US History

The Emergence of Modern America (1890-1930)

Social Movements

Women

This collection uses primary sources to explore 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.”

Questions

1. Summarize Alice Freeman Palmer’s definition of the New Woman in the [biography](http://dp.la/primary-source-sets/the-new-woman/sources/660). How does this idea respond to [ideas about gender roles during the Victorian era](http://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/articles/gender-roles-in-the-19th-century)?
2. Freedom is a key aspect of the New Woman ideologies. Which freedoms are illustrated in the images in this set? What composite picture of “freedom” for the New Woman do they paint? Which freedoms for women do they ignore?
3. Using the [excerpt from *What Women Can Earn*](http://dp.la/primary-source-sets/the-new-woman/sources/668), describe the social context of the New Woman. Which careers and social roles were available to women? In what ways were these options changing? In what ways were they not?
4. Read the excerpts from [*The Yellow Wall Paper*](http://dp.la/primary-source-sets/the-new-woman/sources/665) and [*The Doll’s House*](http://dp.la/primary-source-sets/the-new-woman/sources/666) closely. Where do you see the influence of the New Woman in these writings? How do these writers approach the concept differently?
5. Using the items in this set as evidence and your own understanding of the historical context for the New Woman ideal, describe challenges that proponents of this ideal faced.
6. Consider the sources in this set as a whole. Which groups of women are missing from discussion of the New Woman? What does this reveal about the proponents of this ideology and the world in which they lived?

Activity

Assign each student (or pairs of students) an illustration from this set. Ask them to organize and give a short presentation to the class about which aspect of the New Woman ideal the image captures.

Teaching Guide: Exploring the New Woman Ideal

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.

Cite this item

Tips for Students

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