"I've been working at the corset company for five years now; corsets are big business for Kalamazoo. I started out sewing; now I'm the forelady. I work six days a week and make $12 each week. It's mostly women and girls that work here, except for the supervisors; they're all men. The women work plenty hard and earn their pay by how many corset pieces they complete each day."
-Eva Barker, white female, age 32
Photo captions: Interiors of Kalamazoo Corset Company, circa 1900 (Kalamazoo Public Library collection); advertisement for the "Specialite Corset," 1901.
To find more historic photographs and artifacts related to the Kalamazoo Corset Company, visit KVM's searchable collections database. The KPL website offers additional information on what was once Kalamazoo's largest employer.