hat. It would be the p
erfect outfit for the period requested; as nearly as we could tell, the dress was from 1905, the jacket from 1910 exactly.

  “Well . . .” I looked at the biblical deluge outside, half-expecting to see animals filing past, two by two. “I do have an umbrella . . .” I looked dubiously at the brightly colored, rose-covered item in question. It would be incredibly anachronistic, but I wasn’t going out in that weather without some sort of shield.

  “Is the bus stop covered?” Gabriel asked, definitely concerned.

  “Yeah. And I’ll be inside once I get there.” Some part of me just felt I should go. I attributed it to that old conviction about Olympia—that I would connect with someone worth remembering there. “I’ll be careful with everything.”

  Gabriel helped me on with the antique dress, making sure the tailor’s weights hung properly, that the celluloid boning was straight in my high lace collar, and that the myriad of hooks and eyes were fastened, tracing my spine. I put on my beautiful blue velvet hat myself, fastening it with a long, silver hatpin. To prevent the pin from inadvertently injuring me or (even worse) tearing the dress, I covered its sharp tip with my only hatpin clutch, a hollow little nickel-plated pod the size of a small aspirin capsule, filled with cork. Wearing a hatpin without a clutch means having the very sharp tip of a nine-inch (or longer) steel rod waving about at the back of one’s neck, eager to tear any clothing or stab any flesh with which it might come into contact. I owned one, and only one, of these indispensable little safety stoppers. (I had been looking for a source from which to buy more of them for years, but had not yet managed to find one at that point.)

  Dressed and properly hatted, I took a firm grasp on my umbrella and ventured out into the storm. I held my skirts well above my calves to keep them out of the splash zone as I carefully stepped my way around eddies and rivulets in the street. Water growled down with ruthless brutality from the angry maw of the sky, and I was grateful for the tall buildings surrounding me, which at least broke some of the force of the wind. I stayed in their lees as much as I possibly could, cowering under my umbrella and pulling it low to protect my beautiful hat.