Women Illustrators of the Golden Age of American Illustration PDF

Women Illustrators of the Golden Age of American Illustration Author(s): Helen Goodman Source: Woman's Art Journal , Spring - Summer, 1987, Vol. 8, No. 1 (Spring - Summer, 1987), pp. 13-22 Published by: Woman's Art Inc. Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/1358335 JSTOR is a not-for-profit servi...

Women Illustrators of the Golden Age of American Illustration Author(s): Helen Goodman Source: Woman's Art Journal , Spring - Summer, 1987, Vol. 8, No. 1 (Spring - Summer, 1987), pp. 13-22 Published by: Woman's Art Inc. Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/1358335 JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at https://about.jstor.org/terms and Old City Publishing, Inc. are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Woman's Art Journal This content downloaded from 72.225.61.22 on Tue, 05 Dec 2023 21:51:58 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms portraits Women Illustrators of the Golden Age of American Illustration HELEN GOODMAN The period between 1880 and 1914 has been referred Moreover, when one peruses the work of the estimated to as the Golden Age of American Illustration.'80 A women newly illustrators active at the time, one cannot literate public, released for the first time from thebe impressed by their technical competence, help but constant drudgery of work, avidly consumed the unprecedented number of periodicals being published of purpose. Harper's Monthly, Century, The Bookman, The Critic, Europe, many young women from middle- and upper- during this period. Advances in print technology-high artistic assurance, commercial savvy, and seriousness It may appear unnecessary to even mention "prospeed presses and the development of the halftone fessionalism" here, and were we discussing male artists plate-not only made the explosion in printed material it would be a given. Nevertheless it needs to be stressed, possible, but made the magazines themselves quite because professionalism is inconsistent with the then inexpensive.2 widely held view that lady artists were dabblers and An array of weeklies and monthlies provided the dilettantes. As John Marin commented, most of his American public with a popular entertainment medium Pennsylvania Academy classmates were "young so broad as to be compared to television or movies women intent upon adding sketching to fancywork in today. They also served a variety of special interests. their list of accomplishments."' In America, as in and Scribners were serious, literary, informative in tone, and appealed to the intellectual, well-educated, and affluent, while McClure's, Frank Leslie's, Munsey's, Collier's, Liberty, and Success offered lighter, more entertaining fare. Some magazines were designed class backgrounds were expected to participate in creative leisure activities. Some minimal proficiency at sketching, needlework, or a musical instrument was considered essential to a lady's character and-not incidentally-her chances of making a good match. Novelists such as Kate Chopin and Edith Wharton grappled with the complexities inherent in a talented woman's relationship to art, often using her affinity especially for a female audience (The Delineator, Woman's Home Companion, Good Housekeeping, McCall's, and Cosmopolitan), others were humorous (Puck, Life3), and many were aimed at children (St. for the plastic arts as symbolic of her overall potential Nicholas, Harper's Young People, Wide Awake, which, all too frequently, was stunted or aborted by Youth's Companion). When one considers the number the pressures society and her family imposed upon her. of periodicals, the speed with which they were For example, early in Chopin's The Awakening (1899), consumed, and the other avenues open to illustrators Edna Pontellier, the central character, is portrayed of the day-book illustration, advertisements, post- painting and drawing during odd leisure moments. She ers-it becomes clear that artist/illustrators had never takes her sketching materials to the seaside and there before had such opportunities for obtaining work and "sometimes dabbled... in an unprofessional way. She for earning a livelihood. Despite the unprecedented opportunities, it is nevertheless surprising to discover just how many women were employed as illustrators during this period. Their success in getting their work published liked the dabbling."' The fact, however, that she derives great satisfaction from her art "of a kind which no other employment afforded her"6 bodes ill for her future happiness. As the novel unfolds and Edna begins to disengage herself from a stifling marriage, she begins and in earning adequate, often extraordinary, incomes to work on her painting in a more disciplined way. in the highly competitive commercial art world is all The growing confidence she feels in her artistic talents the more striking when one considers that at that time as a result provides the foundation upon which she working, for a woman of gentle birth, invoked society's probes other of life's possibilities. In the end, defeated, she commits suicide. opprobrium. The women illustrators of the period are not only of interest historically; several of them, most Another of the period's fictional heroines, Lily Bart, especially the artists under review here-Alice Barber has her finest moment in Edith Wharton's The House Stephens, Jessie Willcox Smith, Elizabeth Shippen of Mirth (1905) when, at an evening of tableau vivants, Green, Charlotte Harding Brown, Violet Oakley, and she transforms herself into a work of art (Reynold's Rose O'Neill-were also exceptionally talented. Mrs. Lloyd), thereby achieving a sort of apotheosis. This content downloaded from 72.225.61.22 on Tue, 05 Dec 2023 21:51:58 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 14 Woman's Art Journal From this unreal state she rapidly tumbles to decline, were available-particularly as illustrators of literaand at the novel's end-when all her chances at ture for women and children. financial security and personal fulfillment have Then as now, illustration was viewed by many as evaporated-she turns once again, but too feebly and a stepchild among the arts, several rungs below "fine art." Because the work was perceived as practical and too late, to art. Though highly intelligent and commercial, genius was not needed, merely a serviceartistically sophisticated, she has not the competence to even trim, let alone design, hats or open a millineryable talent, training, and on-the-job experience. In this shop as she had fantasized. Unable to comprehend the light, the career of illustrator seemed eminently suitable for and not beyond the reach of women. joys of self-sufficiency and ill-equipped mentally and professionally to support herself, she too dies a suicide. Indeed, Alice Morse's remarks in Art and Handicraft in the Woman's Building at the Columbian Exposition The firmly rooted idea that art was woman's (1893) suggest a growing independent spirit among acknowledged domain-though never to be taken seriously by her-was similarly reinforced in popular women at the turn of the century, pleasure in their magazine articles. In a 1906 piece in New Idea Woman's emerging career opportunities (specifically illustraMagazine, Jessie Trimble asked an