Some other points to keep in mind about the corset issue:

1) What segment of the population potentially wore extremely tight corsets?  My hypothesis is that usually it would be women of the upper class/middle class (what middle class there was) who didn't have to do heavy manual labor all day.  A lot of the written historical information applies to a very limited portion of society. Trying to scrub floors, do laundry, work in the fields etc. would be difficult if your laces were so tight that your waist was reduced.  I can see where tying the laces snugly enough to provide support would be beneficial, but we are discussing extremes.

2) Be careful of extrapolating from the "proper" mode described in "how to" manuals to the actual usage by the general masses.  If you're out in the middle of nowhere with no neighbors, tightly lacing a corset is probably not going to last long (see point #1).  Also, I remember some study done (can't remember the specific details) about the "Southern Woman" myth.  The "ideal" southern woman was described in some book written at that time, but a modern researcher discovered that very few women conformed to the ideal.

So we're talking two separate things here.  The ideal vs reality, and the social situation of individual people.

As a side bar - I worked as a historical interpreter at a living history farm.  One of the things I did not agree with was wearing a bonnet outside at all times.  I thought that a woman would not put her bonnet on just to get water from the well.  However, my bosses said that unless I could provide written proof that women would NOT put their bonnets every single time they stepped outdoors, I had to wear it.  I still think that no one from the 1800's would write in their diary (or anywhere else for that matter), "I don't wear my bonnet when I'm getting water from the well, or going to the hen house to gather eggs, or ________(fill in the blank)".  Who would care, right? 

So, as a lesson to us modern day diarists, write down every single unimportant detail, because you never know who may want that information!! 

Donna Stubbs                             HDR Engineering, Inc.
Archaeologist                                6190 Golden Hills Dr.
(763)591-5442                              Minneapolis, MN  55416
mailto: [log in to unmask]

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