The name Spirella refers to the Spirella Stay which was invented by Marcus Merritt Beeman in the US in 1904 and made from tightly twisted and flattened coils of wire. The founders were Beeman, William Wallace Kincaid and Jesse Homan Pardee. [1]
The name Spirella refers to the Spirella Stay which was invented by Marcus Merritt Beeman in the US in 1904 and made from tightly twisted and flattened coils of wire. The founders were Beeman, William Wallace Kincaid and Jesse Homan Pardee. [1]
The Spirella name was used by the Spirella Corset Company Inc that was founded in 1904 [2] in Meadville, Pennsylvania, USA. It was founded on a patent of dressbone, [3] for bustles, but started corset manufacture in 1904. The company manufactured made-to-measure corsets. Benefits for the company's employees included travel, education and health care. [4]
The UK subsidiary was The Spirella Company of Great Britain. Spirella co-founder and entrepreneur William Wallace Kincaid commissioned the architect Cecil Hignett to design a state-of-the art factory of architectural beauty. The design included embellishments in Arts & Crafts styling. This factory, the Spirella Building, was built and expanded in stages between 1912 and 1920. During World War II, the Irvin Airchute Company expanded its production of parachutes into the Spirella Building and women working for the British Tabulating Machine Company secretly produced components for the decoding machines called Bombes. [5] The company's most popular corset was the Model 305. Spirella products were not sold in shops. Instead, female staff called corsetiers (or corsetières) were sent to customers' homes. [6] After an ill-fated attempt to market garments of "Stub-tex", a form of Gore-Tex being used under licence from W. L. Gore & Associates, the company was sold in 1985 to the rival Spencers of Banbury and finally closed in July 1989.
The Spirella Building was designed to provide workers with a highly productive and pleasant environment that focused on the comfort of factory employees. Referred to as the "factory of beauty", it offered a wide array of employee amenities including "baths, showers, gymnastics classes, a library, free eye tests and bicycle repairs". [7] In 1979 it was Grade II* listed. [8] The Letchworth Garden City Foundation bought the neglected building in 1995, restored the interior and re-opened it for leased office accommodation. [9] It currently houses over twenty businesses. [10]
At its height the company had factories in the USA (Meadville, Pennsylvania, New Haven, Connecticut, and Lincoln Nebraska [11] ), in Canada (in 1910), in the UK (in 1910; from 1912 in the Spirella Building in Letchworth) and in Sweden (Malmö) in 1920 and Niagara Falls NY (in 1917). Their flagship location was Spirella House on Oxford Circus, London. [12] A factory built in 1910 in Niagara falls, Ontario, eventually became the premises of the Bird Kingdom Tropical Adventure. [13]
A number of organisations have collected archival examples of documents and objects related to the Spirella Factory. The Garden City Collection in Letchworth includes over forty objects and documents in its collection. [14] Additionally, collections are maintained by Hertfordshire's Community Archives Network. [15] Archival examples include: the Castle Corset cartoon and an advertisement for the Spirella War Savings Association. [16] [17]
Hertfordshire is a ceremonial county in the East of England and one of the home counties. It borders Bedfordshire to the north-west, Cambridgeshire to the north-east, Essex to the east, Greater London to the south and Buckinghamshire to the west. The largest settlement is Watford, and the county town is Hertford.
Meadville is a city in and the county seat of Crawford County, Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 13,050 at the 2020 census. The first permanent settlement in Northwestern Pennsylvania, Meadville is within 40 miles (64 km) of Erie and within 90 miles (140 km) of Pittsburgh. It is the principal city of the Meadville micropolitan area, as well as part of the larger Erie–Meadville combined statistical area.
Sir Ebenezer Howard was an English urban planner and founder of the garden city movement, known for his publication To-Morrow: A Peaceful Path to Real Reform (1898), the description of a utopian city in which people live harmoniously together with nature. The publication resulted in the founding of the garden city movement, and the building of the first garden city, Letchworth Garden City, commenced in 1903.
Welwyn Garden City is a town in Hertfordshire, England, 20 miles (32 km) north of London. It was the second garden city in England and one of the first new towns. It is unique in being both a garden city and a new town and exemplifies the physical, social and cultural planning ideals of the periods in which it was built.