artist colleague of tion), and optimism about the future. A qualified unspecified sex "Would you advise a girl to become woman, she wrote, "working in reproduction, is assured an art student as quickly as you would a boy?" The a profitable return for her labor," and "Illustration opens so wide and attractive a vista, occupies so high response was enlightening: a place in the art of the country, and is withal so More quickly ... unless a boy has some very marked remunerative, that women would do well to follow it calling to pursue an artistic career, business or the professions are the natural opening for him. With a more largely than they have done heretofore.""'1 necessary that she earn her living, in which case it is infinitely more profitable that she be employed Collier's and Art Amateur carried advertisements for girl it is different. Frequently she studies art realizing fully that she has only mediocre talent. It may not be harmlessly, even though not brilliantly, in the study of drawing or painting.' Responding to the growing interest and "high profitability," many schools of illustration (some of them correspondence schools) were established. schools in Kalamazoo, Indianapolis, and New York City. The promise of high salaries was undoubtedly the lure for one, whose advertisement read: "Draw for In the face of the restrictions and confinements Money," "Illustrators and cartoonists earn $25-100 a women had to endure at the turn of the century, many Week,''12 while the name Howard Chandler Christy was the big attraction as "Teacher of Illustration" in the nevertheless created careers for themselves, not only listing for the Whipple School of Art, New York City.1'3 as illustrators, but as designers, decorators, weavers, copyists, and colorists. At a time when growingIn addition, there were the established institutions: the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA), numbers of middle- and upper-middle-class women in 1805; the aforementioned PSDW and Cooper needed to support themselves, artwork, especially founded if done at home, was considered an extension of women'sUnion Free Art School; Pratt Institute, founded in 1877 in Brooklyn; and the Drexel Institute of Arts and domestic role, thereby "natural" and safe, as it did not encroach on male-female labor divisions. Sciences in Philadelphia. Recognizing the urgent need for vocational training Howard Pyle, one of the leading illustrators of the day, who taught at Drexel, is central to the history for the growing army of "surplus women"-spinsters, widows and divorced women left without funds, womenand development of American illustration during its who had to care for invalid husbands or for siblings-- Golden Age. Not only was he an immensely popular, and aware of how few occupational avenues were open prolific, and influential artist, he was also an to them, a group of socially conscious and enlightened uncommonly gifted, innovative, and generous teacher. leaders began promoting art education, some byHis hope was to raise the general level of work of his day by training promising and serious students for writing persuasively on the subject, others by acting careers in illustration.14 His instruction was notable to found the needed schools."8 for its focus on the particular needs of illustrators, its The Philadelphia School of Design for Women (PSDW)9 and the Cooper Union Free Art School for rejection of standard academic practice, and its women were founded in 1844 and 1854, respectively, practicality. He stressed the importance of historical expressly to provide women with marketable skills. accuracy, advised students to consult period prints, and Teaching was seen as an extension of woman's child- recommended that they begin collections of authentic nurturing role, and many of the schools reflected incostumes and start clipping files as reference aids. As Pyle was interested primarily in the drama of pictures, their curricula this newly appropriate profession. "Teaching," as one author noted in 1872, "is univer-he had his students illustrate the climactic moments of narrative or historical situations, a practice which sally admitted to be women's special work."'0 Illustration as a career for women rarely was men- reinforced the notion that in art "the idea" came first. tioned in the literature until about 1890. Illustrators Once his students approached professional status, Pyle often secured commissions for them. He did this, generally worked free-lance, to deadline, and were usually males working out in the field-the profession,according to Jessie Willcox Smith, "in order to give his students the stimulus of real work."''5 His reputation after all, had gained new prominence because of the as a teacher was such that his recommendation on-the-scene reporting during the Civil War. By the guaranteed that the work his students submitted 1890s, however, the increasing number of publications be of a high level. Indeed, he concentrated his tea had expanded the market for illustration, the career became increasingly lucrative, and jobs for women energies exclusively on the talented, discipline This content downloaded from 72.225.61.22 on Tue, 05 Dec 2023 21:51:58 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Woman's Art Journal 15 ambitious, regardless of gender. He was teacher and sometime mentor to a whole school of American women ~:!I .~ .... uk illustrators, among them Ethel Pennewill Brown Leach, Ellen B. Thompson, Sarah S. Stillwell, Dorothea Warren, Elizabeth Shippen Green, Charlotte Harding, Violet Oakley, Katharine Pyle, Jessie Willcox Smith, Olive Rush, Anna Betts, Anne Mhoon, Bertha Corson Day, and Katharine Wireman. It therefore was rather surprising to discover that even Pyle had "no very strong faith in the permanent artistic ambitions of the feminine sex."16 And he further stated in a full-page illustrated article: "The pursuit of art interferes with a girl's social life and destroys her chances of getting married. Girls are, after all, at best, only qualified for . .. i is . . i ,...,z ?:, ... sentimental work."17 it. is, ~ But, in doubting the "permanent artistic ambitions of the feminine sex," Pyle did not merely echo the isc prejudices of the age; he expressed an opinion formed over years of experience with women artists, both as students and as professionals, and had doubtless observed the all-too-common phenomenon whereby talented women illustrators, even after securing professional recognition and financial independence, gave up their careers or dramatically curtailed their art activities after marriage. Those women who did persist, however, often found themselves illustrating Lo almost exclusively themes of childhood, motherhood, romance, and fantasy. Although the six women discussed here were by no Fig. 1. Alice Barber Stephens, illustration for Nathaniel means cut from the same mold, they did have a good Hawthorne, The Marble Faun (1900), oil on board, 181/4" x 111/2". deal in common. They all came from middle-class Courtesy of Illustration House. families and were therefore able to take advantage of the educational opportunities then opening for women; school each week so that she might enroll in art classes With the exceptions of Jessie Willcox Smith and Violet student. they were also determined and disciplined workers. at