Beyond the Gibson Girl: Reimagining the American New Woman, 1895-1915

Notes

notes Introduction 1. Fleissner draws here from Sheila Jeffreys, The฀Spinster฀and฀Her฀Enemies. 2. Consider the following recent studies of the New Woman: Amy Kaplan’s “Romancing the Empire” (2002) explores how the New Woman in popular historical romances of the period becomes a model for imperial subjects in the New Empire (Anarchy, 92–120). Margaret Finnegan’s Selling฀Suffrage:฀Consumer฀Culture฀and฀Votes฀for฀Women (1999) explores the ways in which suffragists employed the logic and the rhetoric of consumer culture. Beryl Satter’s Each฀Mind฀a฀Kingdom:฀American฀Women,฀Sexual฀Purity,฀and฀the฀ New฀Thought฀Movement,฀1875–1920 (1999) looks at the ways in which the New Thought movement negotiated changing conceptions of gendered “mind, matter, spirit, selfhood, and desire” even as it depended on a racialized evolutionary discourse for its logic (10–12). And Laura Behling’s The฀Masculine฀Woman฀in฀America,฀1890–1935 (2001) explores the literary , artistic, and rhetorical strategies used to contain the “sexually inverted” woman. 3. Whether or not the term “New Woman” was capitalized varies considerably. Unless context dictates otherwise,I will generally capitalize the term to emphasize its constructed nature. 4. Catherine Gilbert Murdock’s Domesticating฀Drink:฀Women,฀Men,฀and฀Alcohol฀in฀ America,฀1870–1940, 9. Frances Willard, president of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) was a vocal proponent of the New Woman. In an 1896 interview with the British feminist newspaper the฀Woman’s฀Signal, Willard claims, “The demand for new women is a demand by men who want women with sunny spirits, a friendly outlook in life, with scientific knowledge of how health should be preserved . . . women who are an active, industrial, and educational factor in the world’s work (“Miss Willard”). 5. “Fire Fly” attributes this quote to a “Mr. R.” I am indebted to Dominika Ferens for sending me copies of Eaton’s work in the Gall’s฀Daily฀News฀Letter. 6. SeeAlison Berg’s “Reconstructing Motherhood: Pauline Hopkins’s Contending฀Forces and the Rhetoric of Racial Uplift” in Mothering฀the฀Race:฀Women’s฀Narratives฀of฀Reproduction ,฀1890–1930. Pauline Hopkins’s first novel, in particular, “insists that as long as black women did not hold title to their own bodies and those of their children, they could not be emancipated—and emancipating—mothers” (51). 7. See Michael Tavel Clarke’s “The Growing Woman and the Growing Jew: Mary Antin, the New Woman, and the Immigration Debate” (“These Days” 241–81). 8. See Dorothy Berkson, “‘A Goddess behind a Sordid Veil’: The Domestic Heroine Meets the Labor Novel in Mary E. Wilkins Freeman’s The฀Portion฀of฀Labor” in Redefining฀ the฀Political฀Novel:฀American฀Women฀Writers,฀1797–1901. 9. See “The Girl of the Period,” in the Gall’s฀Daily฀News฀Letter, Feb. 8, 1897. 08.NOTES.187-204_Patt.indd฀฀฀187 8/8/05฀฀฀10:45:19฀AM 10. See William Leach,Land฀of฀Desire:฀Merchants,฀Power,฀and฀the฀Rise฀of฀a฀New฀American฀ Culture, especially 50, 73, and 104–6. 11. See chapter 8 of Luce Irigaray, This฀Sex฀Which฀Is฀Not฀One. 12. Consider, for example, the debates about Jane Addams’s role at Hull House, which Rivka Shpak Lissak summarizes in her book Pluralism฀and฀Progressives:฀Hull฀House฀and฀the฀ New฀Immigrants,฀1890–1919 (1989).WasAddams ultimately committed to “Anglo-American conformity, cosmopolitanism (or the melting pot), [or] cultural pluralism”? (7). 13. According to Peter J. Bowler in The฀Eclipse฀of฀Darwinism, the term “neo-Lamarckism ” was coined in 1885 by the American scientist Alpehus Packard to describe those who wished “to establish the inheritance of acquired characteristics as an alternative to Darwinism” (59). As Cynthia Eagle Russett notes in Darwin฀in฀America:฀The฀Intellectual฀ Response,฀1865–1912, even though by 1900 American natural scientists strongly supported Darwinism, many also embraced Lamarck’s theory in large part because Lamarckianism offered scientific support for the efficacy of education in improving humanity (10). Yet as Russett points out in Sexual฀Science, a Lamarckian worldview was not necessarily an optimistic one. It could emphasize the ways in which the negative traits of ancestors appeared in subsequent generations. Degeneration occurred when these negative traits, traits such as alcoholism or criminality, occurred in subsequent generations (200). 14. In the 1880s, August Weismann developed his theory of germ plasm, where a separate substance in the cell nucleus was responsible for transmitting hereditary information. Unable to affect the genetic information passed to the next generation, the body was in a sense only a “host...