The American New Woman Revisited: A Reader, 1894-1930

by Martha H. Patterson (Editor)

Overview

In North America between 1894 and 1930, the rise of the “New Woman” sparked controversy on both sides of the Atlantic and around the world. As she demanded a public voice as well as private fulfillment through work, education, and politics, American journalists debated and defined her. Who was she and where did she come from? Was she to be celebrated as the agent of progress or reviled as a traitor to the traditional family? Over time, the dominant version of the American New Woman became typified as white, educated, and middle class: the suffragist, progressive reformer, and bloomer-wearing bicyclist.  By the 1920s, the jazz-dancing flapper epitomized her. Yet she also had many other faces.

Bringing together a diverse range of essays from the periodical press of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Martha H. Patterson shows how the New Woman differed according to region, class, politics, race, ethnicity, and historical circumstance. In addition to the New Woman’s prevailing incarnations, she appears here as a gun-wielding heroine, imperialist symbol, assimilationist icon, entrepreneur, socialist, anarchist, thief, vamp, and eugenicist. Together, these readings redefine our understanding of the New Woman and her cultural impact.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780813544946
Publisher:	Rutgers University Press
Publication date:	05/01/2008
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	360
File size:	4 MB

About the Author

Martha H. Patterson is an associate professor of English at McKendree University in Illinois and the author of Beyond the Gibson Girl: Reimagining the American New Woman, 1895-1915.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments     xiii
Introduction     1
Defining the New Woman in the Periodical Press
"The New Aspect of the Woman Question," North American Review (1894)   Sarah Grand     29
"The New Woman," North American Review (1894)   Ouida     35
"The Campaign Girl," Washington Post (1894)   Kate Masterson     43
"Here Is the New Woman," New York World (1895)     46
"Bloomers at the Bar," National Police Gazette (1895)     49
"The New-Woman Santa Claus," Judge (1895)     52
"The New Negro Woman," Lend a Hand (1895)   Mrs. Booker T. Washington     54
"Woman in Another New Role," Munsey's Magazine (1896)     60
"The New Woman," reprinted in Free Society: A Periodical of Anarchist Thought, Work, and Literature (1898)   Emma Goldman     62
"Women in the Territories," New York Times (1903)     64
"The 'New Woman' Got the Drop on Him," Los Angeles Times (1895)     69
"The Negro Woman-Social and Moral Decadence," Outlook (1904)   Eleanor Tayleur     71
"Bicycle Number," Judge (1898)     78
"Ise Gwine ter Give You Gals What Straddle," Life (1899)   Edward Kemble     80
"St. Valentine's Number," Life (1903)   Charles Dana Gibson     82
"The Flapper," Smart Set (1915)   H. L. Mencken     84
"The New Negro Woman," Messenger (1923)     87
"A Bit of Life," New York Age (1919)   Russell     89
Women's Suffrage and Political Participation
"The New Woman of the New South," Arena (1895)   Josephine K. Henry     93
"Foibles of the New Woman," Forum (1896)   Ella W. Winston     98
"In the Public Eye," Munsey's Magazine (1897)     103
"Suffragette [to the Bearded Lady]: How Do You Manage It?" Life (1911)   Augustus Smith Daggy     105
"Women's Rights: and the Duties of Both Men and Women," Outlook (1912)   Theodore Roosevelt     107
"Movie of a Woman on Election Day," Baltimore Afro-American (1920)     114
"Squaws Demand 'Rights,'" Washington Post (1921)     117
"The New Woman: What She Wanted and What She Got," Woman's Home Companion (1929)   Frederick L. Collins     119
"La Mujer Nueva" [The New Woman], Grafico (1929)   Clotilde Betances Jaeger     124
Temperance, Social Purity, and Maternalism
"At Home with the Editor," Ladies' Home Journal (1894)   Edward Bok     129
"The New Woman," American Jewess (1895)   Rev. Ella E. Bartlett     132
"The New Woman," Outlook (1895)    Lillian W. Betts     135
"Miss Willard on the 'New Woman,'" Woman's Signal (1896)     137
"The Chinese Woman in America," Land of Sunshine (1897)   Sui Seen Far [Edith Eaton]     140
"The New Woman," Woman's Standard (1901)   Elizabeth Cady Stanton     145
"The New Womanhood," Forerunner (1910)   Charlotte Perkins Gilman     147
"Alte und Neue Frauen" [Of Old and New Women], New Yorker Staats-Zeitung (1917)   Frau Anna     151
The Women's Club Movement and Women's Education
"Women's Department," Colored American Magazine (1900)   Pauline E. Hopkins     157
"A Girl's College Life," Cosmopolitan (1901)   Lavinia Hart     160
"The Typical Woman of the New South," Harper's Bazar (1900)   Julia Magruder     164
"Rough Sketches: A Study of the Features of the New Negro Woman," Voice of the Negro (1904)   John H. Adams Jr.     168
"The Modern Indian Girl," Indian Craftsman (1909)     172
"Lo! The New Indian. Mohawk Belle," Los Angeles Express (1903)     176
"The Sacrifice," Chicago Defender (1916)     177
"Professional Training," College Humor (1923)     179
Work and the Labor Movement
"The New Woman," National Labor Tribune (1897)     183
"The New Woman and Her Ways: The Woman Farmer," Saturday Evening Post (1910)   Maude Radford Warren     185
"Debemos Trabajar" [We Must Work], La Cronica (1911)   Astrea     188
"New Jobs for New Women," Everybody's Magazine (1914)   Virginia Roderick     190
"A New Woman?" Masses (1916)   Dorothy Weil     193
"The Negro Woman Teacher and the Negro Student," Messenger (1923)   Elise Johnson McDouglad     200
"Pin-Money Slaves," Forum and Century (1930)   Poppy Cannon     203
World War I and Its Aftermath
Cover of Hearst's Magazine (1918)     213
"A Farewell Letter to the Kaiser from Every Woman," Washington Post (1918)   Helen Rowland     215
"The New America, the American Jewish Woman: A Symposium," American Hebrew (1919)   Mrs. Caesar Misch     218
"What the Newest New Woman Is," Ladies' Home Journal (1920)   Harriet Abbott     221
Prohibition and Sexuality
"What Shall We Do with Jazz?" Atlanta Constitution (1922)   Martha Lee     227
"Exodo de Una Flapper" [Exodus of a Flapper], Hispano America (1925)   Jorge Ulica     233
"Sweet Sexteen," Life (1926)   John Held Jr.     236
"The 'Outrageous' Younger Set: A Young Girl Attempts to Explain Some of the Forces That Brought It into Being," Vanity Fair (1927)   Elizabeth Benson     238
"Fumando Espero" [Smoking I Wait], Grafico (1927)   Alberto O'Farrill     243
Consumer Culture, Leisure Culture, and Technology
"The Eternal Feminine," Printers' Ink (1901)   Jas. H. Collins     249
"Battle Ax Plug," Santa Fe New Mexican (1896)     253
"The Athletic Woman," Good Housekeeping (1912)   Anna de Koven     255
"The Woman of the Future," Good Housekeeping (1912)   Thomas A. Edison     258
"The Woman's Magazine," Masses (1915)   Jeannette Eaton     267
"Famous Bobbed-Hair Beauties," Negro World (1924)     269
"From Ping Pong to Pants," Photoplay (1927)     272
"Daughters of the Sky," Delineator (1929)   Vera L. Connolly     274
Evolution, Birth Control, and Eugenics
"Effeminate Men and Masculine Women," New York Medical Journal (1900)   William Lee Howard, M.D.     279
"The Evolution of Sex in Mind," Independent (1901)   Henry T. Finck     282
"The New Woman Monkey," Life (1906); and "Evolution," Life (1913)     287
"Flapper Americana Novissima," Atlantic Monthly (1922)   G. Stanley Hall     290
"The New Woman: In the Political World She Is the Source of All Reform Legislation and the One Power That Is Humanizing the World," Negro World (1924)   Saydee E. Parham     297
"The New Woman in the Making," Current History (1927)   Leta S. Hollingworth     300
"La Mujer Nueva" [The New Woman], Grafico (1929)   Clotilde Betances Jaeger     306
Notes     311
Index     331

Editorial Reviews

Martha Patterson is the right person for this project. I see a bright future for this book in undergraduate and graduate courses—from American literature and history to media and women's studies.

University of Delaware - Ann Ardis

[This] collection presents varied manifestations of an icon that 'worked to define American identity' during a dynamic era. Recommended

Choice

Martha Patterson is the right person for this project. I see a bright future for this book in undergraduate and graduate courses—from American literature and history to media and women's studies.

From the Publisher