Catherine Allsop Griswold was a

corsetmaker A corsetmaker is a specialist tailor who makes corsets. Corsetmakers are frequently known by the French equivalent terms corsetier (male) and corsetière (female). Staymaker is an obsolete name for a corsetmaker. Design and distribution The bes ...

whose 31 apparel-related

patents A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an sufficiency of disclosure, enabling discl ...

played a role in the

Dress Reform Movement Victorian dress reform was an objective of the Victorian dress reform movement (also known as the rational dress movement) of the middle and late Victorian era, led by various reformers who proposed, designed, and wore clothing considered more ...

of 1876. Griswold had the most patents held by any woman in the United States of America at the time. Among Griswold’s apparel-related patents, was the skirt-supporting corset. Griswold created more than 30 corset designs to better serve wearers from as early as 1866. 19 of the patents were related to improving the comfortability of corsets for women by adjusting the mechanical design. One of her most notable innovations was a corset that had skirt-supporting ribbons, which helped distribute the weight of heavier skirts over the entirety of a woman’s body and allowed for women to be less fatigued and have a greater range of movement. When Griswold was resident in

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York New York may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * ...

, the Worcester Corset Company manufactured her designs. In 1893, Griswold's skirt-supporting corset won an award when it was featured at the

World's Columbian Exposition The World's Columbian Exposition, also known as the Chicago World's Fair, was a world's fair held in Chicago from May 5 to October 31, 1893, to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus's arrival in the New World in 1492. The ...

Chicago Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...

, where it appeared along with other dress-reform items including a bust supporter by Olivia Flynt and another reform corset by Emmeline Philbrook. A Madam Griswold's corset from 1876 is held by

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art, colloquially referred to as the Met, is an Encyclopedic museum, encyclopedic art museum in New York City. By floor area, it is the List of largest museums, third-largest museum in the world and the List of larg ...

References

19th-century American women engineers Corsetmakers {{DEFAULTSORT:Griswold, Catherine Allsop Year of birth missing Year of death missing