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Women and girls wore corsets. They made sure that a young girl's back would be straight, they gave support to the body when carrying heavy things such as children, milk buckets, cast iron cooking pots, firewood, etc., and they created the popular shape for the time period. Girls started wearing corsets when quite young. The corset pictured here dates from the 18th century and would be called "stays". These stays are for a toddler and are stiffened with cardboard rather than whalebone or metal.

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Child's stays

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