Sharing the Stories

During the pandemic, I began research armed with my curiosity about the city’s corset industry in a room full of city directories at the library of what was then known as the Worcester Historical Museum (now Museum of Worcester). I started by looking for clues about a local female factory owner I had heard about. Digging for information about her life led me to discover the city’s dozens of other factories and sole proprietors in the corset industry. They deserved limelight, I thought. So I wrote a few profiles and created a website.

“This,” people started telling me, “should be a book.”

A Massachusetts publisher (TidePool Press, Cambridge MA) with strong Worcester ties expressed interest during those early days. They have pushed me to dig even deeper into the subject and to think more critically about the topic’s importance in broader terms. I spent most of the summer of 2023 addressing their copy editor’s comments, a list that stopped me in my tracks when it first arrived. After processing her input the story came into sharper focus, once rid of my previously excessive use of such words as “the,” “corset,” “Worcester,” etcetera (!). Another dive into the material at their request brought structure: three sections into which i have divided the book. Yet another dive (going on now) is bringing me deeper into the material by answering such questions as: “Any clue as to how long that trip to Harlem to SoHo would have taken?” and “Can you write a page JUST about this picture?”

Once I have addressed all the recent notes (there were many!) we will be closer to a finished product. This industrial history also has over two hundred illustrations which present a challenge to the production design team: how best to present the visuals as partner to the words. That work is underway now.

I keep telling myself, “it will be worth the wait!” Estimated time of arrival: 2025.