Possible Clues:

• Whalebone
• Whale's food-filtering system
• Been about a half-century? That's a whale of a lot
• It takes a whale of a turn for a laboratory to get even like this
• Having about Albert to a whale of an extent
• Corset stiffener
• There's been a whale of a lot of bone about a pound
• Enable production of whalebone
• Corset-stiffening material
• A whale of a lot of this has been around for a half century