Saved by Her Corset
We can file this short series consisting of excerpts from a couple of articles published several years ago under something I like to call “It Was a Victorian Thing”.
Read any mid-to-late nineteenth century newspaper and you’re likely to find any number of ways people died. Several years ago I started paying attention to some of them, although I don’t recall exactly how I came across these particular headlines in a number of newspapers across the United States. The first headlines and stories I noticed weren’t about someone dying in an unusual way, but rather saved from dying. Those headlines would typically read something like “Saved by Her Corset”:
SAVED BY HER CORSET STEEL
The life of Annie Blondi, seventeen years old, of Liberty avenue and Linwood street, Brooklyn, was saved yesterday morning by her corset. Michael Bianco, an Italian forty-four years old, who lives in the same house, fired a pistol shot at the girl and the bullet struck her corset steel and glanced off.1
SAVED BY HER CORSET
A Young Trojan’s Attempt to Kill the Girl He Says He Married
Troy, Nov. 15 – Edward Daly, son of James Daly, of this city, made a desperate attempt to kill Mollie Nealon last night by shooting her. Daly says he married the girl some time ago, but she will not admit it. . . Yesterday he purchased a revolver and went into a saloon, and said he was going to shoot himself. The pistol was taken away form him. This afternoon Daly bought another revolver and last night he met the Nealon girl uptown and started with her for her home. He told he was going to shoot himself, but he wanted to kill her first. He pointed the pistol at her several times, but she said he was “only fooling.” When within a block of Miss Nealon’s home Daly shot at her, and the bullet struck her over the left breast. She ran into the house and fell in a faint. The bullet was found imbedded in Miss Nealon’s corset, and it is believed the corset saved his [sic] life. Daly declares he will kill her and himself.2
Saved by Her Corset
Herman Witke made a desperate attempt to kill Maggie Christman, 18 years of age, at Racine, Wis., The other morning, and a corset was all that saved the girl’s life. . . Witke had been paying her attention and they were engaged to be married. They had a quarrel. . . He caught hold of her and threw her to the ground in the back yard, pulled a revolver and pressed it to her breast and fired three shots, the girl fighting desperately for her life. The explosion of the revolver set her clothing on fire, but she broke away and ran to Main street. It was found that one of the bullets struck a steel of her corset, broke it and cut her flesh at the pit of the stomach, which was the only wound she sustained, and the corset saved her life.3
SAVED BY HER CORSET
Mrs. Stokes Fires Two Shots at Herself, but is too Well Armored
In 1888 a Chicago woman attempted suicide “because she could obtain no relief for her sore eyes.” Her eyes had been troubling for some time, keeping her awake at nights. One morning she was so despondent that she decided to end it all. She loaded a revolver, went to her bedroom and fired a shot at her breast. “The bullet was deflected by one of the steel ribs in her corset. She fired a second shot. The bullet glanced from another corset rib, and inflicted a slight flesh wound in her left breast.”4 Darned corset – oh my sore eyes!
This one was definitely “over-dramatic”:
SHE WAS SAVED BY HER CORSET
Margaret Mather Uses a Real Dagger and Stabs Herself in the Breast
Peterboro, Ontario, Sept. 30. – The presentation of “Romeo and Juliet” in Bradburn’s opera house Saturday night by Miss Margaret Mather and her company very nearly resulted in real tragedy. The dagger which Miss Mather used in the last scene had been stolen at Kingston and she used a sharp dagger belonging to one of the company. In the intensity of her zeal in acting she forgot about the change in the weapons and when she rose in anguish form the prostrate form of the poisoned Romen she plunged the dagger into her breast. The sharp point of the weapon wen through her corset and pierced the flesh a little below the heart. Despite the pain and bleeding she finished the scene amid the plaudits of the audience, who were unaware that any real pain was suffered. She was carried half fainting to the dressing room. Fortunately, the wound, although painful, was not serious, the corset having arrested the force of the blow.5
These are but a few of the “Saved by Her Corset” headlines I collected and wrote about.
Up until the late 1870s, corsets utilized whalebone (most of the stories noted above appear to have occurred while the woman was wearing a steel corset). Whalebone was not bone at all, but “an elastic, horny substance growing in place of teeth in the upper jaw of certain whales.”6 It was cartilage-like, strong yet flexible. Perfect for shaping the waist, “in spite of all the fat that nature can lay on.” When the cost of whalebone increased dramatically in 1876, winter corsets would be fitted with steel stays that season.
That’s around the time when “corset” headlines, unfortunately, shifted to also include “Killed by Her Corset”. Stay tuned next week for Part 2. The full article was published in the May-June 2019 issue of Digging History Magazine.
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Footnotes:
- New York Herald, September 28, 1891, accessed at www.genealogybank.com on August 4, 2026, 4.
- New Haven Register, November 15, 1887, accessed at www.genealogybank.com on March 17, 2019, 3.
- Kalamazoo Gazette, September 16, 1893, accessed at www.genealogybank.com on March 18, 2019, 7.
- The Wheeling Daily Intelligencer, accessed at www.newspapers.com on March 19, 2019, 4.
- Plain Dealer (Cleveland), accessed at www.genealogybank.com on March 19, 2019, 1.
- Whalebone, accessed at https://www.dictionary.com/browse/whalebone on August 4, 2026.