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Black contemporary sales case with leather handle, leather corners, and metal clasps. L: 10 3/4 in. W: 20 1/2 in. D: 4 3/4 in. Leather chipping to handle and corners. Lined with blue cloth, some dampstaining to bottom. . Box includes 12 pink, fitting garments, 2 measuring sticks, instruction manual, and "Spirella Corsetiere" sign. Corsets neatly stored in four floral cloth sleeves, each with black stamped text "SLENDER" "STOUT" "MEDIUM" and "ABDOMINAL" on top. Pink modeling garments, paneled with laces, flexible steel stays, grommets (metal eyelets), metal hook and eye fasteners, mesh cups. Corset pieces include one-piece garments, girdles, and brassieres. Stitching and embroidery intact, color remarkably bright. Four garments show mild to moderate damp stain. Sewn label in each garment "This garment is the property of the Spirella Company and must not be sold." Instruction manual: Octavo, 8 3/4 in. x 6 1/4 in. Soft black leather covers. Some wear to front cover and top right corner. Titled in red "Spirella Manual." Full title "Spirella Manual of Corsetry, Salesmenship and Business Practice." pp. 151. Glossy pages replete with diagrams and illustrations. Occasional pencil annotations, likely from a female corsetiere. Business reply envelope for The Spirella Company in Niagara Falls, New York tucked into book, indicating New York provenance. The entrepreneurs Marcus Beeman, William Wallace Kincaid, and Jesse Pardee founded the Spirella Company in Meadville, Pennsylvania in 1904. Beeman invented the Spirella Stay, a flexible stay made of steel coils. The invention offered a more pliable corset, as opposed to flat, rigid stays made of whale baleen or reed that would poke and prod. The company manufactured a variety of women's garments using the patented stay. They found quick success and opened offices in Niagara Falls, England, California, Sweden, Germany, and Denmark. Corsets were not sold in stores. Rather, female staff employed as "corsetiers" travelled, often door-to-door, selling corsets. They would take customers' measurements using the fitting garments, and send the measurements to the factory for custom-made, tailored corsets. The present travelling sales case and its contents were used for this purpose. The instruction manual lays out the principles of Spirella Service, directions for proper fittings, and advice on good salesmanship and business practice. It emphasizes the innovation of the Spirella Stay. It also gives a textual and visual idea of 1930s standards of beauty, body image, and wellness. (For some fascinating information about the women who underwent training and sold these undergarments, look up: corsetiere dot net forward slash Spirella forward slash Corsetiere forward slash Fitter dot htm). The language of the Spirella literature seemed, um, "laced" (sorry!) with motivational, "positive thinking" type speech.
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