PSDW, where, in 1873, she became a full-time Encouraged to study wood engraving because of its Oakley all of them married; the only two to have children, however, were Alice Barber Stephens and Charlotte Harding. All, except Rose O'Neill, who was practicality (it would lead directly to employment), she illustrators of her day. Women, Hamlin Garland's A Son of the Middle Border, became so skillful that while still a teenager she received professional commissions. She continued her art training at PAFA, where she was a student of Europe, studied, worked, and lived in the Philadelphia area most of their lives.'8 Eakins during the school years 1876-77 and 1879-80. By the early 1880s she was employed as a wood engraver for Scribner's. It was an uncommon career ALICE BARBER STEPHENS for a woman and one which, no doubt, aided her in The work of Alice Barber Stephens (1858-1932), the and refining her skill with line. developing oldest of the group, cannot readily be associated In with 1886 Stephens traveled to Europe, where she any particular subject genre. She moved easily between visited major galleries and attended classes at the themes of women and children, illustrations for Academie Julian and Carlo Rossi's. By the mid-1880s children's magazines, and those subjects drawn from her illustrations began to appear regularly in Harper's and directed to the "adult world." Because she often Young People, and soon afterward in several other illustrated bold adventure tales such as Conan Doyle's Harper publications as well as in Scribner's, Century, "The Stark Monroe Letters," her work was measured Collier's, Cosmopolitan, Ladies Home Journal, against, and favorably compared to, that of her McCall's, male and others. Her book credits included George colleagues. In this she was unique among the women Eliot's Middlemarch, Louisa May Alcott's Little from Nebraska and later had studios in New York and Alice was the eighth of nine children born intothe a poems and stories of Bret Harte, and Nathaniel Quaker farm family near Salem, New Jersey. The Hawthorne's The Marble Faun. attitudes that such an environment would foster in a Stephens's early works were notable for a tight pen- child-acceptance of responsibility, respect for andand-ink style and a sober realist cast, undoubtedly pleasure in hard work, and a serious introspective influenced by Eakins. By the mid-1890s, however, when faith-were all the young girl's birthright. Her parents the halftone process freed illustrators to employ a were not only aware of her artistic gifts, but responsive variety of media, she began to work in a fluidly to her needs: when her teachers at the Philadelphia Impressionist manner, as in her watercolor "Buying secondary school she attended would not allow herChristmas to Presents" (1895; Ladies Home Journal). draw, her parents arranged for her to miss a dayFrom of the mid-1890s she began to hone her skills a This content downloaded from 72.225.61.22 on Tue, 05 Dec 2023 21:51:58 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 16 Woman's Art Journal popular and financial success. Bound by the dictates of the affluent Philadelphia society into which she was born, Smith was expected to be refined, well-read, soft- spoken, graceful, and obedient. The record is unclear as to why at age 16 Jessie was sent to Cincinnati to prepare for a career as a kindergarten teacher, but it was soon apparent that despite her affection for children she was ill-suited to teach. As a youngster Jessie felt an almost worshipful reverence for the process of artistic creation. "Pictures ? g~r ?o?, ?g? k had always had a wonderful fascination for me," she wrote in middle age. But a diffident nature had made it impossible for her to think of art as anything "belonging to my world," or to recognize her own remarkable gifts, let alone consider the possibility that she herself might attempt a career in art. She also insisted emphatically, almost defensively, that as a child she "never showed any artistic ability ,,r ;o?i ?: ?: ? . -?m //i whatever."21 Fortunately, when she was 17 years old her cousin, an advanced art student though a young girl like herself, became aware of Jessie's obvious talent and "told" her to "stop teaching kindergarten ... and go to art school."22 In 1884, with parental permission, she enrolled in PSDW. She continued her studies at PAFA (1885-1888) under Eakins and others, and secured a ?'" AY: "'~i10?" t,:i". ???J i 5 i ti : ii; ?I( ?a ', i ti~t~i II i;i` Fig. 2. Jessie Willcox Smith, "Mother and Child," illustration for Aileen Cleveland Higgins, Dream Blocks (1908), oil on canvas, 231/2" x 171/2%". Courtesy of Mr. and Mrs. Benjamin i~jl ii Iri :: fi?e :r Elsenstat. F i ti ~~ ; ii illustrating mystery stories and became so adept at i, , L ":' Ig~p 'i- i ' i : ?;? ..,. * ??c- 1~,n. i~i)) ?" ??1:; " ~h r. ~L~*~I~Er*I'P ~L ~Shc,~,~~ ?u?~?, ?? ..?, 'rp ~Pil i rf3 t~ I 9 ~; d'. ~* lu~ "x f ylf IC .:?.~aBD ?'; ii;: i charged emotional atmosphere, Stephens dramatically contrasted light against dark and, by sharply tilting a diagonal, accelerated the movement deep into space, only to cut off the view abruptly by darkening the jij I irl ?? ?;W 1~ X f s ~Pi?f~ ominously threatening doorways at the hallway's end. 'Ali 8r~r ir oi Neither her marriage to artist Charles Stephens in %jr ;a Lz~ 1890, nor the birth of her only child, Daniel Owen, in Henderson. ,r~?e L *O~??*~I~~~,\~~~*LISI? 1C~ corridor. To heighten the tension in an already highly at PSDW (1889-93), where she became a mentorcertainly an inspiration-to several younger women artists, among them Charlotte Harding and Helen -F~;;??tI~ rl"*;ls~c~ "Mistress of Mysteries." An illustration executed for regularly, 19 helped found the Plastic Club,20 and taught Di : ..fl?r the 1900 Houghton Mifflin edition of The Marble Faun clearly demonstrates her dramatic skills (Fig. 1). A man 1893, caused her to curtail her activities. In addition to a thriving career as an illustrator, she exhibited 2; ( projecting a suspenseful mood that she earned the title and a woman, their bodies tense and their facial expressions frozen with anxiety, are observed from above as they sit and wait in an eerily long vaulted ?~ , .(*? Ct 'I?'~:, .r "; a ?k~dj~i~iR~~ '" s y f~ ? i. i ~ r?~_... ....;, t r r ?~na~rsLvl ::x "'I .'t i. `?? c;, '" I?:i T? ?h. B `' ,? ~t ~ ?;1?i t :::i . .. ??