Introduction

In the United States of America during the late 19th and early 20th century, women became increasingly visible in public spaces through the appearance of new leisure activities and consumer culture, brought about by developments such as tremendous economic prosperity, industrial and technological progress, new social movements. These circumstances paved the way for the evolution of new female gender ideals which manifested themselves in the emergence of certain female archetypes, three of which constitute the focus of this project, namely the Gibson Girl, the New Woman, and the Suffragette. All of these terms denominate white, middle and higher class women from a younger age to roughly middle age.

The Gibson Girl was mainly an aesthetic phenomenon during the Gilded Age in the United States of America. Its name was derived from the artist Charles Dana Gibson’s name whose illustrations depicted the contemporary ideal of “American” feminine beauty. Gibson Girls adhered to a specific silhouette—tall and slender, curves but a narrow waist—and sported voluminous hairstyles (Patterson “Gibson Girl”, 28). Along with the fashionable silhouette came expectations regarding a respectable character, independence, and confidence (Patterson “Gibson Girl”, 29).

The New Woman, however, does not describe an aesthetic ideal so much as a socio-cultural phenomenon. She is characterized by her independence and strength, her social and political activism, and her challenging of traditional gender roles. Other distinguishing factors were the wearing of practical rather than fashionable clothing and the pursuit of higher education. The archetype of the New Woman does not encompass a homogenous group of women. According to scholar Martha H. Patterson “the New Woman represents all of these contradictory positions and more: suffragist, prohibitionist, clubwoman, college girl, American girl, socialist, capitalist, anarchist, pickpocket, bicyclist, barren spinster, mannish woman, outdoor girl, birth-control advocate, modern girl, eugenicist, flapper, blues woman, lesbian, and vamp” (“New Woman”, 1).

The Suffragette, finally, was a distinctly political figure who fought for women’s right to vote. Deeply unsettling to many men—and women—in their ambitions, women partaking in the suffrage movement were often subjected to ridicule and disdain and were regularly met with thinly concealed hostility (Goodier and Pastorello, 189).

Gender ideals are applied to individuals by their contemporaries and their society. Each period and society has its own idealized concepts, according to which people, their appearance, their values, and their actions are evaluated and judged. This research project examines female gender ideals of the Gilded Age along the three archetypes Gibson Girl, New Woman, and Suffragette, more specifically the stance of Town Topics within their discussion. How are those three individual characters portrayed? What are their connotations? Did the journal´s authors and editors perceive being called a Gibson Girl, for example, as something to be pursued and endeavored, or something to be avoided? What does Town Topics reveal about the social implications of being one or the other?

The data was collected along the following criteria: The database’s own search system was used to collect every mention of each of the three archetypes within the relevant time frames; the temporal distribution is visualized below in one graph per term. To fulfil the requirements for the analysis, the mentions had to appear together with attributes or context utilizable for further study. Mere contextless namings were excluded, as well as jokes, for example, whose content and context is no longer apparent to the contemporary reader. Other than that, there were no strict rules, and the decision was made for each individual mention. The quotes and keywords included in the analysis had be informative, comprehensible, and as diverse as possible in terms of attitudes and standpoints.