Family Get Together, 1910s

Found photo No one looks particularly happy in this photo. I’ve made up a story in which the wealthy maiden aunt on the left, who organized the outing, has just told her relatives that she is leaving her fortune to a women’s college rather than to them. That cuts everyone else out of their dreams of riches. It was a big disappointment to the rakish uncle with a cigar on the right. What fascinates me here is the difference between the two older women’s figures. The oldest woman in the lightest dress has a typical figure for an aging matron. Her menopot has extended upward and outward so that she doesn’t really have a waist left. The dress is drawn up close under her breasts. There is extra fabric around her chest because the bodice was meant to go down further. Her formidable looking companion to the left still has a waist, but I suspect a rigid corset is responsible for the shape. Everything looks tightly bound. We don’t need to wonder which one is more comfortable. Do you think the…