~ ?,r;::in??? :)? `*';si? %~ " -?? t~i~?r JESSIE WILLCOX SMITH ?!:;au Fig. 3. Elizabeth Shippen Green, illustration for "The Retu Jessie Willcox Smith (1863-1935) had neither of Rebecca Mary," Harper's Monthly, caption reads: "A financial necessity nor parental encouragement as an Olivia, Aunt Olivia! She cried joyously." (October 1905), incentive to pursue a career in art, and yet it was she charcoal on paper, 231/2" x 141/4'". Courtesy of Mr. and Mrs. among her female colleagues who achieved the greatest Benjamin Elsenstat. This content downloaded from 72.225.61.22 on Tue, 05 Dec 2023 21:51:58 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Woman's Art Journal 17 job in the art department of the Ladies Home Journal (1888). But it was not until she joined Pyle's class at Drexel (1894) that "all the cobwebs and confusions that so beset the path of the art-student"" were swept away. Smith's work began appearing in national publica- q S? n tions in the late 1880s and 1890s. Her illustrations became immensely popular, earning for her by 1903 A I Ga ff I -Q impressive sums of from $125 to $135 each. By the 1920s her magazine covers brought between $1500 and $1800, 4, and during the 1930s her Good Housekeeping covers commanded $3000. Indeed, she designed every cover for that magazine for 15 consecutive years, earning 1, about a quarter of a million dollars in the process. Certainly one explanation for Smith's extraordinary success lies in the fact that her work fed the fantasies ........... and aspirations of the middle-class society of her day by depicting idyllic, heartwarming images of wholesome family life and secure, happy children. As the editors of Good Housekeeping put it, her pictures "hold up to our readers ... the highest ideals of the American home, the home... one associates with a sunny living- La i..:"Alit S room and children."24 She illustrated nearly 40 books, most notably Little Women, A Child's Garden of Verses, and Charles Kingsley's The Water Babies. Other work included posters, and advertisements for such major companies as Ivory Soap, Quaker Oats, American Radiator, and Campbell Soup. An advertisement she did for the latter company in 1928 is an excellent example of her strongest work, in which the influence of the Japanese Fig. 4. Violet Oakley, Lenten Cov print and the turn-of-the-century poster is apparent. In it she divided her composition into a triptych-like charcoal, 16/4" x 13/4". Courtesy Eisenstat. arrangement. On the left stands a frock-coated hare and on the right, the mad hatter; each holds a bowl of soup and peers intently into the larger central image, at PAFA (c. 1886-1889) with Thomas Anshutz, Thomas where two beautiful children giggling infectiously sit Eakins, and Robert Vonnoh. On her 18th birthday her facing one another from opposite ends of a table, their first published illustration, "Naughty Mary Jane," soup bowls before them. Smith compressed planes, appeared in the Philadelphia Times, which paid her cropped borders, and boldly outlined her forms so that fifty cents for a one-column illustration, one dollar for the work had the simplicity and clarity of a stained-a two-column illustration, and occasionally three dollars for a larger drawing." Soon her work could also glass panel. Smith's themes, almost exclusively those of idealized be seen in the Philadelphia Public Ledger (1893), in motherhood and childhood, were repeated so consis- advertisements for the Strawbridge and Clothier tently that she may have been recreating through her department store (1894), and on the frontispiece of the art the sort of loving relationship she herself had children's magazine Sunbeams (1894). It was probably Green's intense ambition to progress longed for as a child. In an illustration for Dream in Blocks by Aileen Higgins, published by Duffield & Co. her career that led her in 1895 to sign up for Pyle's in 1908 (Fig. 2), an adoring mother reverently caresses classes at Drexel. His instruction and the students she her daughter, who dreamily accepts as her due the met in his classes, most especially Jessie Willcox Smith and Violet Oakley, were to decisively affect her future comfort and love of her mother's embrace. The mother's life and work. Smith, then working in the art department of the Ladies Home Journal, may have 1498 Pieta in St. Peter's. Smith's visual allusion to this helped get Green a job at the magazine, where Green did fashion illustration and other assignments. sacred mother and her blessed child elevates the afraid of hard work and always eager to painting from a mundane image into a sort of Never hymn succeed, financially as well as artistically, Green not only to mother-love in general, but to American sought and earned many free-lance assignments in motherhood in particular. posture, seated, with knees spread beneath a long gown, brings to mind the Madonna in Michelangelo's ELIZABETH SHIPPEN GREEN addition to her regular employment. Between 1895 and 1901 her work appeared in the Saturday Evening Post, Saint Nicholas, Woman's Home Companion, The Elizabeth Shippen Green's (1871-1954) fun-loving Critic, Harper's Weekly, and other magazines. In 1897, nature-she was described as "the first to makeallowing a joke"herself time off to enjoy the fruits of her labor and accompanied by her mother, she went to Europe or "suggest a party"2--in no way interfered with her highly developed sense of responsibility and serious to visit major museums and galleries and to sketch. attitude toward her work. She began her art That studies same year she joined Smith and Oakley in renting This content downloaded from 72.225.61.22 on Tue, 05 Dec 2023 21:51:58 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 18 Woman's Art Journal studio space (for $18 a month) at 1523 Chestnut Street throat"3' at age 12. While she was convalescing, t in downtown Philadelphia. As their careers flourished doctor took note of her efforts to copy in oils a they moved in 1902 to an elegant estate near Villanova blossoming fuschia plant. He urged Charlotte to enter called "The Red Rose," and four years later to another, art competitions and ultimately convinced her skepwhich they named "Cogslea," an acronym derived from tical parents that art would be a worthy and perhaps their collective last initials and that of their friend a profitable profession for their daughter. With a full Henrietta Cozens." This communal living and working scholarship from the Philadelphia Board of Public arrangement went on for 14 years. Education, Charlotte, at age 16, enrolled at PSDW. Green appears to have been an extraordinarily The young woman's artistic gifts and prodigious devoted daughter. She not only supported her parents, capacity for hard work impressed her teachers, Jasper Green and Elizabeth Shippen Boude, in their particularly Alice Barber Stephens and Howard Pyle, later years, and brought them to live with her at who became her mentors. In 1890 Harding was among Cogslea, but delayed her marriage to the architect the female students enrolled in Stephens's life drawing Huger Elliott until after her parents' deaths because class, where they were given the then unique opporshe did not want to burden him with their support." tunity to draw from the nude figure "under the guidance After her marriage in 1911, Green made several career of one of their own sex."32 Though 15 years older than moves with her husband-first to Providence, where her student, Stephens befriended Charlotte, criticized he became the director of the Rhode Island School of her work, and later, when Harding began illustrating Design; then to Boston, where he joined the staff professionally, of invited her to share her studio at 1004 the Boston Museum of Fine Arts; back to Philadelphia,Chestnut Street (c. 1899-1903).33 The two women when he became director of the Museum School of became lifelong friends and visited one another Industrial Arts; and, finally, to New York City, where regularly, despite the fact that in 1913 Harding moved he was named director of the education department with her husband and child to Brooklyn Heights and later to Smithtown, Long Island. of the Metropolitan Museum. Green never allowed these dislocations to interfere After completing her studies at PSDW, Harding took a summer class with Robert Henri (July 1893), as well with her work. After signing an exclusive contract with as a variety of classes at PAFA (Fall 1894), and from Harper's Monthly in 1901, which lasted until 1924, her work regularly appeared in the magazine's pages.1894 In to 1900 she attended Howard Pyle's illustration classes at Drexel. Like Stephens, Pyle recognized a career spanning 44 years, her work was published Harding's talent and diligence. He included her in over 30 books, including An Alliterative Alphabet illustrations in an 1897 exhibition of the work of his Aimed at Adult Abecedarians (1947), on which she collaborated with her husband. most promising students and arranged professional Her work is particularly notable for its decisive use commissions for her as he had done for others. Even of line and for its decorative quality, as in her after she had ceased attending his classes, Harding illustration for "The Return of Rebecca Mary" (Fig. often brought her work to Pyle to critique. 