US History

The Emergence of Modern America (1890-1930)

Social Movements

Women

This collection uses primary sources to explore the New Woman ideal.

Teaching Guide: Exploring the New Woman Ideal

A definition of the “The New Woman” from Alice Freeman Palmer: *The Evolution of a New Woman*, a 1993 biography by Ruth Bordin.

A cover of *Harper’s Weekly*, ca.1890-1920, by Maxfield Parrish, that shows a woman riding a bicycle.

An excerpt from *The New Womanhood* (1904) by Winnifred Harper Cooley.

An image of the New Woman from 1899—she reads the newspaper in her riding bloomers with her bicycle nearby as her husband does the wash.

A woman represents independence on this 1894 Fourth of July postcard illustrated by Charles Dana Gibson.

An excerpt from *The Yellow Wall Paper* by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. 

An excerpt from *The Doll’s House* by Henrik Ibsen. 

A photograph of Nellie Bly, newspaper correspondent; she circled the Earth in a record-setting seventy-two days from 1889 to 1890.

An excerpt from *What Women Can Earn*, a book describing the careers and salaries available to women in 1899. 

A World War I poster proclaiming, “For every fighter a woman worker. Care for her through the YWCA.” 

The cover to the book *College Girls* (1895), written by Abbe Carter Goodloe, illustrated by Charles Dana Gibson.

A photograph of a woman driving a sportscar in 1907.

A poster for *The New Woman*, a comedic play from 1894 which shows one way that society was dealing with changing gender roles.

A valentine card showing an anti-suffrage sentiment: “Your vote from me you will not get, I don’t want a preaching suffragette.”

An illustration from the 1895 novel *A Study in Bloomers*: “And by way of illustration, she picked up the pole and vaulted.”

Resources

1. [Daughters of decadence: the New Woman in the Victorian fin de siècle](http://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/articles/daughters-of-decadence-the-new-woman-in-the-victorian-fin-de-siecle), British Library. 
2. [The New Woman, Clash of Cultures in the 1910s and 1920s](https://ehistory.osu.edu/sites/ehistory.osu.edu/files/mmh/clash/NewWoman/newwomen-page1.htm), Ohio State University. 
3. [Reforming Their World: Women in the Progressive Era](https://www.nwhm.org/online-exhibits/progressiveera/statuswomenprogressive.html), National Women’s History Museum. 
4. [The New Woman of the 1920s: Debating Bobbed-Hair](http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5117/), History Matters. 

Overview

Throughout history, and particularly during the Victorian era (mid- to late-1800s), women—especially from the upper and middle classes—had little opportunities beyond those of the hearth and home. The New Woman was a response to these limiting roles of wife and mother. Starting in the late nineteenth century, more and more women remained unmarried until later in their lives, gained education, organized for women’s suffrage, and worked outside the home. Women also supported the war effort during World War I. Such developments allowed greater freedom. This was manifest, for example, in the image of the bicycle rider—wearing bloomers instead of long dresses and free to go wherever, whenever she wanted, by herself or with her friends. But these changes didn’t come easily or without pushback from both men and women who were unused to the notion of women’s independence. The following set illustrates the movement’s ideals, the women who embraced it, and a society made uncomfortable by this seismic shift in the roles of men and women. 

English

The New Woman

new-woman_04_630947bfae32c4072e9548167c56d41b.jpg

Courtesy of Boston Public Library via Digital Commonwealth.

"The ‘new woman,’” Digital Public Library of America, https://dp.la/item/630947bfae32c4072e9548167c56d41b.

An image of the New Woman from 1899—she reads the newspaper in her riding bloomers with her bicycle nearby as her husband does the wash.

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Tips for Students

Item 4 of 15 in the Primary Source Set The New Woman