Shelvoke and Drewry was a Letchworth, Hertfordshire, manufacturer of special purpose commercial vehicles. It was best known for its innovative waste collection vehicles that were the preferred choice of municipal authorities in the UK together with their gully emptiers, cesspool cleaning vehicles and street watering and washing vehicles.
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.
Henry Drushel Perky was a lawyer, businessman, promoter and inventor. Perky is the inventor of shredded wheat.
Letchworth Garden City station serves the town of Letchworth in Hertfordshire, England. The station is on the Cambridge Line 34 miles 50 chains (55.7 km) north of London King's Cross, and is a stop for services between King's Cross and Cambridge. Trains which serve the station are operated by Great Northern.
Chater-Lea was a British bicycle, car and motorcycle maker with a purpose-built five-storey factory in Banner Street, EC1, in the City of London and, from 1928, premises at Letchworth, Hertfordshire. It was founded by William Chater-Lea in 1890 to make bicycle frames and components. It made cars between 1907 and 1922 and motorcycles from 1903 to 1935. William died in 1927 and the business was taken over by his sons John and Bernard. After vehicle production finished, the company remained trading as a bicycle component maker and contract manufacturer until 1987. The company relaunched in 2017 as a maker of high-end British manufactured bicycle components and launched its first new products in the summer of 2019.
The Cloisters in Letchworth Garden City, Hertfordshire in the UK was built in 1905 as an open-air school dedicated to Psychology and where students were taught skills from the Arts and Crafts movement. After a period of neglect during World War II The Cloisters became the North Hertfordshire Masonic Centre in 1951.
The Highfield School is a coeducational secondary school and sixth form located in Letchworth, Hertfordshire. The Highfield School teaches from Year 7 through to Year 12 or 13 The school is part of the Letchworth Sixth Form Consortium with Fearnhill School. It received a with outstanding features OFSTED grade.
Letchworth Garden City, commonly known as Letchworth, is a town in the North Hertfordshire district of Hertfordshire, England. It is noted for being the first garden city. The population at the time of the 2021 census was 33,990.
Bird Kingdom is an aviary in the tourist district of Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada. Opened in May 2003, it is the largest free flying indoor aviary in the world. The attraction encompasses approximately 45,000 square feet (4,200 m2), and houses over 350 birds, the majority of which come from Australia, South America, and Africa. It is also home to mammals, reptiles and amphibians which are part of educational programs. Bird Kingdom has been voted a top family attraction in Niagara Falls and was inducted into the Trip Advisor Hall of Fame in 2016.
Letchworth Museum and Art Gallery was a museum in Letchworth, Hertfordshire, England. It had permanent displays dedicated to the natural history of North Hertfordshire, including the famous black squirrel, as well as its archaeology from remote prehistory to the turn of the twentieth century.
Cassius Emlen Urban was a Lancaster, Pennsylvania-based architect. He was the leading architect in Lancaster from the 1890s to the 1920s.
Mr. Pearl is a noted corsetmaker of the late 20th and early 21st century. Pearl is known for his work with designers such as Vivienne Westwood, and has designed corsets for celebrities such as Kylie Minogue and Dita Von Teese.
The Royal Worcester Corset Company, was founded as The Worcester Skirt Company by David Hale Fanning in 1861 in Worcester, MA, and first specialized in making hoop skirts. In 1872 the company changed its name to the Worcester Corset Co., to reflect its change of direction from hoop skirts to torso shaping. The company changed its name again in 1901, to the Royal Worcester Corset Company. In 1949 the company dropped the word 'corset' from its name and became known as the Royal Worcester Company, in response to falling interest in corsets. The company had by then switched production away from corsets to girdles.
William Wallace Kincaid was an American entrepreneur, businessman, executive, and inventor. He was founder of the Spirella Co., manufacturer of Spirella corsets, and served as president of the National Personnel Association and as president of the American Management Association.
Letchworth Town Hall is a municipal building in Broadway, Letchworth, Hertfordshire, England. The town hall, which was the headquarters of Letchworth Urban District Council, is a Grade II listed building.
Howard Park and Gardens is a public recreation ground in Letchworth, in Hertfordshire, England, laid out when the garden city of Letchworth was created. It is listed Grade II in Historic England's Register of Parks and Gardens.
In 1959 a Spirella shop assistant is reported to have described three brassiere sizes "The Totalitarian – designed for suppression of the masses; the Salvation Army – to uplift the fallen; and the Political Agitator – to make mountains out of molehills".
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