3), first published in Harper's Monthly (1905), and later Harding taught classes in charcoal and wash in book form. Dominating the composition of a young drawing at PSDW during the school year 1895-96, but girl and a woman embracing at a train depot is thethe strain of her many obligations, including her own graceful fall of the woman's long Victorian gown as schooling and family duties, forced her to abandon that she leans forward to encircle the child in her arms. path. Further, her career as a professional illustrator, The woman's face is hidden. We see her only from the which had begun in the mid-1890s, was flourishing by decade's end. Two of her illustrations appeared in back, a daring vantage point for the time and one that Golden Days (1894 and 1896), and a prize-winning might have been perceived as indecorous were it not for the fact that the overriding sentiment implicit in drawing on an Easter theme was reproduced in the the work is the warm affection between woman and Philadelphia Times. By 1899 her work could be seen child. in the Saturday Evening Post, Youth's Companion, and on the important turn-of-the-century cover (December 1899) of Woman's Home Companion. CHARLOTTE HARDING Harding was most productive during the first decade of the 20th century. Her work regularly appeared in The difficult circumstances of Charlotte Harding's Collier's, Everybody's, Harper's Bazaar, Harper's (1873-1951) childhood and early adolescence dictated Monthly, that she be self-supporting and responsible-not only Ladies Home Journal, McClure's, and Century. for herself but for others. When she was 12 years old, On the evening of January 7, 1902, Charlotte her mother, Charlotte Matthews," contracted pneumoHarding was invited by President and Mrs. Theodore nia and developed tuberculosis; she was consumptive Roosevelt to attend a diplomatic reception at the White until her death in 1918. Despite the fact that her father Joseph was a skilled molder who earned a good House. livingShe was probably invited on the basis of the illustrations she had done to accompany the article, constructing locomotive parts, huge kitchen ranges, "Thenot Capital of Our Democracy" by Henry Loomis and fancy coal stoves, Charlotte "knew she would only have to earn her own living," but would alsoNelson, have which was to be published in the May 1903 issue of Century. The 29-year-old artist must have felt to "help at home supporting the younger brothers."" especially honored because the reception was among The young Charlotte was fortunate, however, in that the first hosted by the newly inaugurated president. her talent caught the attention of Dr. Edward W. Thewho prestige of receiving such an invitation was not Watson, the physician attending her mother and on Mr. Gilder, editor of Century, for, according also cared for her when she suffered a "diptheticlost sore This content downloaded from 72.225.61.22 on Tue, 05 Dec 2023 21:51:58 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Woman's Art Journal 19 Oakley's formal art training was rather sporadic. She to Harding's account book, the magazine not only paid worked for her drawings, but provided an additional $350 to with J. Carroll Beckwith and Irving Wiles at the Art Students League in New York City (c. 1892cover "expenses": a long, white dress; long, white kid 1893), and when her family went to visit relatives in gloves; an inlaid pearl fan; and hostess presents.3' Europe during the winter of 1895, she studied at the In September 1905 Charlotte Harding married James Academie Montparnasse with Aman-Jean, Collin, and Adams Brown, a metalurgical engineer, and three years later their only child, also named Charlotte, the was very talented Charles Lazar, who was also her teacher at Rye in Sussex, where he conducted summer born. The artist gave up her studio and began to work at home, in Holmesburg, Pennsylvania. By 1912, however, the demands of being a wife, mother, and professional illustrator became too much for her."3 In 1913, when her husband was transferred to the New York office of W.S. Rockwell & Co., Harding gave up classes. In 1896, because of her father's illness, the family returned to the United States, settling first in New York City and, later that year, in Philadelphia. Violet enrolled briefly at PAFA, studying with Cecelia Beaux, Joseph De Camp, and Henry Thouron. Toward the end of that year, she joined Pyle's class at Drexel, Like Stephens, Harding used models and her own where her sister Hester was already in attendance. photographs as visual references. She sometimes made Oakley's talent was almost immediately recognized trips to the locales she was to illustrate; the sketches by Pyle, who soon arranged a professional commission done on a trip to Montreal in 1900, for example, were for her. She and classmate Jessie Willcox Smith used for her drawings for George W. Cable's "Pere collaborated on illustrating Longfellow's "Evangeline," which was published by Houghton Mifflin (1897). Raphael" (Century, August 1901). Other assignments followed, and Oakley's work began A Harding illustration for "The Daughters of Desperation" by Hildegard Brooks (inside front cover), to appear regularly in major magazines, including serialized in Collier's Weekly (1904), demonstrates the Century, Harper's, Collier's, Everybody's, and Ladies artist's wit and sure sense of design. In the charcoal Home Journal. Oakley turned to illustration because it was a and wash drawing, three kneeling women, each dressed in a billowing, pale-rose tinted gown, are seen in profile, lucrative profession. After her father became ill she lined up one behind the other. Their cameras are at was obliged to work to help support her mother.37 the ready while a dog, as alert as they, stands before Though raised an Episcopalian, she had begun in 1900 them pointing the way. The figures and dog function to follow the teachings of Mary Baker Eddy in the hope as decorative design elements. Their forms are boldly of helping her gravely ill father. Her new-found faith outlined and flattened in a frieze-like arrangement; in the Christian Science church sustained her at the time of his death and, she believed, helped her to they lead our eye from left to right as if we were reading words or musical notations. The medievalized lettering overcome the debilitating asthma attacks that had below the drawing comments on and harmonizes with plagued her for many years. Her conversion was undoubtedly a crucial moment the four figures within the design itself. The three capital letters "T" "D" "D," which are stressed by being in her development-perhaps it was this event that silhouetted against darkened squares, echo the number led her to the conviction that the role of the artist was three relating to the women above, while a fourth to inspire and instruct. As she became more convinced element-a sort of gothic manuscript drollery corres- that art should evoke a moral response, she looked for her career as an illustrator. ponding to the dog, stops the eye and resolves the visual other outlets for her artistic talents. Her career as an phrase. illustrator as a result was rather brief-lasting only from about 1897 to 1908. Thereafter she devoted herself primarily to stained glass design and mural painting. Her reputation today, in fact, rests mainly on her murals, most particularly the two cycles she executed Violet Oakley (1874-1961), born in Bergen Heights, for the Pennsylvania State Capitol at Harrisburg: one New Jersey, was, according to Edith Emerson, her of scenes narrating William Penn's founding of former student and nearly lifelong companion, a Pennsylvania (1902-6), the other of the events leading delicate, asthmatic, and extremely shy child. When she the creation and preservation of the Union (1911was of age, her parents refused to send her to to Vassar VIOLET OAKLEY 20). College, where her older sister Hester had gone, fearing that the strain would be too much for her. When she Oakley's didactic approach and inspirational decided to pursue a career in art, however, she did so with her family's full encouragement. Indeed, many family members were amateur or professional artists themselves: both of her grandfathers were National Academy of Design associates; her mother, Cornelia Swain, studied with William Morris Hunt and did portrait drawings and subject paintings before her marriage; and her aunts Julianna, Isabella, and Georgiana Oakley studied art and traveled widely in Europe, visiting its great museums and monuments message inspire little more than nostalgia in today's viewer. Nevertheless, the murals work because they are beautifully executed and visually riveting. Iron- ically, Oakley's talent as an illustrator saves the murals, for she was a master at its craft-making pictorial that which is at root literary, to clarify, explain, convince, and, to decorate. A lover of theater, the artist often depicted a poign- ant or dramatic moment in her illustrations. Her Lenten cover for Collier's Weekly (1899; Fig. 4), and sending home to their nieces reproductions of old example, is set in the shallow space before a doorw master paintings and inspiring letters. As Oakley later of a gothic cathedral. The actors are a woman and put it, her desire to become an artist was "hereditarya young girl dressed in medieval robes. Both the setting and chronic."" and the costumes are based on historical fact-the This content downloaded from 72.225.61.22 on Tue, 05 Dec 2023 21:51:58 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 20 Woman's Art Journal scholarly Oakley, following Pyle's suggestion, insisted magazines. Her poems and stories as well as her on authenticity. The artist, an extraordinary draftsdrawings regularly appeared in Life, Good Housekeepwoman, used bold outline to give definition and solidity ing, and Collier's. to her forms and to help animate the scene and advance O'Neill often used cupid-like babies as tailpieces for the narrative. The downcast eyes of the woman asmagazine she stories, and in 1909, at the suggestion of reaches out to accept the devotional candle offered her Home Journal editor Edward Bok, she began Ladies by the young girl impart a mood of quietude, humility, to devote full pages to their antics. The chubby elfs even piety. The facial expression of the young girl,and who their bumbling good nature touched a responsive bears a resemblance to photographs of Oakley herself, if sentimental chord in the American public, and for suggests wonder and respect. The simple act of exchanging a candle thus becomes a solemn, if not the next 25 years the engaging creatures regularly appeared in the pages of a variety of women's an overtly religious, moment. magazines. On March 4, 1913, O'Neill patented the Oakley taught at PAFA between 1912 and 1917, the Kewpie Doll. That they developed into a sensation and only female instructor besides Cecilia Beaux, and wonthen into an "industry" was a surprise for their creator numerous awards, medals, and honors. Among them who, by her own admission, developed them "only to were a gold medal from the St. Louis exposition (1904), have a little fun."" Kewpie spin-offs included dolls in a gold medal of honor from PAFA (1905), and an many sizes and materials (from bisque to plush), honorary Doctor of Laws degree from Drexel (1948). nursery china, boxes, door knobs, ink wells, picture Until the end of her days she supported the cause offrames, magic lantern slides, greeting cards, soaps, handkerchiefs, printed fabrics, embroidered pillows, universal peace and brotherhood. Disappointed because the United States did not join the League ofwallpaper, and Kewpie books. With the assistance of her sister Callista, her companion and business Nations in 1927, she traveled to Geneva, a selfappointed ambassador, and did portraits of many of manager, the artist operated for a time a Kewpie shop on New York City's Madison Avenue! It is estimated its delegates, which were later widely exhibited. that O'Neill earned over a million dollars in royalties from the Kewpie craze. In addition, she continued to illustrate magazines, other authors' books, advertisements (for Jello), and to make "serious" art. She also In many ways Rose O'Neill (1875-1944) was as flamboyant a figure and led as colorful a life as herpublished a volume of poetry and four novels.39 celebrated contemporary Isadora Duncan (1878-1927). Though childless, the artist married and divorced In addition to being a popular illustrator and creatortwice. Her first marriage (1896-1901) was to the of the ubiquitous Kewpie Doll, she was also at varioushandsome Virginian "aristocrat" Gray Latham, whom stages in her life an actress, a poet, a novelist, and she had met in Omaha. Arguments over money most a sculptor. She no doubt inherited her many gifts from likely contributed to the dissolution of the marriage; her parents, both of whom were highly artistic. Herin trying to develop a motion-picture projector during father, William Patrick O'Neill, was said to be more the industry's infancy, Latham appropriated a large interested in the arts than in his work and made an portion of O'Neill's income. Her second marriage was ROSE O'NEILL to the author and former editor of Puck, Harry Leon "uncertain" living for his large family as a book dealer and salesman. Her mother, Alice Asenath Cecelia Smith, a public school teacher before her marriage, appeared in amateur theatricals and was very musical. Born in Nebraska, Rose was raised a Catholic and educated in convent schools, where she studied piano, violin, and dramatics. Her father expected her to be an actress. He coached her in Shakespearean roles, and between the ages of 15 and 17 she was cast in bit parts in two brief tours with traveling theater companies. Even earlier in her remarkably eventful adolescence she began to publish illustrations. At age 13 she won a children's art contest with a pen-andink sketch ponderously titled "Temptation Leading down into an Abyss," which was sponsored by the Omaha World Herald. The newspaper subsequently hired her to do a weekly cartoon series. The next year the young, self-taught artist published drawings and poems in the Great Divide, a Denver magazine. At age 17 Rose left her Nebraska home in hopes of furthering her illustrating career. She moved to New York City, lived at the convent of the Sisters of Saint Regis and, accompanied by a nun, made the rounds of magazine publishers to show her drawings. Soon her work was being published in Truth and Cosmopolitan, and she was also employed as a staff illustrator for the humor magazine Puck. By the mid-1890s she was sought after by the art editors of America's major Wilson (1902-1907), whose successful first novel, The Spenders (1902), she had illustrated. O'Neill's great wealth allowed her to live and travel in Europe, which she did from about 1912 to 1918, and to maintain several residences in the United States, where, not unlike the semifictional "Auntie Mame," she played "lady bountiful." She opened her Washing- ton Square studio and Westport, Connecticut, mansion to all who called themselves artists and allowed many to charge meals to her account at the Hotel Brevoort in Greenwich Village. After she became famous for her Kewpies she often went barefoot, was sometimes given to baby talk, and when she was doing her "creative" work dressed in Grecian-style gowns of peach silk, which she wore under rose- or wine-colored flowing velvet robes."o O'Neill developed a style which combined swirls of Art-Nouveau-inspired line with soft, velvety modeling of form. Her distinctive technique is apparent in an untitled 1909 illustration (inside front cover) of a mother cuddling her baby while three other children of varying ages and degrees of curiosity surround, point at, and scrutinize the newborn. The line that deter- mines the contour of the elegant slope of the mother's neck, the infant's kimono, and the chubby arm, finger, and dress of the pointing child, is used both to define form and to move one's eye in a continuous clockwise This content downloaded from 72.225.61.22 on Tue, 05 Dec 2023 21:51:58 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Woman's Art Journal 21 motion around the composition. Examples of the artist's luxurious modeling can be seen in the young girl's dress and the woman's skirt. So beguiling is the subject and execution of this illustration that one is hardly aware that the artist has distorted form for compositional reasons-the woman's knees are placed confidence which in turn, contributed to a steady progress. so far from her upper torso that they hardly seem part of her body. O'Neill exhibited a suite of symbolist drawings at the Galerie Davambez in Paris in Spring 1921, and at the Wildenstein Gallery in New York City the following year. Both French and American critics These six illustrators represent a fraction of the larg number of women artist/illustrators active-and successful-during the early years of this century. A save Rose O'Neill who was self-taught, were train in the fine arts and showed in their work the by th conservative influences of the Pre-Raphaelites, the A and Crafts Movement, Art Nouveau, the Japane print, and to a lesser extent Impressionism. But t were not exceptional. Illustrators from both side the Atlantic, both men and women, were incorporat in their work the bird's-eye view and flattened for of the Japanese print, the sinuous and voluptuous li in the catalogue essay that O'Neill's work was of Art Nouveau, and the nostalgic appeal of the Mid "profound," "strange," and "at once sombre and full Ages as envisioned by the Pre-Raphaelites and the A of light, exalted and terrifying,""' while Talbot Hamlin, praised her "sweet monsters." Arsene Alexander wrote the architectural historian whose later Greek Revival and Crafts advocates. Architecture in America was a model of scholarly Collectively, their work might be described as anecdotal, and decorative. It is rare to circumspection, was unrestrained in his praise of charming, the discover in it powerful intellectual or psychological artist's ability "to touch, to move, to inspire a tragic insights, or even formal experimentation, but these are awe." He even went so far as to find parallels in her rare discoveries in any art form. Given the genre, the work to Blake and Michelangelo.42 Although the work art must be judged a success. But, however one today appears a bit dated, it is nevertheless provocative evaluates the work, the historic significance of these and technically excellent. women artists is beyond question. * Left almost penniless after the Depression, O'Neill moved to "Bonnie Brook," her home in the Ozarks. She died in 1944 in Springfield, Missouri, of a paralytic stroke. 1. An important essay on this subject by Roland Elzea can be found in the catalogue for the exhibition "The Golden Age of Illustration" (Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington, 1972), 8-17. 2. Ibid., 8. Elzea noted that, whereas leading magazines before the What combination of circumstances, character traits, 1880s cost 25? to 35? per issue, by 1893 the newly founded McClure's cost only 15C. and influences made it possible for the six women 3. The Life magazine referred to should not be confused with the artists discussed above to pursue careers in illustration photojournalist Life. Founded as a humor magazine in 1882, the and to achieve not only professional status and critical original Life lasted until 1936, when it sold the rights to its name. acclaim but financial security, affluence, and, in the 4. MacKinley Helm, John Marin (N.Y.: Pelegrine and Cudahy, 1948), 8. case of Smith and O'Neill, extraordinary wealth? 5. Kate Chopin, The Awakening (N.Y.: Putnam's, 1964), 28. Clearly, a native talent was essential, and all of the 6. Ibid. women were extraordinarily gifted-but aesthetic 7. Jessie Trimble, "Studying and Succeeding in Art," New Idea aptitude alone does not explain their success. Many Woman's Magazine (October 1906), 15. forces, external and personal, were at work. First, the strong market for professional illustrators 8. Sarah Peter, for example, was a philanthropist and social leader who organized the Philadelphia School of Design for Women in 1844 (now Moore College of Art). In their zeal to promote art education for women, writers often made rather extravagant, if at the turn of the century, fueled by the seemingly endless appetite on the part of the American public for books and magazines, led to innovation and then to expansion in the publishing industry. Then, too, charming, claims as to the benefits to be derived from the study of art. The life of an artist, according to Jessie Trimble: While difficult, is not strenuous if wisely pursued, and it is said that the general health of girl students improves education in the arts was available for women, especially in Philadelphia, where five of the six artists under art study. There is so much that is mentally lived and worked. As to personal motives, despite their middle-class relaxing about the social intercourse, and so much that is from the start, calculated to fire ambition, that the mental state of the girl is healthy. Ibid, 12. status, financial necessity motivated all but one of the 9. The Philadelphia School of Design for Women will henceforth artists. The knowledge that they had to become independent, to take care of themselves and in some be abbreviated PSDW and, after first citation, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine the Arts, PAFA. 10. "Art-Work for Women," Art Journal (March 1872), 65. cases, of family members, did not defeat or demoralize 11. Alice C. Morse, quoted in Maud Howe Elliott, ed., Art and them. Rather, it encouraged the women to develop the Handicraft in the Woman's Building of the World's Columbian determination necessary to undertake long years of Exposition (Chicago: Goupil, 1893), 68, 73. had the support and encouragement of either family members, friends, and/or teachers. Every small success, such as entering and winning art contests or art scholarships, being granted the privilege of entering art school early, or the pleasure of seeing a15. where attendance was by invitation only. He also held summer sessions at Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, between 1898 and 1903. His formal teaching came to an end in 1905, but he continued to give informal criticism to professional illustrators who sought training and to not only face, but to welcome, the hard 12. Collier's (April 1905), 25. work necessary to progress in their chosen profession. 13. Ibid., 73. 14. Pyle taught at Drexel from October 1894 until February 1900, It is also significant that to some degree each woman the year he opened his own tuition-free school of illustration, first work published, reinforced in them a growing self- him out. Jessie Willcox Smith, "Jessie Willcox Smith," Good Housekeeping (October 1917), 190. This content downloaded from 72.225.61.22 on Tue, 05 Dec 2023 21:51:58 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 22 Woman's Art Journal 33. In 1903 Harding rented her own studio at 10 S. 18th St., 16. Jessie Trimble, "The Founder of an American School of Art," Philadelphia. Outlook (1907), 455. 34. Letter to the author from Charlotte Ganz. 17. Howard Pyle, "Why Art and Marriage Won't Mix," North 35. One particularly frustrating incident for the artist was recounted American, June 19, 1894. in the above letter. Charlotte Harding always placed a folded 18. Philadelphia was particularly hospitable to women artists at the screen across the doorway of her workroom in her home in order turn of the century. It had several art schools which accepted to keep her then four-year-old child in sight, but out of her work female students (Drexel, PSDW, PAFA), many museums and space. When the artist was distracted for a moment to answer galleries, and a thriving publishing industry. the telephone, the little girl "stepped around the barricade," and 19. Stephens exhibited for several years at PAFA and in 1890 won "thinking to help the work along, added spectacles in charcoal a prize for her Portrait of a Boy. She won a gold medal at an to all the figures in the illustration." When Harding returned, 1899 London exhibit of women's work, and her 1879 grisaille she "sat down and cried." That incident, according to the artist's Female Life Students at the Pennsylvania Academy has been daughter, marked the beginning of the end of Harding's widely reproduced. (See WAJ, S/S 1981, 37.) professional illustration career. 20. The Plastic Club, which still exists, is a Philadelphia organization established in 1897 by and for women artists. Stephens, Smith, 36. Oakley is quoted in Regina Armstrong, "Representative American Women Illustrators," The Critic (June 1900), 520. Green, Harding, and Oakley all were members and exhibited 37. Like Elizabeth Shippen Green, Oakley was a dutiful daughter. there. See Helen Goodman, "The Plastic Club," Arts Magazine She invited her mother to join her household at Red Rose Inn (March 1985), 100-103. at Villanova, which also included Jessie Willcox Smith, Elizabeth 21. Smith, "Jessie Willcox Smith," 190. 22. Ibid. Shippen Green, Oakley's mother, Green's parents, and Henrietta 23. Ibid. Cozens. See Emerson, "Violet Oakley," 8. 38. Robert H. Gibbons, ed., Sweet Monsters: The Serious Art of Rose 24. "The Secret was about Covers," Good Housekeeping (November O'Neill (no city or publisher indicated, 1980), n.p. This pamphlet 1917), 32. is a compilation of articles about Rose O'Neill and her 1921 Paris 25. S. Michael Schnessel, Jessie Willcox Smith (N.Y.: Crowell, 1977), 32. exhibit. This quote comes from Edythe H. Browne, "Rose O'Neill's Sculptured Drawings," International Studio (March 1922), n.p. 26. See the catalogue essay by Catherine Connell Stryker in "The 39. Her poetry volume was called The Master-Mistress (1922) and Studios at Cogslea" (Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington, 1976), 18. her novels included The Loves of Edwy (1904), sentimental and semi-biographical; The Lady in the White Veil (1909), a mystery; 27. Edith Emerson, "Violet Oakley, 1874-1961," Germantown Crier, Garda (1929), a mystical story; and The Goblin Woman (1930), December 1961, 9. a gothic tale. 28. Stryker, "Studio at Cogslea," 21. 40. Her sister Callista wore similar costumes in shades of pale green. 29. Both of Charlotte Harding's parents emigrated to this country 41. A translation of Arsdne Alexandre's introduction in the catalogue from England. They married in 1872 in New Jersey and later of Rose O'Neill's Paris exhibition, reprinted in Gibbons, Sweet settled in Philadelphia, where their children were born and raised. Monsters. 30. Letter to the author from Charlotte Ganz, daughter of Charlotte 42. Talbot Faulkner Hamlin, "Mythic Visions in Modern Drawings: Harding, February 15, 1981. The Art of Rose O'Neill" (April 1922), n.p., reprinted in ibid. 31. This Charlotte Harding quote comes from notes the artist wrote for her two-year-old grandson Albert Harding Ganz when she was ill in 1940. Quoted in ibid. 32. Philadelphia School of Design for Women, Announcement HELEN GOODMAN, an art historian, teaches at the Fashion (Philadelphia: PSDW, c.1888), n.p. Archives Moore College of Art. Institute of Technology, New York City. Her area of Emily Sartain, the principal of PSDW, probably worded the specialization is late 19th- to early 20th-century American course description in this way to head off any objections which art, and she has published numerous essays dealing with might have resulted from offering this class to young women during the Victorian period. the period. This content downloaded from 72.225.61.22 on Tue, 05 Dec 2023 21:51:58 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms damp.*a 4- i;L~~ .I f "?r u\> ,c 4'r it Adii AA A t -i i r -'- S ( .. " r' ,1 i J ,, ...*?, f,,-i--, 1i ll Charlotte Harding, illustration for "The Daughters of Desperation," Collie of Library of Congress. i, j .. ' .! . , la . ... . <. oO"A. . I"i" -~ .,,, ... .. .. ? .. . .> . ........... .- . .. . . ..,i < .. ... " Rose O'Neill, illustration for Pictorial Review (June 17, House. This content downloaded from 72.225.61.22 on Tue, 05 Dec 2023 21:51:58 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms