Women Building History: Public Art at the 1893 Columbian Exposition [Reprint 2019 ed.] 9780520947467

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T H E

'Im

A H M A N SON

IT

F 1 N E

M

A H M A N S O N

A RT S

• M U R P HV 1 M P R 1 NT

F O U N D A T I O N

has endowed this imprint to honor the memory of F R A N K L I N

D.

M U R P H Y

who for half a century served arts and letters, beauty and learning, in equal measure by shaping with a brilliant devotion those institutions upon which they rely.

The publisher gratefully acknowledges the generous support of Susan McClatchy as a member of the Literati Circle of the University of California Press Foundation.

WOMEN BUILDING HISTORY

Published with the assistance of the Getty Foundation.

WOMEN BUILDING HISTORY Public Art at the 1 8 9 3 Columbian Exposition

W A N D A M. C O R N

with contributions by

Charlene G. Garfinkle Annelise K. Madsen

m UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA BERKELEY

LOS A N G E L E S

PRESS LONDON

University of California Press, o n e of t h e most distinguished university presses in t h e U n i t e d States, enriches lives a r o u n d t h e world by advancing scholarship in t h e humanities, social sciences, a n d natural sciences. Its activities are s u p p o r t e d by t h e U C Press Foundation a n d by p h i l a n t h r o p i c contributions f r o m individuals a n d institutions. For m o r e i n f o r m a t i o n , visitwww.ucpress.edu. University of California Press Berkeley a n d Los Angeles, California University of California Press, Ltd. London, England © 2 0 1 1 by W a n d a M. C o r n Every effort has b e e n m a d e to identify a n d locate t h e rightful copyright h o l d e r s of all material n o t specifically commissioned for use in this publication a n d to secure permission, w h e r e applicable, for reuse of all such material. Credit, if a n d as available, has b e e n provided for all b o r r o w e d material either on-page, in t h e list of illustrations, or in t h e acknowledgments. Any e r r o r , omission, or failure to obtain authorization with respect to material copyrighted by o t h e r sources has b e e n e i t h e r unavoidable o r u n i n t e n t i o n a l . T h e a u t h o r a n d publisher welcome any i n f o r m a t i o n that would allow t h e m to correct f u t u r e reprints. L I B R A R Y OF C O N G R E S S C A T A L O G I N G - I N - P U B L I C A T I O N

DATA

C o r n , W a n d a M. W o m e n building history : public art at t h e 1893 C o l u m b i a n Exposition / W a n d a M. C o r n ; with contributions by C h a r l e n e G. Garfinkle a n d Annelise K. Madsen. p. cm. Includes bibliographical r e f e r e n c e s a n d index. ISBN 978-0-520-24111-4 (cloth : alk. p a p e r ) 1. W o m e n in art. 2. Sex role in art. 3. Mural painting a n d decoration—Illinois—Chicago—19th c e n t u r y — T h e m e s , motives. 4. Decoration a n d o r n a m e n t , Architectural—Illinois—Chicago— History—19th c e n t u r y — T h e m e s , motives. 5. W o m a n ' s Building (World's C o l u m b i a n Exposition, 1 8 9 3 , Chicago, 111.) 6. W o m e n artists. 7. Chicago (111.)—Buildings, structures, etc. I. Garfinkle, C h a r l e n e G. II. Madsen, Annelise K. III. Title. N7630.C83 2011 704'.04209730g034-dc2 2 2010024459 M a n u f a c t u r e d in t h e U n i t e d States of America 20

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T h e p a p e r used in this publication meets t h e m i n i m u m requirem e n t s o f ANSI/NISO Z 3 9 . 4 8 - 1 9 9 2 (R 1 9 9 7 )

of Paper).

(Permanence

To those who have carried the torch and made it burn ever brighter

CONTENTS

Sidebars are by Annelise K. Madsen (A. K. M.), with one by Wanda M. Corn (W. M. C.). T h e biographies and bibliography are by Charlene G. Garfinkle.

|

Acknowledgments

ix

INTRODUCTION

1

SIDEBAR

I

^ f

3 THE MURALS

113

SIDEBARS

The New Girl and the New Woman

128

The Skirt Dance 13 7

The Archive 4

The Feminization of the Banjo 19

1 THE FAIR SIDEBAR

140

Other Decorations in the Woman's Building 4 THE CRITICISM

The Mural Movement in Paris 4 6

158 167

SIDEBAR

65

2 THE WOMAN'S BUILDING

The Fate of the Mural Decorations

179

SIDEBARS

The Women's Pavilion at the i8j6 Exhibition

Centennial

67

Achievements in Paint, Lace, and Numbers Women Speak Out 82 The College Girl 84 The Impressionists as Antimuralists Writing "Herstory " 99

94

76

Biographies

189

Notes

211

Bibliography

227

List of Illustrations

241

Index

249

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS -•vy» jt. .5 \si*»

T h e debts I have incurred writing this book span

side feminist colleagues who were

a professional lifetime. They began to mount up

higher education for women. It was at Mills that

as soon as I arrived in Berkeley, California, in

I first came upon Mary Cassatt's mural for the

1969, a political greenhorn from the East with an

Woman's Building and began to teach it regu-

reinventing

almost finished art history doctorate from New

larly in my courses. O f the many Mills colleagues

York University. I did not know it then, but Cal-

who were part of my reeducation, I thank JoAnne

ifornia was going to give me another education,

Bernstein, Lenore Blum, Joanne Leonard, Diana

paralleling my husband's as he took his Ph.D. at

O ' H e h i r , Moira Roth, and Richard Terdiman.

the University of California, Berkeley. My "extra-

That Mills had a long history in all the arts—Ter-

curricular" degree was in social history and femi-

ence Riley, Robert Ashley, and filmmaker William

nism, learned in the streets, in consciousness-rais-

Farley were all teaching in the music department

ing sessions, in lectures I attended at Cal Berkeley,

during my years—meant endowments to host vis-

and in my early years of teaching there, followed

iting artists and lecturers, a m o n g them the late

by teaching at Mills College and from 1980 on at

Imogen Cunningham, Jay DeFeo, and Susan Son-

Stanford University. At Berkeley, my unofficial

tag, as well as Miriam Shapiro, Suzanne Lacy, and

mentors in social history were Lawrence Levine,

Yvonne Rainer. Up-close encounters with these

Leon Litwack, Svetlana Alpers, and T.J. Clark. At

and other short-term visitors played a vital role in

Mills College, during the 1970s, I taught along-

the development of my feminism.

A C K N O W L E D G M E N T S

I found the voice I finally assumed in writing

wright, Nancy Cott, Diane Dillon, Britta Dwyer,

this book, however, through my friends and col-

James Hargrove, Carolyn Kinder Carr, Leigh Cul-

leagues at Stanford University: Judith C. Brown,

ver, Eleanor Dwight, Charlene G. Garfinkle, Lela

Estelle Freedman,

Roberts

Graybill, George Gurney, Neil Harris, James Her-

in the History Department and Barbara Gelpi,

and Mary Louise

bert, Anne Higonnet, the late J o h n Hutton, Ruth

Albert Gelpi, Adrienne Rich, and the late Diane

Iskin, Teresa Murphy, Phyllis Peet, Aimée Brown

Middlebrook in English. In any recitation of for-

Price, Kathleen Pyne, Thomas

mative influences, I must also thank Linda Noch-

Kirk Savage, Grace Seiberling, Ellen Todd, Bailey

Schlotterback,

lin, Whitney Chadwick, Norma Broude, and Mary

Van Hook, Sally Webster, Jeanne Weimann, and

Garrard for their friendship, encouragement,

J e a n Fagin Yellin. Regina Palm generously sent

and pioneering feminist scholarship. No art histo-

me a copy of her recent dissertation on British

rian could teach a gender-balanced history of art

and American female muralists at the turn of the

or write her own without their scholarly efforts.

twentieth century. On a moment's notice, Geri

This project has also benefited immensely

Banik at the Art Institute of Chicago showed me

from the help of many former students and

the files and the Anders Zorn portrait of Mrs. Pot-

research assistants. With apologies to those I may

ter Palmer. Francesca Rose of the Terra Museum

inadvertently leave out, let me thank here Doree

of American Art gave cheerful assistance in track-

Allen, Andrew Drabkin, Ellery Foutch, Amanda

ing down missing information. Nancy Mathews

Glesmann, Elizabeth Hutchinson, Annelise Mad-

read my texts and helped me turn Cassatt into a

sen, Michelle Myers, Claire Pasternak, Nadia

figure she recognized. I am also deeply indebted

Perucic, Eva Struhal, Charlotte Wellman, and

to Kristin Swinth, a former student and today a

Lesley Wright. I am also indebted to the many

distinguished historian of women, for her close

librarians, especially those at the Chicago History

reading of a draft of my manuscript. It warmed

Museum and the Ryerson and Burnham Librar-

my heart to have her red-pencil my writing as I

ies at the Art Institute of Chicago, who guided me

once did her undergraduate thesis. Early on in

through their deep archival holdings from the

this project, Richard Murray, the most generous

1 8 9 3 Fair. I also thank the research staff at the

of scholars, opened his files on American mural

Archives of American Art; Alex Ross, Peter Blank,

paintings from 1 8 7 6 to 1920. His research and

Amber Ruiz, Katie Keller, and Huey-Ning Tan at

picture files were where I learned, among many

Stanford; and Greg Most and Andrea Gibbs at

other things, that women artists not only made

the National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C., for

decorations for the Woman's Building but also

their helpful responses to my many queries and

for the Illinois and Pennsylvania State buildings.

requests. I applaud the many scholars of wom-

Murray died before his book on murals came to

en's history, nineteenth-century art, the Wom-

fruition, but his informative files are today avail-

an's Building and 1 8 9 3 Fair, as well as those who

able in the Archives of American Art.

have written on Mary Cassatt, for their gener-

I am also grateful to the late David Huntington,

ous exchange of ideas and helpful leads: Martha

Elizabeth Johns, H. Barbara Weinberg, and Car-

Banta, Judith Barter, Karen Blair, Richard Bre-

rie Rebora Barrett, who gave me opportunities to

tell, Norma Broude, Susan Casteras, Derrick Cart-

present my work on Mary Cassatt to larger audi-

A C K N O W L E D G M E N T S

ences. In speaking to others about Cassatt's mural,

Finally I thank Charlene G. Garfinkle and

I felt the need to expand my project and see her

Annelise Madsen, whose collaboration

work within the context of all the decorations by

the preparation of this book into a team project.

turned

women at the 1893 Fair. Amy Paston, Peter Can-

Charlene, a major scholar of the Woman's Build-

nell, Cheryl Anderson, and Catherine Jones, all

ing in her own right, with a remarkable library

then with the Smithsonian Press, enthusiastically

of Fair literature, created the bibliography for

supported my first efforts in that direction.

this book as well as biographies of the key female

Two of the country's greatest centers for

players in my story. She also cheerfully and care-

advanced study and their inspired leaders gave me

fully gathered the photographs and permissions

the quiet of a room of my own and the stimula-

and cleaned up errors and inconsistencies in the

tion of brilliant colleagues: Drew Faust, then dean

texts. In that Charlene and I have been fastened

of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study,

at the hip for the past couple of years, I also thank

and Elizabeth Cropper, the dean at the Center

her patient husband, J e f f , and daughter, Eliza-

for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, each pre-

beth, for letting our project became an uninvited

sided over an academic year of support during

guest at their family table. Annelise, defending

which I moved this project much closer to the fin-

her doctoral dissertation at Stanford University

ish line. I thank, too, the Institute for the Study of

in 2 0 1 0 , wrote an undergraduate student paper

Women and Gender at Stanford for a grant from

on the 1893 Fair and continued to be interested

the Marilyn Yalom Research Fund to support the

in the history of fairs and their decorations. The

purchase of photographs and for faculty research

sidebars she wrote for this book add depth and

funding from the Ruth Halperin endowment in

cultural thickness as well as a diversity of voice.

my department at Stanford. Ruth became a good

Eunice Lipton, whose early development as a fem-

friend, and it saddens me that she did not live

inist writer went hand-in-hand with mine, contin-

long enough to hold this book in her hands.

ues to cheer me on, as do the cooking and warm

I cannot say enough good words about the

friendship of her husband, Ken Aptekar. I thank

people I work with at the University of Califor-

my friends Margo Horn and J a n Hafner and all

nia Press. Deborah Kirshman, a treasured friend

my graduate students for keeping my life dynamic

and colleague, was the senior editor of the proj-

and full. My family has done the same, especially

ect; Sue Heinemann brought her years of experi-

my sister, Marcia Rothwell, my brother, Keith

ence to orchestrating the book's production; Eric

Jones, and their extended families, who have

Schmidt worked on myriad details and was espe-

abided my work schedule and sporadic playtime.

cially helpful in making nineteenth-century repro-

J o e Corn, who has been working as long and hard

ductions as readable as possible; Adrienne Harris

on his own book as I have on this one, continues

was a sensitive copyeditor, threading the book's

to be my toughest editor, my favorite discussant,

many parts into whole cloth. Three scholars of

and my best friend. His spirited readings of my

American art, Derrick Cartwright, Joy Kasson, and

writing, his ability to make me laugh, and his shar-

Cécile Whiting, read the manuscript for the press,

ing of household chores always help me arrive at

and I am the beneficiary of their wise counsel.

the finish line.

What we must now acknowledge is the richness of these expositions,

not merely as putative

victory, or emblems of triumphant

international

symbols of unity, trophies of class progress, but as unique

sometimes hidden contest and often disguised NEIL HARRIS ET AL., Grand Chicago's World's Fair of 1893,

records of

confrontation.

Illusions: 1993

INTRODUCTION TODAY

WE

WOULD

CALL

IT

A

THEME

PARK,

A

DESTINATION

SITE,

A

COMMODIFIED

spectacle, a showcase for colonialist ideology. Over a century ago admirers called it the White City, a city beautiful, a dream city, a fairyland (fig. 1). By all accounts—and hundreds of them survive—the Chicago World's Fair of 1893 was an extravagant event.' Also known as the World's Columbian Exposition, to commemorate the four hundredth anniversary of Christopher Columbus's "discovery" of the New World, the Fair covered some 644 acres on Chicago's South Side. The Fair was a planned city, its exhibition halls, state buildings, lagoons, lakes, sculptures, and walkways laid out with imposed symmetries, axial views, and public spaces, making it one of the finest examples of the architectural style historians call American Renaissance. The Midway, a rambunctious and rambling entertainment zone of rides, foods, and peoples from around the world, adjoined this perfected urban space, providing an energetic wagging tail to a perfectly groomed show dog. As

[ 1 ]

i

Court of Honor, World's Columbian Exposition, 1893.

white as marble, the Fair projected an illusion of

nological display of up-to-date modernity (fig.

permanence belied by its construction from such

2). The use of electricity to light buildings, pla-

perishable materials as staff (plaster) and straw.

zas, fountains, and walkways in public spaces was

Its working life was a mere six months.

in its infancy and offered strollers a lesson in liv-

For the millions who visited the Fair, there was much to see and do. 2 No one encounter-

ing with artificial illumination, which some found garish and others exhilarating.

ing its many exhibition halls, numerous confer-

For those who experienced its continuous

ences, and vast entertainment zone was able to

parade of modern achievements and the specta-

take in everything. Some did the Fair in a few

cle of people and special effects, the Fair became

intense days; others made repeat visits, spread out

a defining event. An entire generation left written

over the Fair's duration. The Fair was open day

memories, souvenir mementoes, and family anec-

and night, and people found the nocturnal light-

dotes about the summer of 1 8 9 3 in Chicago. The

ing, including colored searchlights, one of the

directors of the Fair issued constant bulletins and

Fair's most sensationalist manifestations, a tech-

a final report itemizing the size of each building,

2

World's Columbian Exposition at night.

its material, its decorations, and its costs, all in

of a reborn Chicago after a devastating fire and

keeping with the era's tendency to imbue statis-

the growing campaign for woman's rights. Mounting

tics and classifications with the aura of truth.® It is

an

international

fair

required

this enormous archive of official reports, memori-

mind, muscle, and teamwork on an unimagina-

alizing literature, photographic albums, and per-

ble scale. Today only a few names of the massive

sonal accounts that allows us today to revisit the

planning, design, and labor force are remem-

Fair and imagine the visual and bodily impact

bered: Daniel Burnham, who as director of works

it had on visitors as they walked through its spa-

oversaw all architectural

cious grounds and vast halls filled with exhibi-

with J o h n Root, until he died in 1 8 9 1 ) ; Freder-

construction

(along

tions from around the world (see sidebar p. 4 and

ick Law Olmsted, who conceived the overall lay-

fig. 3). These sources also allow us to grasp the

out of the grounds and landscaping; and Frank

multiple discourses in play at the Fair, from exu-

D. Millet, the director of decoration and func-

berant pride in America's technological superior-

tions. The team of experts also included the

ity and progress in the fine arts to the promotion

architects and engineers who designed the indi-

[3]

T H E

A R C H I V E

Historians today know more about the look and feel of the 1893 Fair than any other because of the wealth of writings, souvenirs, and, most important, photographs that the exposition's splendors inspired. The Fair was a profound experience for its makers and visitors, and Americans saved its tokens, wrote about it, and memorialized it, encouraging others to do the same. The "vanishing city" spurred an insatiable appetite for all things Columbian, yielding an abundance of documentary photographs, maps, guidebooks, folio albums, souvenir books, illustrated journal articles, novels, children's stories, and keepsakes. The Woman's Building garnered much coverage because of the novelty of such an officially sanctioned, female-governed exhibition space. Unlike the 1876 Women's Pavilion in Philadelphia, the 1893 structure was a planned component of the Fair from the beginning, recognized by Congress and the Fair's commissioners. Out of curiosity and perhaps a sense of obligation, male writers paid attention to women's activities and accomplishments. General surveys of the exposition, such as Benjamin Truman's History of the World's Fair, typically devoted an entire chapter to the structure, as they did for each major building at the Fair. Horace Morgan's Historical World's Columbian Exposition and Chicago Guide, published in 1892 in St. Louis before the Fair opened, included a section on the Woman's Building as well as sup-

vidual parks, waterways, and buildings. But these men were only the tip of a human iceberg. Supporting them were Chicagoans of Gilded Age money and power—the politicians, the lobbyists, the community representatives, and the elected officials—who helped secure the Columbiad exposition for Chicago and raised funds for its construction and its displays. In addition, an enormous labor force of builders, plasterers, stone layers, glass cutters, painters, and gardeners worked in shifts around the clock to get the Fair up and running in record time. Volunteer auxiliaries, drawn from every state and from countries abroad, decided the scope and content of the individual exhibition buildings. Sculptors and muralists gave the buildings and the spaces around them European-style grandeur and created works that upheld the Fair's leading narratives of progress and success. And the final 3

C o v e r o f a souvenir book, The World's Columbian Exposition, Chicago,

1893.

plemental chapters on women, such as "Women Distinguished in Spheres Other T h a n the Domestic," "Inventions Patented by Women," and "Missouri and Her Woman Inventors." T h e Board of Lady Managers also produced a number of enduring documents, including its official handbook, Art and Handicraft in the Woman's Building, edited by Maud Howe Elliott and closely superintended by Bertha Palmer. A t Palmer's insistence, the handbook was designed and printed by the prestigious fine-arts publishing house Goupil ancl Company of Paris. Not only was the volume to be a work of "artistic excellence," in Palmer's words, but its various essays would be written by "acknowledged authorities and experts" (Weimann, The Fair Women, 4 7 2 - 7 3 ) . Chicago art agent Sara Hallowell penned the essay on fine art, and Candace Wheeler, a renowned interior designer and textile artist, wrote on applied art. Other publications overseen by the Board included The Congress of Women, a two-volume set of the papers delivered each day in the building's Assembly Room, and Addresses and Reports of Mrs. Potter Palmer, a compilation of her public speeches and Board summaries. Overall, the Fair produced distinct types of literature, including guidebooks, memento books, official reports, folio albums, and manuscript collections (fig. 3). While navigating the fairgrounds, many visitors carried a pocket guidebook, filled with logistical tips on Chicago, facts and figures about the

players were those who showed up every day to

Bertha Palmer from Chicago was elected pres-

actually run the operation: the attendants, the

ident of the Board of Lady Managers, and she

security forces, the service industries, the cooks,

insisted that the building be designed and dec-

the cleanup crews, the mechanics, the drivers

orated exclusively by women. Sophia Hayden, a

and operators of transport systems, the entertain-

recent graduate of the architecture school at the

ers, and the exotic peoples on

Massachusetts Institute of Technology, designed

display. 4

In this book, I look at one other subset of this

the structure, having won a women-only compe-

massive workforce: the large group of w o m e n

tition with her plan for a large Italianate pavilion. Palmer then commissioned a dozen or more

who founded, administered, designed, and decoFunded by

w o m e n to ornament the building with sculptures,

the U.S. government, the Woman's Building had

sculptural reliefs, murals, and stained glass win-

the official purpose of showcasing the advance-

dows, in the same manner that male artists were

ments ancl achievements of women from the

embellishing the other exhibition halls. (In this

United States and countries around the world.

book, I follow contemporary usage and call Ber-

rated the Woman's Building (fig.

4). 5

Hundreds of w o m e n participated in its creation,

tha Palmer by her first a n d / o r last name, though

including a large national Board of Lady Manag-

in her time, she was inevitably referred to as Mrs.

ers, a Chicago executive board, and auxiliaries

Palmer or Mrs. Potter Palmer.)

abroad that collected contributions for the build-

In the 1890s, before the aesthetic purges of

ing's international displays of women's work.

modernism, it had b e c o m e fashionable to dec-

[5]

displays, and illustrated highlights. Rand, McNally & Co. produced several of these compact, informational guides, including the Handbook of the World's Columbian Exposition, offering more than two hundred pages of insights on principal buildings, artistic decorations, the Midway Plaisance, and the exposition's history. The same publisher's A Week at the Fair, as well as J. L. Kaine's Pocket Guide and Note Book of the World's Fair: The Best Things to See and How to Find Them, offered day-by-day itineraries to guide tourists through the maze of overstuffed—and often overwhelming—exhibits. As visitors entered the Woman's Building, they could pick up a copy of the Official Catalogue of Exhibits for twenty-five cents. Published by the W.B. Conkey Company for the Fair's Department of Publicity and Promotion, the catalogue described the displays in the Woman's Building. The department created similar publications for other buildings (or suites of buildings). Foreign countries also published guidebooks for fairgoers. For example, the Official Catalogue Exhibition of the German Empire, issued in both English and German, detailed the Germanic contributions in each building, including an exhaustive list of items on display in the Woman's Building. In addition to guidebooks, memento books were available in handheld sizes, some for sale at the Fair and many others issued after it had ended. In this genre were Elliott's Art and Handicraft in the Woman's Building, with its expert essays and photographs, as well as the pictorial volume published by Laird & Lee, The Vanishing City: A Photographic Encyclopedia of the World's Columbian Exposition.

4

Sophia Hayden, Woman's Building, 1893. Staff over wood construction, i g g x 388 x 60 ft.

A wealth of post-Fair publications surveyed the event in photographs and statistics. Groups such as the Board of Lady Managers, state representatives, international contributors, and engineering corps filed reports meticulously documenting their work, procedures, finances, and exhibits for official review and preservation. Chief among these efforts is Daniel H. Burnham's comprehensive tome, The Final Official Report of the Director of the Works of the World's Columbian Exposition, which includes an extensive report by Frank D. Millet, the director of Decoration and Functions. Part history book and part picture book, Hubert Howe Bancroft's The Book of the Fair otters long, scholarly essays and photographic details, including a chapter of nearly fifty pages on the Woman's Building. A historian of western North America as well as a successful bookseller, Bancroft marketed The Book of the Fair in a lavish two-volume set as well as in more affordable subsets. (A single part, or chapter, sold for one dollar.) Another genre, the folio album, was a large-scale, pictorially rich souvenir often sold by subscription. Folio albums varied in quality and price, ranging from cheaply produced spreads on newsprint to elaborately bound, high-quality photographic portfolios. Volumes stretched twelve inches or more on a side, giving their viewers eight-by-ten-inch and larger reproductions of the Fair's buildings, exhibits, artwork, and Midway. Encyclopedic in scope, folios tended to feature one large image per page (occasionally more) along with a substantial caption. Examples include The Dream City, published by N. D. Thomp-

orate Gilded Age public buildings, hotels, and

to work on such a grand scale. These artists gen-

mansions with pieces from the sister arts, partic-

erally had trained in art academies, both at home

ularly large-scale sculptures in pediments and at

and abroad, and had earned reputations as easel

doorways and painted murals high on the ceil-

painters, fine-art sculptors, portraitists, and the

ings and walls. The fashion had come from Paris,

like. They considered it an honor to receive a

where contemporary civic building projects such

commission for a public decoration; sometimes

as the Parisian Opera House that opened in 1875

artists were invited to decorate a specific space,

popularized elaborate programs of sculpture and

and other times they entered a juried competi-

painted walls and ceilings. In late nineteenth-cen-

tion to win a contract. They also had to be willing

tury parlance, these large-scale works were "deco-

to dedicate large blocks of time to make these

rations," and the artists who executed them were

large-scale works, which required not days and

"decorators," period language used throughout

weeks but months and years of labor.

this study. For artists who made decorations in

The daily and weekly press closely followed

the United States, where the desire for public

the process of making decorations, tracking proj-

murals and sculptures was in its infancy and lim-

ects from beginning to end. Art journals were

ited, the Chicago World's Fair offered the first

also interested in such work, running special-

real opportunity for a large group of Americans

ized essays by mural artists like Edwin Blashfield

[7]

son, and The White City (As It Was), featuring splendid photographs by William Henry Jackson, who was hired as an official photographer during the Fair's final hours. From page to page, folio images surveyed the fairgrounds across great distances, presenting, for example, an exterior shot of the Administration Building, a view of the Ceylon Tea Room in the Woman's Building, or the sculptural compositions crowning the Great Basin. Among the Fair's decorations, free-standing statues and architectural sculpture dominate the pictorial views. Mural paintings on distant walls and ceilings under dim lighting were difficult to photograph. Fortunately, because a glass ceiling illuminated the Hall of Honor with natural light, the decorations in the Woman's Building proved an exception. (The building's eastern vestibule, however, lacked light, and the English murals were never photographed.) Today, scholars can consult manuscript collections at the Ryerson and Burnham Libraries of the Art Institute of Chicago, which house the Daniel H. Burnham Collection, the Bertha Honoré Palmer Correspondence Collection, the World's Columbian Exposition Collection, and the works of one of the Fair's official photographers, C.D. Arnold. The Chicago History Museum holds the Bertha Honoré Palmer Papers, the records of the Board of Lady Managers, and a host of other archival gems. A modern, secondary source book, such as the Annotated Bibliography, World's Columbian Exposition, Chicago 1893 (1992), by G. L. Dybwad and Joy V. Bliss, helps researchers navigate the Fair's prolific archive.

and Will Low about the elements of a good public decoration. These artists' writings set forth the rules of decoration that prevailed at the time of the Fair. Sculptures and murals were to depict high-minded subjects that would not only ennoble the buildings but instruct viewers in the dominant values and ideals of society. Stylistically public art in 1890s America most often relied on allegory, a symbolic system that used idealized figures in neoclassical dress to convey messages of uplift and betterment. A minority voice experimented with realism, putting figures in historic and modern dress to inspire model behaviors. Projects also had aesthetic requirements: decorations were to be integral and complementary to the building. The three arts—sculpture, painting, and architecture—were to be mutually

JTF*

A. K. M.

enhancing, meaning that their colors, form, and scale should be harmonious with one another and with the spaces they inhabited. The Germans defined this sort of art and architectural collaboration as Gesamtkunstwerk: a building in which all the fine arts came together in a harmonious arrangement, with no medium standing out from the others. This aesthetic harmony was the ideal established by the keepers of American artistic culture in 1893. Of the decorations commissioned for the Woman's Building, the best known and most written about are the large tympana, one each by the painters Mary MacMonnies and Mary Cassatt (see figs. 76 and 87). Later chapters of this book will have much to say about these two murals, but only after we look at the aesthetic and pro-

I N T R O D U C T I O N

grammatic boundaries of the decorations made

Until the early twentieth century, and rarely

by men at the Fair. A later chapter will place the

even then, women artists did not receive com-

two tympana, along with the other decorations

missions for public art.6 From Michelangelo to

by women, into this larger ensemble and discuss

Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, Eugène Delacroix to

the dialogue about gender that ensued. Using a

Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, the creation of large-

comparative approach, I find in the Fair's deco-

scale murals and sculptures had traditionally

rations, as Neil Harris's opening quotation sug-

been men's work. Only men, it was presumed,

gests, a hidden record of "contest and often dis-

had the necessary brawn and stamina to work on

guised confrontation"—in this case a female gaze

scaffolds and ladders to create monumental dec-

resisting and reforming the male one. One of the

orations. Furthermore, men had academic train-

ways women artists expressed a distinctly female

ing in making large narrative and allegorical

voice, we shall see, was by manipulating and fem-

sculptures and paintings. They were educated to

inizing the dominant male-determined narratives

be figurative artists and taught the skills of scaling

and iconographies at the Fair. Their strategies

up drawings or maquettes for public works. On

included experimenting with stylistic alternatives

rare occasions, an exceptional woman painter,

to allegory, enlisting new shapes and activities for

like Rosa Bonheur in

female bodies, and rewriting history by putting

France, managed to defy gendered expectations

women at its center.

and paint large canvases, and on at least two occa-

mid-nineteenth-century

With but a few exceptions, the painted and

sions receive commissions for large paintings

sculpted decorations at the Fair do not exist today;

from the state.7 But in 1890 American women

only on a rare occasion has a mural, sculpture, or

painters did not work on anything larger than an

a study or allied piece survived. To study the deco-

easel painting. The group of American women

rations, then, we must turn to the black-and-white

sculptors working in Rome—whom Henry James

photographs and verbal descriptions in guide-

called the "white marmorean

books and souvenir publications. Many of the dec-

ated some monumental sculptures, but, with the

orations at the Fair were not the very best work of

exception of Harriet Hosmer, these artists were

the male and female artists who created them. Few

not tapped for public decorations at the Fair.8

flock"—had

cre-

artists at the Fair had prior experience as decora-

That the Woman's Building of 1 8 9 3 is a mile-

tors, and all of them worked under barely reason-

stone in the history of American art is reason

able deadlines. None had more than six to twelve

enough for a closer examination of its entire dec-

months to execute their pieces. Furthermore, all

orative program. Not only was it the first occasion

the artists knew that their works would be viewed

on which MacMonnies, Cassatt, and other women

from a distance in temporary installations, condi-

were able to work on a grand scale, but it was

tions that did not inspire finely polished work.

their last and only opportunity to fulfill a public commission. Furthermore, it was the only artistic

So why, you might ask, do we need a book on art that was so transitory? I have two answers, and

event of the century in which women, in a loosely

both of them have to do with refining our under-

formed collective,

standing of women's visual culture at the turn of

Another eighty years would pass before women

the century.

would come together again to make something

9

decorated

an entire

hall.

I N T R O D U C T I O N

comparable. Not until the feminist revolution

woman's movement of 1890s America and to

of the 1970s, when Judy Chicago and her many

changing definitions of female identity. A n d we

coworkers created the Dinner Party and femi-

will see that like the movement itself, the voices

nist artists in Los Angeles o p e n e d a contempo-

of these artists were not uniform or monolithic

rary Woman's Building ( 1 9 7 3 - 9 1 ) , did other all-

but varied in intensity, clarity, and commitment.

woman endeavors take place on a similar scale.

T o understand how women artists performed

Recognizing the long hiatus, the artists who cre-

at the Fair, we must first grasp the issues that

ated the 1973 Woman's Building created a gene-

influenced the decoration of buildings with paint-

alogical b o n d with the women of 1893 by nam-

ings and sculptures in 1893. T h e first chapter in

ing the building after its predecessor. In an early

this book looks at the artistic themes and vocabu-

publication, the cover image showed a young art-

laries used in all the other official Fair buildings

ist of 1973 standing next to an artist of 1893 as

decorated by male painters and sculptors. I con-

she was pictured on the cover of the Fair's hand-

sider the metanarratives guiding their work and

book (figs. 5 and 7). 9

the period's deep-seated belief in evolutionary

A second reason to look closely at these lost

history and progress cycles that fundamentally

Columbian Exposition decorations is to under-

structured all the decorations at the Fair, as well

stand the degree to which visual images and rhet-

as the design of the grounds. T o make these nar-

oric contributed to the woman's emancipation

ratives visible, I examine late Victorian culture

movement at the end of the nineteenth century.

and establish the boundaries of aesthetic pos-

Historians have brilliantly studied the written lec-

sibility. What subjects (iconography) could art-

tures and writings of women agitating for change

ists have plausibly chosen to display at the Fair?

at that moment, along with the politics e m b e d d e d

What styles (artistic languages) were available to

in the novels and poetry of female literary figures.

them? T h e language, as well as the stories the

A n d more recently, they have studied women col-

artists selected, profoundly shaped the content

lectors, women in art schools in the United States

of their decorations, as did the way they repre-

and abroad, and all-female art associations at the

sented the female body. Public decorators in the

end of the nineteenth century. 10 But we are only

late nineteenth century took the woman's body

beginning to grasp how some women used art to

as a ccntral vehiclc. Men generally gendered it

visually express their politics at the same time oth-

according to hegemonic conventions, as an ide-

ers were using words to register theirs. T h e dec-

alized symbol of virtue and perfection, youth, and

orations by women artists at the 1893 Fair offer

beauty. It would fall to women artists at the Fair

a stunning case study of what female artists had

to wrest the female body from the male gaze and

to say on the rare occasion when they were asked

make it speak to woman's work, intelligence, and

to "speak" in public. T h e sculptures on the exte-

emancipation.

rior of the Woman's Building and the wall murals

In the second chapter I describe the unusual

in its interior became the artists' podium from

nature of the Woman's Building, its governance,

which they spoke, not in words but in images and

and its relationship to other buildings at the Fair.

symbols. As we read and interpret their sculptures

I depict the women administrators' deep con-

and murals, we will add these artists' voices to the

cerns about finding American women capable o f

[10]

making public decorations, review the processes

the Woman's Building Chicago 1893 the Woman's Building Los Angeles 1973-

they used to select artists, and discuss the loose artistic program they assigned the decorators. In this chapter I begin to examine the decorations with a close look at the sculptures on the building façade, which were conventionally allegorical but gave voice to progressive views of female work and opportunities in the 1890s. I devote chapters 3 and 4 to the decorations of the Woman's Building, one to the mural paintings inside the structure and one to the rhetoric that men and women used in discussing and criticizing the building's decorations. Chapter 3 focuses on the subjects women painters engaged to tell a visual history of their sex and the ways in which this history reworked traditional iconography and introduced new female types. The surprise is that even though the female decorators had little to no communication with one another, they came up with a consensual representation of the history and progress of their sex. Their his-

5

Book cover, The Woman's Building, Chicago, The Woman's Building, Los Angeles,

1893;

1973.

torical narratives were not only consistent with one another but also with the one articulated by the half dozen women artists who decorated

and its exhibitions, were judged by very different

the Ladies' Reception Room of the Pennsylva-

standards than those by men. Women were held

nia State Building. Looked at as a group, all the

to the culture's dominant paradigms for femi-

women artists at the Fair gave visual form to a

ninity as men were held to those for masculinity.

common middle-class discourse about woman's

By comparing the rhetoric used to critique male

work in artistic and intellectual circles circa 1890.

and female decorations, we see how the Wom-

Because American women had never collec-

an's Building and its decorations became a light-

tively made public art, many people were eager

ning rod for both male and female critics who

to assess their successes and failures. Chapter 4

opposed change in female behaviors. The rheto-

describes how the women's decorations at the

ric that writers used to assess the decorations in

Fair were received in the media, in books about

the Woman's Building, particularly their hostility

the Fair, and in personal correspondence. The

to Mary Cassatt's mural, merged art criticism with

response was decidedly mixed—sometimes gen-

the prevailing etiquette for women. In discussing

erous and congratulatory, sometimes patroniz-

the Woman's Building, writers used not just an

ing, sometimes derisive. Clearly, however, the

aesthetic yardstick but a social one, measuring off

women's decorations, along with the building

the permissible boundaries of female behavior.

S T U / J y

,V$TRUCT;oN

6

I l l u s t r a t i o n , 'Woman's Work. F r o m History of the World's Columbian

Exposition,

Chicago,

1893.

ART AND HANDICRAFT

the artist is a man or a woman, but I suspect that

IN THE

it was a man, given the picture's conventional allegorical vocabulary and narrative; if the illustrator was a progressive woman, then she was a very cautious one. T h e second image is by Madeleine Lemaire, a French woman, whose design for the frontispiece of the official handbook to the Woman's Building was, we will see, more brazen (fig. 7; also plate 1). Both images take the labors of modern woman as their subject. "Woman's work" was a favored way of constructing and indexing the expansion of women's roles in the late nineteenth century. Artists were particularly interested in how woman's work in public education, nursing, and the arts was affecting women's domestic responsibilities, so vaunted earlier in the century, of being good wives and mothers. A t the center of Woman's Work, a robust, idealized woman in neoclassical dress holds a banner announcing the print's subject. With laurel leaves in her hair and voluminous layers of cloth enclosing her body, she is the hefty neoclassical female figure so often used in the nine-

7

M a d e l e i n e L e m a i r e , frontispiece, Art and Handicraft in the Woman's Building, 1893.

teenth century to represent virtues such as lib-

x 6Va in.

erty, law, and justice. T h e artistic language here is allegory, evidenced by the depiction of a figure in classicizing dress accompanied by objects, or attributes, that convey abstract meanings. Each of

T o start our exploration, let us look at two

the six allegorical female figures surrounding this

images of modern women that circulated at the

central figure represents one kind of "woman's

time of the Fair. T h o u g h the depictions are sty-

work": Poetry, Sculpture, Study, Painting, Music,

listically very different, they both speak to the

and Instruction. Four of these pursuits—poetry,

advances

contemporary

women

Together

they establish

the

had

made.

music, sculpture, and painting—had for centuries

pictorial

been represented as female allegorical muses, as

boundaries within which progressive women were

we can see in a mural created by Kenyon C o x at

depicted at the Fair of 1893. T h e first image is

nearly the same m o m e n t as the print (see fig. 8).

the anonymous allegorical illustration Woman's

In Cox's conception, the five women symbolize

Work, which appeared in one of the many histo-

the various arts, just as five others in a companion

ries of the Fair (fig. 6). We d o not know whether

mural represent the sciences (fig. 9). T h e women

narrow

[13]

8

K e n y o n C o x , The Arts, 1 8 9 6 . M u r a l , oil on canvas, g¥> x 3 4 ft. Southwest gallery, s e c o n d f l o o r , Library of Congress.

9

K e n y o n C o x , The Sciences, 1 8 9 6 . M u r a l , oil o n canvas, g'/2 x 3 4 ft. Southwest gallery, s e c o n d f l o o r , L i b r a r y of C o n g r e s s .

I N T R O D U C T I O N

he depicts are not practitioners of the arts and sci-

moved into higher education in the late nine-

ences but abstract representations of fields that in

teenth century, and the figure labeled Instruc-

everyday life were dominated by men. They are

tion denotes their increased presence teaching

men's muses, not earthbound professionals.

in public and private schools. O n the other hand,

We should not miss the point in the print,

the failure to come up with dramatically new

however: although the six women in classiciz-

imagery for women's new circumstances suggests

ing dress take the form of traditional muses, they

a resistance to or anxiety about social change. It

are meant, as the labels tell us, to signify women

suggests the desire to frame images so that they

doing real work as artists, students

("Study"),

appear to have seamless continuity with the past

and teachers ("Instruction"). T h e image assigns

and do not threaten or disturb the status quo.

new meanings to old visual tropes with very lit-

Other artists, we will see, particularly progres-

tle adjustment in their pictorial form. If not for

sive female ones, more daringly discarded the old

the word Study above the young woman bent

neoclassical tropes and invented new ones to rep-

over a book, we might mistake her for the muse

resent women in education and teaching.

o f Poetry, or we might think o f traditional ren-

T h e artist who made this print also tried to find

derings of Melancholy or Contemplation, rather

a comfortable allegorical vocabulary for women in

than, as intended here, of a thinking female stu-

the urban workplace. At the bottom of the print,

dent engaged in higher education. T h e woman's

in the six small images surrounding Instruction,

head is in her work, but the adjustment is so sub-

pudgy cupids apply themselves to various trades,

tle that one could easily miss this departure from

each a new arena for women wage earners in the

traditional imagery. T h e artist is either so locked

American city. O n the left, one cupid operates

into allegorical traditions or so timid that he or

a telegraph key, another types a letter, and the

she does not speak forcefully or inventively about

third does clerical work in an office setting. O n

women's new opportunities. T h e same type of

the right, the top cupid is a telephone operator,

reinterpretation is evident in the figure labeled

another is a seamstress, and the third is a pho-

Instruction. O n first glance, this figure with three

tographer. T h e placement of these occupations

children might be taken as the traditional alle-

in small images at the bottom of the print artic-

gorical image for Maternity or Charity. But the

ulates the era's social hierarchy and class distinc-

artist relabels it Instruction to represent women

tions. At the top of the print, white middle- and

in the teaching profession, a relatively new and

upper-class women practice the arts and educa-

increasingly popular female occupation.

tion; their bodies, seated politely and under con-

In this book we will attend closely to such slip-

trol, speak in genteel tones. Laboring women are

pery and often tentative reassignments of new

at the bottom of the print. T h e cupids, in contrast

meanings to old tropes, where the visual trope

to the demure images above, have active, unregu-

may not change very much but some of its mean-

lated bodies. They twist, use their arms and legs,

ing does. These subtle shifts have a lot to teach

and recline in full display. T h o u g h these cupids

us. O n the one hand, they register social changes

have no labels and are but surrogates for work-

in the culture at large. T h e woman labeled Study

ing- and middle-class female wage earners, they

refers to the historic fact that American women

reference modern forms of woman's work rarely

[15]

INTRODUCTION

acknowledged in the fine arts of the period. They

ing thread, cloth, and textiles. O n the pedestal, a

document the increasing presence of a female

molded figure in clay represents the art of sculp-

wage-earning class in urban America; not for well

ture; a blue-and-white vase signifies the arts of pot-

over a decade would fine artists like John Sloan,

tery and ceramics. T h e portfolio leaning against

Edward Hopper, and Isabel Bishop take on work-

the sculpture suggests printmaking; the quill pen

ing women as artistic subjects in their own right.

and inkwell, the art of writing. In the center, the

T h e handbook image discards the language of

splay of papers with a compass refers to architec-

neoclassical allegory and its flat decorative com-

ture. A n d the pile of books under the woman's

position for what I will call in this study realist alle-

black slipper represents her newly won academic

gory. Its content is allegorical in that the

achievements as a student of higher education.

figure

and her attributes signify an idea, in this case the

Woman's identity is primarily defined here, just

idea of modern w o m a n h o o d or, as it would soon

as it is in 'Woman's Work, by the fine arts and hand-

become known, the "New Woman." But its style

iwork, on the one hand, and by achievements in

is not that of traditional neoclassical allegory but

higher education, on the other. T h e h a n d b o o k

realist. Lemaire's woman is a full-blooded earth-

image makes n o reference to wage labor. A n d

ling who wears contemporary dress. She foreshad-

significantly, though the young woman in this

ows the Gibson Girl—in France, la femme nouvelle.

image is of a marriageable and childbearing age,

Her mutton-sleeved blouse and long skirt are

the picture depicts no symbolic attributes repre-

modish for women at the time, who were aban-

senting housekeeping or child rearing—woman's

doning the one-piece dress for the comfort of sep-

traditional work—except, perhaps, the spinning

arates during the day. H e r hair is loosely drawn

wheel, which references an older female h o m e

back, but rather than being pinned decorously to

craft. That the wheel and distaff with wool are on

her head, it is tousled, with strands escaping into

the left and the embroidery loom and other arti-

the breeze. She stands in a "real" space at the edge

facts on the right tells a story of woman's progress

of the lagoon that was in front of the Woman's

from early times, when she was slave to the pro-

Building at the Fair, whose façade we see in the

duction of thread and cloth, to the present, when

distance. A n d she appears to have momentarily

she has the leisure to use her hand skills to make

stopped her work. In her left hand, she holds a

beautiful things.

palette and brushes, and in her right, a paint-

These two prints, I propose, define the outer

brush poised as if to touch a canvas. We don't

reaches o f depictions of women at the 1893 Fair.

need any words in the picture to tell us that this

They are by no means the most conservative

modern young woman is a painter. But she also

images from the Fair—that honor goes to the tra-

represents women whose work involves any one

ditional female allegorical figures of Beauty and

of the array of artifacts over which she presides.

Virtue that dotted the grounds. They are, rather,

Each represents a different female activity and a

progressive images that articulate, however tim-

different option open to young women. T o the

idly or indirectly, woman outside the h o m e and

right is a loom for handwork, such as embroidery

at work. In Woman's Work, woman remains an

and weaving; to the left, a spinning wheel for mak-

abstract idealized type, but the tasks she engages

[16]

I N T R O D U C T I O N

in construct her transition from muse to woman

her controversial mural—envisioned a woman

artist, writer, student, and teacher; in the hand-

making art and going to college, they could not

book image, the transition is more

complete

imagine her as a student of science, medicine,

and dramatic. T h e r e a Gibson Girl type, a mod-

religion, or law. Kenyon Cox's mural, The Sci-

ern New Woman, has discarded her neoclassical

ences, is evidence that the female body continued

drapery for more comfortable dress and relaxed

to be depicted as the muse of Science, but with

hair and has moved into an artist's studio, sat at a

the exception of placing an occasional compass

writer's desk, and stood before a class in a school.

in a woman's hand, this generation of w o m e n

T h e basic narrative of modern w o m a n h o o d in

artists did not develop a pictorial vocabulary for

the two images is m u c h the same, but the stylis-

woman as scientist (fig. 9). Indeed, what progres-

tic presentation is very different—the first, polite

sive women artists at the Fair did best was depict

and genteel; the second, brash and forthright.

girls and young women participating in the newly

Whether made by men or women, these two

opened-up fields of art and education. But they

images articulate the ways in which white artists

were relatively silent about what the young would

from the middle and upper classes imagined the

do with their new knowledge when they reached

progress that contemporary women had made in

middle age. T h e idea of a "career" or a "profes-

their lifetimes. Their imaginary, we will see, was

sion" was not yet in the female vocabulary. This

deeply shaped by art-school training in Paris,

book attends to these silences, the boundaries

New York, and Philadelphia and by the prevail-

that neither men nor women could see beyond.

ing rules of public decorations. It was also deter-

From such analysis, we can produce snapshots

mined by the separatist activities of the sexes in

of the ways that artists constructed femininity in

Gilded A g e American culture and the discourses

1893, creating an album that in its diversity and

that swirled around late nineteenth-century wom-

range reveals the instability and volatility of gen-

an's culture. That the decorators in the Woman's

der definitions and relationships in the fin de

Building stretched the boundaries of the imag-

siècle. We will see the struggles of w o m e n shed-

inable while the men did not is a big part of my

ding the identities they had been handed as Vic-

story.

torian children for new self-definitions not yet well shaped or articulated. While the women dec-

These boundaries often fostered idiosyncratic lan-

orators dismantled older definitions of femininity

guage of the neoclassical putti working the type-

and reconstructed new ones, men continued to

fusions of tradition and innovation. T h e

writer and p h o n e was g r o u n d e d in old-fashioned

recycle older vocabularies and thinking, keeping

allegory, but the content upset convention, being

Victorian ideals of w o m a n h o o d in a dominant

one of the first times the modern working woman

position at the Fair. Collectively, our album of

and the working female body (the very active

sculpted and painted images will uncover one of

cupids) made their appearance in the fine arts.

the most festering "disguised confrontations" at

women

the Fair, the warfare between the sexes to deter-

artists at the Fair—like Lemaire, who made the

mine who would control the image of the female

cover of the handbook, and Cassatt, who created

body.

Moreover, while the most progressive

[17]

4

1

!r

We were met by one of the Commissioners of the Exposition

and

taken out to the World's Fair. I have never been so impressed in my life, and it is no exaggeration to say that it far surpasses the last Paris show [1889

Exposition]

both in the beauty of the situation

and in the charm of the great buildings. With a few exceptions, the architecture is a dream. j.

ALDEN

WEIR

to Ella Baker, 11 August 1892

THE FAIR IN M A K I N G T H E I R D E C O R A T I O N S ,

WOMEN A R T I S T S

HAD TO WORK W I T H I N T H E

ARTISTIC

culture that dominated the 1893 Fair. Thus, we need to look at the content and styles that male architects and artists used to shape the fairgrounds and its decorations and the ways in which their choices registered late nineteenth-century gendered and class-bound discourses about civilization, art, nationalism, civility, and manners. Three interrelated narratives were articulated throughout the Fair: evolutionary progress over time, triumph of the modern present over the harsh past, and the emancipatory freedoms of modern democracies. Both men and women embraced these narratives, but they told them differently. The male story featured industrial and technological triumph over the elements and the American wilderness; the female story was one of liberation from the confinements of a patriarchal past. The male narratives were configured as a world history of civilization and showed little self-awareness of their masculinist and imperialist gaze. In contrast, in telling

[19]

THE FAIR

their stories, women were highly conscious that

world had ever known. They believed that in

they were speaking in a separate voice from

technological know-how and industrial might,

that of their male colleagues. They produced a

their country had no equal. France might be

woman-centered history of the past and present,

superior in the arts and architecture, but the Fair

a brazen counternarrative to the technological

offered proof, they said, that U.S. artists had now

story told so often by men.

advanced to the level of or even outpaced Parisian ones. The painter John Weir, as we see in the

i

epigraph to this chapter, looked across the Atlan-

THEMES

In keeping with the Fair's theme, the image of

tic and declared the artfulness of the Chicago

Christopher Columbus and his female surro-

World's Fair superior to its Parisian predecessor,

gate, Columbia, appeared prominently in many

the great international fair of 1889. Weir deemed

decorations and gave the Fair a central hero and

the Columbian Exposition not just the equal to

the date, 1492, as the birth of European explo-

the 1889 fairgrounds but superior "in the beauty

ration and settlement in the Americas (fig. 10).

of the situation and in the charm of the great

In fact, however, the Fair embraced a much lon-

buildings." The Chicago fair's greatest historian,

ger world history, looking beyond the first Euro-

Hubert Howe Bancroft, made a similar judgment

pean settlements in the Americas to the grander

but only after heaping praise upon the earlier

sweep of time from ancient cultures to the pres-

French fair. "So vast was the scale and yet so artis-

ent. Extending its gaze from early subsistence cul-

tic the design," he wrote about the Paris fair, "that

tures to contemporary life in urban America, it

it became the wonder of the civilized nations of

purported to relate nothing less than the world

the world, and by all it was conceded that never

history of human civilization. Implicit in this

before had been witnessed such a combination of the grand and beautiful in science, art, and

long history was the social Darwinian assumption

industry." Given its fifteen miles of exhibitions,

that human civilization had evolved from primi-

plus the spectacular Eiffel Tower, Bancroft dra-

tive tribal cultures to communities built around

matically asked, "Does Chicago compare?" His

church and state, and then, thanks to indus-

answer was what the Fair's fathers wanted to hear:

trialization, to modern urban cultures of great

it excelled Paris and was "the most beautiful spec-

learning, comfort, and sophistication. This was

tacle which has been offered to the eyes of our

a racially hierarchical construction in that Afri-

2

can and Native American cultures were presented

generation.

at the Fair as primitive societies that had not

Nineteenth-century American historians not

evolved to the advanced stage that Euro-Ameri-

only heaped praise on their nation's accom-

can cultures had.

plishments but, as a matter of craft, wrote many

In the 1890s, professional American historians

more words, about almost everything, includ-

and laypersons alike constructed times past differ-

ing the past, than their counterparts do today.

ently than we do today. They wrote about earlier

They favored sweeping, multivolume macronar-

cultures from a position of assumed advantage,

ratives, not today's more focused histories. Both

judging the United States in 1893 to be among

popular and professional historians customar-

the most advanced and progressive nations the

ily traced a subject from its supposed origins in

[20]

THE FAIR archaic times to contemporary Anglo-European cultures. Informed by theories of evolution, these histories typically covered many centuries, ranged widely around the globe, and arrived finally at the superior accomplishments of modern civilization. When Hubert Howe Bancroft wrote his voluminous The Book of the Fair, he devoted his first chapter to "fairs of the past," starting with trading posts in Egypt, Babylon, and Damascus, moving on to the "ancient fairs of Europe," and ending with the international expositions of the present, citing every one of the latter. Only after his worldwide survey was he ready to launch into his detailed account of the Chicago fair. 3 Similarly, Mrs. J. C. Croly began The History of the Woman's Club Movement in America with an analysis of women's leadership in the native tribes of North America, followed with a long discussion of nunneries and religious sisterhoods in medieval and Renaissance Europe, and eventually turned to the first auxiliaries and women's societies in the nineteenth century, her nominal subject. 4 Will Low, a painter, engaged this same multicentury, multicultural paradigm to celebrate the magnificent triumph of American art at the Fair. Art, he wrote, "came to this New World of ours in the old historic way. From the seed sown in the Orient, through Greece, through Italy from Byzantium, wafted ever westward, its timid flowering from our Atlantic seaboard had been carried a thousand miles inland [to Chicago] to find its first full eclosion; not as a single growth, but as the triple flower of architecture, painting, and sculpture." 5 This expansive and evolutionary view of history structured considerable image making in the nineteenth century. At the time of the Fair, a West Coast sculptor carved a "march of civilization" frieze that wrapped around the grand arch at the main entrance to the brand-new

10

Mary Lawrence and Augustus Saint-Gaudens, Columbus Setting Foot on Land, Administration Building.

THE FAIR

campus of Stanford University. The arch collapsed

erature) and France (Emancipation), and culmi-

in the 1906 earthquake, but we know from surviv-

nating in America, with the figure dressed as an

ing photographs that the bas-relief frieze began

inventor (Science).

with figures representing the "old" civilizations of

This longue durée is embedded in the guide-

Asia and the Near East and ended with a scene

lines the Fair's founding fathers set forth for the

showing Leland and Jane Stanford on horseback,

decorations in Chicago. The Fair, wrote one of

bringing modern civilization to the Pacific coast

its organizers, would visualize "the steps of prog-

(figs. 11 and 12). The university's founders were

ress of civilization and its arts in successive centu-

in modern dress, riding triumphantly into Califor-

ries, and in all up to the present time," providing

nia through the Sierra Nevada. (Both Stanfords

a virtual "illustrated encyclopedia of civilization."6

were born in the state of New York.) A locomo-

One of the ten guidelines for the exhibits in the

tive with its cattle guard is just behind them, rep-

Woman's Building voiced the same goal but lim-

resenting the Central Pacific Railroad that Leland

ited the illustrated encyclopedia to female his-

Stanford helped found. The fortune he made on

tory: "To secure from every country a chronolog-

the railroad made it possible for the Stanfords to

ical exhibit, showing the evolution and progress

found a university on the last American frontier,

of woman's industries from the earliest time to

the Pacific rim.

the present."7 When the Fair opened, the number

The best-known decoration of this evolution-

of national and ethnographic exhibitions from

ary paradigm is the ceiling mural, The Evolution of

Europe, America, Asia, and Africa was a clear sig-

Civilization, that girdles the dome of the rotunda

nal to visitors, schooled to construct history as a

in the main reading room at the Library of Con-

series of stories about progress, that this fair told

gress (fig. 13). Painted by Edwin Howland Blash-

a digested history of mankind and, in the Wom-

field in 1896, the mural depicts twelve same-size

an's Building, of womankind.

figures sitting next to one another without break.

At its most schematic, history at the Fair was

Each wears the costume of a great civilization in

telescoped into two stories: the hardships of

history and has an attribute that conveys the civ-

the distant past and the triumphs of the mod-

ilization's contributions to world history. The

ern present. Invariably, the past was depicted as

design is circular, but the figures' dress, attri-

primitive and the present as civilized. This binary

butes, and labeling reveal that they are arranged

was not only inscribed in murals and sculptures

in a chronological progression, beginning with

but also in the overall city plan for the Fair. As

Egypt (Written Records), Judea (Religion), and

Robert Rydell and Gail Bederman have pointed

Greece (Philosophy) and then going on to Rome

out, the Fair was structured so that visitors would

(Administration), Islam (Physics), the Middle

first experience the glorious achievements of the

Ages (Modern Languages), Italy (Fine Arts), and

modern Western world in the grand exhibition

Germany (Art of Printing). (In this historical par-

halls and public spaces of the White City. Then,

adigm, there was little recognition of Africa, and

having been uplifted and inspired by the arts and

none of Asia or South America.) The last four

technologies of industrialized countries,

figures are of the modern age, beginning with

would walk back in time and experience earlier

Spain (Discovery), continuing with England (Lit-

stages in the history of humankind in the Midway

[22]

they

13

Edwin Howland Blashfield, The Evolution of Civilization, 1896. Mural, 10 ft., 1 in. diameter (144 x 12 ft. collar). Main Reading Room, Library of Congress.

THE FAIR

district, a place where modern civilization barely

Acropolis. Olmsted's extensive chain of waterways

seemed to have taken hold. 8

with buildings at their edges evoked Venice; the

The mapping of the fairgrounds and the

fountains and triumphal arches and colonnades

design of the exhibitions and decorations explic-

reminded some of Rome. And the city reminded

itly pursued this progress narrative. Daniel Burn-

visitors of Paris, not residential Paris but the tour-

ham, the Fair's chief architect, and his associ-

ist's Paris of palaces, opera houses, museums, gar-

ates designed the fairgrounds so that all visitors,

dens, and monuments. Entering this short-lived,

whether they came by boat, train, horse, or foot,

three-dimensional

fantasyland,

visitors

might

arrived in a modern White City of waterways,

have had the thought that their apartments, farm-

fountains, and grand exhibition halls. Unlike

houses, or tenements—maybe even their man-

actual cities created by centuries of accretion,

sions—belonged to a lower order of civilization,

the White City was born "in a day" and thereby

for the Fair confirmed the greatness of the pres-

allowed for a perfection of plan and execution

ent and promised an even better future.

that was impossible in the everyday world. Con-

The architects of the Fair were Francophiles,

ceiving of the White City as an idealized civic cen-

well versed in Baron Haussmann's midcentury

ter, Burnham introduced some of the latest fea-

reordering of Paris into wide avenues and axial

tures of modernized cities, including the careful

views and his creation of large public plazas,

scripting of patterns of circulation, sight lines,

such as Place de la Victoire and the Arc de Tri-

and viewing stations (fig. 14). The Fair was a per-

omphe. They also knew of the monumental Pari-

fected urban environment, where majestic build-

sian buildings that had made international head-

ings welcomed visitors, waters flowed, gardens

lines in the previous two decades: the Opera

grew, and monumental pieces of sculpture pro-

House that opened in 1 8 7 5 and the restored

vided dramatic focal points. Its perfection was

and expanded Hotel de Ville (City Hall) of about

not just of plan but also of style. With the nota-

1882. These projects, supersized and heavily

ble exception of Louis Sullivan's forward-looking

ornamented, gave rise to a new vision for civic

Hall of Transportation, the exhibition pavilions

structures across the Western world, especially

were Beaux-Arts neoclassical, integrated by their

in the United States, where new public buildings

common use of features such as columns, colon-

were designed on the same grand scale as earlier

nades, temple fronts, and rotundas. Their façades

palaces for the powerful and recalled features of

were but painted plaster, but they looked new

the Louvre, Versailles, and the Vatican. 9 And like

and clean, free of the grime of fumes from coal-

many palaces of old, they were profusely deco-

burning heaters (fig. 1 5 ) .

rated with large-scale murals and sculptures (see sidebar p. 46). But the art and architecture of

Reports of the Fair suggest that visitors were this Uto-

these buildings were not for the exclusive delecta-

pian city space. For Americans who had taken the

tion of kings, queens, and popes but for the dem-

Grand Tour, here was the best of Europe on the

ocratic elevation and inspiration of the "people."

shores of Lake Michigan. The all-white ensem-

Across the American continent at the end of

awestruck—if only momentarily—by

ble of grand temples to technology and indus-

the nineteenth century, the use of visual opulence

try reminded them of buildings on the top of the

and spatial grandness to groom the taste of and

[25]

THE BOOK OF THE FAIR

BAS/ N

GROUNO PLAN COLUMBIAN EXPOSITION

14

Ground Plan, World's Columbian Exposition.

15

View of Administration Building.

gentrify ordinary citizens, especially the burgeoning urban middle classes, created a boom in the building of museums, opera houses, symphony halls, municipal libraries, state capitols, courts of justice, and city halls. These grand buildings in turn engendered a public mural and sculpture movement that would continue for decades after the Fair. In the United States, this late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century drive to create sumptuous public spaces for the arts and government is called the American Renaissance or the City Beautiful movement. Burnham's White City at the Fair is one of its key monuments.

[27]

Behind these new civic buildings lay the cultural assumption that opulent architecture and narrative decorations would mold visitor behavior and thereby contribute to the progress of a city or country and the "perfection" of its citizens. By eliciting aesthetic awe and wonder and telling stories of greatness through sculptural and mural programs, buildings would elevate taste and mold people into better (more civilized) citizens. In the grand spaces of a new museum, opera house, or the Library of Congress, people would suppress their coarser sides and behave respectfully and with good manners. The grandeur of these

THE FAIR

new civic buildings, their creators hoped, would

a century—most visitors in 1 8 9 3 could not imag-

not only reenforce the values of the educated and

ine a human civilization greater than the short-

those born to wealth and privilege but "civilize"

lived mirage Burnham effected in Chicago. The

or refine people of lesser means, including the

Fair conveyed, as one newspaper announced,

immigrants pouring into the United States from

"A Vision of Strong Manhood and Perfection of

other countries, many of whom were of rural and

Society." 10

laboring-class backgrounds.

The contents of the exhibition halls sup-

The official Fair buildings in Chicago partici-

ported this sense of being on the cutting edge of

pated in this agenda. Their neoclassical temple

an advanced culture. Like other nineteenth-cen-

fronts, colonnades, and central domes gave the

tury fairs, the Chicago exposition defined the

exposition halls a veneer of European high cul-

modern primarily by the male arenas of indus-

ture. So did the murals, sculptures, reliefs, and

try and technology. The largest hall in Chicago

stained glass windows, which helped establish

was the Manufactures and Liberal Arts Building,

the high-minded, civilizing discourse of the cen-

with other major structures given over to elec-

tral fairgrounds. Not only did large-scale decora-

tricity, mines, transportation, agriculture, and

tions contribute to the palatial aura of the Fair's

machinery." Each gave vast amounts of display

institutional buildings

space to man's inventions. But the Chicago orga-

(without their

decora-

tions, they were essentially big boxes with high

nizers also devoted considerable effort to demon-

ceilings), but, were visitors capable of reading

strating that Americans did not just excel in tech-

them, they offered a handbook to the glories of

nology, a fact widely acknowledged by much of

the modern age. Their messages articulated and

the world, but also in arts and architecture, areas

reenforced the

Progress/Triumph/Civilization

in which Americans had never led internation-

paradigm that ruled the Fair. Even if a specta-

ally. Gilded Age America understood that the

tor did not pay the decorations particular atten-

arts were the true measure of a country's sophis-

tion, or was not adept in interpreting them—

tication in the eyes of the world, and Burnham

always a possibility with late nineteenth-century

made sure that the Fair had a full-blown decora-

allegorical programs—these sculptures and paint-

tive program of sculpture and murals to demon-

ings subliminally shaped the visitor experience.

strate that America's artistic refinement was now

With visual quotations from neoclassical vocabu-

equal to that of Paris. His plan allowed for two

laries redolent of Athens, Rome, and Paris, these

official buildings—the Palace of Fine Arts and the

embellishments assured visitors that the mod-

Woman's Building—where the arts could shine

ern age carried on the great Greco-Roman her-

and offer a counterbalance to the Fair's showcas-

itage of the Western world. Monumental sculp-

ing of machines, tools, and mass production. The

tures with figures scaled up from two to ten times

Palace of Fine Arts exhibited art from around the

human size invited viewers to believe that they

Western world but gave the most floor space to

lived in a new Athens and Rome. Although not

the American section so that visitors could judge

everyone was impressed—Louis Sullivan famously

the talents of contemporary American artists

said that the neoclassical planning at the Fair set

against those from other countries. The Woman's

back contemporary architecture for at least half

Building also had a major exhibition of women's

[28]

y

i-jaiss*'

16

Bird's-Eye View of the Fair. Engraving after watercolor by Charles Graham.

art in its Hall of Honor testifying to the country's

baskets, bows and arrows, blankets, and tanned-

advanced activity in the arts.

leather garments of indigenous peoples. In these

The fine arts were one counterpoint to the

anthropological exhibits, the period belief in cul-

grand pavilions of male genius in agriculture,

tural hierarchies played itself out, depicting sim-

technology, and industry. Another was exhibi-

pler societies in one small hall while showcasing

tions of how people lived in earlier stages of civ-

civilized ones in the core structures.

ilization. A small official building was given to

This binary—the civilized versus the uncivi-

anthropology, for example, to showcase eth-

lized—was more dramatically performed in the

nographic exhibits of tribal cultures, especially

Midway Plaisance, a district that was distinctly dif-

those of Native Americans. Here visitors could

ferent from the White City. The Midway was a

take the measure of modern progress by moving

pleasure garden of lighter fare that began at the

from the grand displays of iron and steel manu-

Fair's outer perimeter, and sat just behind the

factures into a smaller building showcasing pre-

Woman's Building, thereby putting women and

industrial lifestyles represented in the handmade

exotic others in close proximity (fig. 16). A mile-

[29]

THE FAIR

long appendage, the Midway was rowdy and low-

With its eclectic bazaar of all the world's peo-

brow, displaying folk, peasant, and third-world

ples, the Midway was a space akin to New York's

cultures amid entertainments and eateries. Here

Lower East Side. Its spaces were crowded and

people of all classes and countries mingled, aban-

domestic in scale. Visitors wandered the Mid-

doning their educated and cultured selves as they

way, bought food and trinkets from street ven-

ate, listened to music, watched belly dancers, and

dors, played games, and heard a diversity of pop-

took in a riotous assortment of attractions (fig.

ular music. The buildings tended to be low and

17). The mixture of cultures, and the crossing

rough without architectural pretense, their casual

of national boundaries, was unnaturally accel-

disarray throwing the formality and orderliness of

erated, as visitors went from the German village

the Fair's exposition district into high relief. Each

to the Algerian and Tunisian village, from the

zone spoke to the other, defining itself as what

Irish village to the Cairo street, from the Moorish

the other was not. Together they enacted the

palace to the Wild West show. Most memorable

period belief in cultural evolution: earlier stages

were the "exhibits" of men and women in native

of human development in the Midway, the height

dress and habitats: the Laplanders, the Inuits, the

of civilization in the White City. "What an oppor-

South Sea Islanders, the Dohomeyans, the Samo-

tunity was here afforded to the scientific mind,"

ans, the Native Americans. Many of the people

said the Chicago Tribune, "to descend the spiral

in these living exhibitions had been recruited or

of evolution, tracing humanities in its highest

imported to the Fair to be on display (fig. 18).

phases down almost to its animalistic origins."13

Most wore their native garb, sometimes in the

One attraction at the Midway bridged the

heat of the Chicago summer weighted down by

worlds of shared humanity and contemporary

clothes meant for cold climates and sometimes

modernity. The world's first Ferris wheel, an awe-

wearing barely any clothes. They were displayed

some artifact engineered by George Washington

alongside facsimiles of their native architecture

Gale Ferris, offered visitors a visceral thrill while

and

demonstrating American technological prowess

their handiwork—the

Penobscot

people

next to birch-bark wigwams, the Alaskan Indians

(fig. 19). The big wheel was the Midway's central

next to totem poles.

attraction and Chicago's response to the Eiffel Tower that had been such a wild success at the

In the rhetorical hierarchy of the Fair, these

1889 French exposition. Ferris's Great Wheel,

peoples represented cultures that had not yet They were assumed

250 feet in diameter and capable of carrying four-

to show visitors how cultures looked in a time

teen hundred people in cabins many feet above

closer to the beginning of human civilization.

the Fair, was just one more tug-of-war with Paris,

Their folkness, their peasant or exotic garb, their

the city Americans revered and emulated. It was

implied savagery and lack of "civilization" were

one of the few offerings at the Fair that allowed

underlined by their inclusion in the rough-and-

people to bodily experience contemporary man's

"advanced" or

"progressed."12

tumble Midway rather than in the more cosmo-

triumph over the natural pull of gravity. Well

politan and ordered spaces of the exhibition

before the airplane, masses of visitors took their

grounds.

first ride into outer space, getting a bird's-eye

[30]

17

West End, Midway Plaisance.

18

T h e Samoan Village, Midway Plaisance.

gorical sculptures about uncontrolled Fire, Air, Earth, and Water and then four others depicting man bringing these four elements under his command in modern times. These narratives worked on the binary scheme—-juxtaposing an earlier time when the elements harassed and controlled man with a modern one when man's taming of them had advanced society. Bitter used a popular Beaux-Arts triangular composition for each decorative sculpture; each is made up of three figures, one much higher than the other two, and the three together tell a story. In Fire Uncontrolled, a wild allegorical female goddess of Fire spins upward in a Baroque swirl, a serpent of evil and danger around her arm (fig. 20). Below her is a female with a torch of flames and a god of wind helping Fire rage out of control. T h e companion sculpture, Fire Controlled, tells of progress. Fire is now contained in a torch held high by a goddess; a blacksmith triumphantly places his sledgehammer on the body of the d e m o n of Fire, prone and defeated (fig. 21). This synoptic kind of narraîg

tion, the perils of ancient times versus the glory of

Ferris W h e e l , Midway Plaisance.

contemporary times, was one of the most popular ways artists told history at the Fair. A much longer history of the development view o f the fairgrounds, lake, and city below. A n d

of the "arts" was told in the frescoes in the eight

when they left the wheel that had taken them to

domes of the Manufactures and Liberal Arts

such a soaring height, they descended once again

Building (see fig. 27). Each of eight muralists dec-

down the evolutionary ladder.

orated the four corners (pendentives) and the center of a twenty-five-foot dome using mostly

i

THE D E C O R A T I O N S ^

female allegorical figures with appropriate attri-

Technological progress was also a leading theme

butes. They showed the very distant past of gold-

in the decorations made by male sculptors and

smiths,

painters at the Fair. Karl Bitter, for instance, who

glassmakers, potters, bookmakers, needleworkers;

created the sculptures for the doorways of the

then, during the Italian Renaissance and after,

Administration Building, adopted the theme of

the arts of design, sculpture, and painting; and,

modern man's success in taming the titanic forces

finally, the contemporary arts of the telephone,

of the natural world. He made four sets of alle-

telegraph, arc light, and dynamo. 14 That painters

[32]

brassworkers,

armorers,

ironworkers,

20

Karl Bitter, Fire Uncontrolled, group flanking the south entrance to the Administration Building,

al

Karl Bitter, Fire Controlled, group flanking the south entrance to the Administration Building.

THE FAIR

would

the

ern town belching steam and smoke. T h e paint-

telephone and telegraph as "arts" indicates the

characterize

technologies

such

ing adheres to the same evolutionary script cen-

era's high esteem for the "mechanical arts" and

tral to the decorations at the Fair.15

underlines the heavy emphasis on

as

machinery

John J. Boyle globalized this progress para-

in the Fair's building dedicated to manufactur-

digm in his sculpted decorations for the Trans-

ing. This cycle ended, just like Blashfield's Evolu-

portation Building. In keeping with the setting

tion of Civilization at the Library of Congress, with

assigned him, a pavilion filled with modern steam

the technological arts that Gilded A g e Americans

engines, he created friezes relating the long his-

understood to be their nation's most significant

tory of transport from ancient civilizations to

contribution to Western civilization.

modern America, from travel dependent on walk-

T h e conccption of progress as a series of inven-

ing to rails, from rickshaws to steamships. His

tions and technological advancements, each an

progress cycle is one of the most encyclopedic at

improvement over the last, was a masculinist con-

the Fair, its significance enhanced by his choice of

struct that dominated the arts of the Western

a realist, ethnographic style that I examine more

world in the last half of the nineteenth century.

closely later in the chapter (see figs. 3 7 - 4 0 ) .

It held a central place in the American imagina-

T h e official buildings at the Fair showcased

tion, the country having always taken deep pride

American progress not only in technology but also

in its inventors, ranging from Benjamin Frank-

in the fine arts. As a matter of policy, Fair orga-

lin to Thomas Edison. T o tell a progress narra-

nizers drew from the ranks of U.S. sculptors and

tive through technology was a popular way of

painters to demonstrate that the nation's artists

constructing and celebrating America's contribu-

were now capable of embellishing public build-

tions to the modern world. American artists often

ings with the same profusion, excellence, and

made such cycles their theme. Asher B. Durand's

high-mindedness found in the grand buildings of

very large oil painting of 1853, Progress, is a classic

Paris. T h e artists' competent use of an allegorical

example (fig. 22). T h e cycle begins on the left side

vocabulary indexed how cosmopolitan and civi-

of the painting with the untamed primeval wilder-

lized the one-time rough-and-tumble frontier had

ness, a world that is dark and ominously primitive

become. A n d the vast scope of the decorative pro-

and whose only occupants are Native Americans.

gram testified to the country's progress in the fine

Moving to the right, the viewer then enters into

arts. American artists had never taken on a proj-

a brightly lit modern world of Euro-American set-

ect of such grand scale, and many onlookers were

tlement. Going down the road that begins in the

curious about whether they would succeed. T h e

right corner, each stop brings new advancements.

press reported each step in making and installing

First comes the cattleman on foot, who is followed

the decorations, fascinated by the ambition and

by a horse and carriage and eventually the rail-

the competition with Paris. As it turned out, the

road and steamships. As the technology advances,

public decorations at the Fair launched an Amer-

so do the houses and community. From the rudi-

ican sculpture and mural movement that contin-

mentary log cabin in the lower right the eye trav-

ued deep into the twentieth century.

els to a New England town with church steeple in

Sculpture was the privileged medium at the

the middle ground and in the far distance a mod-

Fair. T h e r e were fountains and triumphal arches

[34]

22

Asher B. Durand, Progress (The Advance of Civilization), 1 8 5 3 . Oil on canvas, 48 x 7 1 '-yi6 in.

to be decorated, along with figures on pedestals,

dens, Frederick MacMonnies, and Karl Bitter.

pediments, caryatids, cornice

high

They and their assistants worked on-site in the

against the sky, and figurative groups at the main

empty buildings, which took on the nature of

entrances to exhibition halls. All were familiar

open studios, allowing the male community of

sculptures

types of public sculpture in the older cities of

artists to lead a colorful social life that was a reg-

Europe such as Rome and Paris. Trained in the

ular topic in the press. Some painters, such as

French

the eight men who created the ceiling paint-

academic

tradition, sculptors

formed

their figures first in small plasters and then, with

ings in the Manufactures and Liberal Arts Build-

the help of assistants and large workshops, scaled

ing, also worked on-site in the empty Horticul-

them up in plaster of Paris to be attached to build-

ture Building. They created their two-dimensional

ings or placed in plazas and waterways. Sculptors

designs, scaled them up, and produced cartoons

were paid more than painters in the 1890s—often

from which to make their frescoes. They then

a contentious issue—and the main assignments

climbed forty- to fifty-foot-high scaffoldings to

went to well-known Beaux-Arts practitioners such

paint directly on the ceilings of the curved domes.

as Daniel Chester French, Augustus Saint-Gau-

Working together allowed them to coordinate

[35]

THE FAIR

some aspects of the decorations and to learn from

art, "especially female figures, is staggering. . . .

one another. The painters first pinned paper doll

The female form was used for seven hundred

cutouts on the walls of the dome to determine

years as the vehicle of shifting ulterior meanings

how large their figures needed to be for viewers to

more publicly and more frequent in Paris than in

read them comfortably from the floor way below.

any other major city. . . . The female figure is the

Then all eight of them created figures that con-

dominant sign, with a multitude of significations;

formed more or less to the same nine- to ten-foot-

it is the overarching image in this capital, this city

high scale.16

of ladies.""

Two painters, Gari Melchers and Walter Mac-

The Chicago fair was another "city of ladies,"

Ewen, painted their huge, forty-foot-long lunettes

a fact that is not surprising given that artists were

on canvas in an empty building at the Fair, and

trained in French academic habits of thought

the paintings were affixed to the walls of the Man-

and emulated all things Parisian. But what did it

ufactures and Liberal Arts Building (see figs. 44

mean in 1 8 9 3 America for male artists to perpet-

and 45). The women muralists similarly painted

uate an old artistic tradition that deeply and con-

their canvases off-site but worked in their home

ventionally prescribed the behaviors of male gods

studios, not in Chicago, and then shipped the

and female goddesses? In a period of gender dis-

canvases to the fairgrounds to be attached to the

ruption both in the home and in public spaces,

walls.

what and how did white sculpted and painted ladies communicate to the Fair's heterogeneous

With but a few exceptions, male sculptors and painters chose classicizing allegory as their pri-

female and male visitors?

mary artistic language, this being the Western i A L L E G O R Y AND THE V

standard for decorating opera houses, theaters,

GENDERED

libraries, city halls, state capitals, hotels, railroad

BODY

stations, and other public buildings. Among the

Allegory, the dominant artistic language at the

exceptions were Melchers and MacEwen, who

Fair, is an old symbolic system that collapses vir-

worked in the revisionist mode created by Pierre

tues, vices, historical events, human strivings,

Puvis de Chavannes, and Boyle, who adopted a

geographic continents, and individual nations

realist style for most of his sculptures, reserving

into human form. It is a form of abstraction that

allegory for the lunette over the main doorway

speaks indirectly. Allegories were

to the Transportation Building and a few other

to be a timeless language and a way of express-

sculptural passages. But no matter what the lan-

ing eternal truths. With a history that goes back

understood

guage, the male-created decorations were pre-

to antiquity and Renaissance Italy, allegorical lan-

dictably gendered, giving the female body far

guage was taught and promoted in art academies.

different work to do than the male one. Further-

Art students learned how to sculpt or paint ideal-

more, as was true of similar decorative programs

ized male and female figures, perfected in their

in Paris, the sculptures and murals at the Fair had

proportion and without blemish or oddity, each

more female figures than male ones. As Marina

representing an idea. They created these ideal

Warner writes in her study of Paris monuments,

bodies in the nude or wearing classical dress or

' T h e sheer quantity of human figures" in French

clinging drapery. They also learned the dictio-

[36]

THE FAIR

nary of allegorical body types and the meanings

ent biology but different duties to the female and

conveyed by timeworn attributes. Trumpets, palm

male bodies. The Victorian etiquette book, in

fronds, acanthus wreaths, torches, Phrygian hats,

other words, ordered not only the way in which

hourglasses, compasses, tools, apples,

globes,

men and women led their lives but also the ways

scepters, and eagles all had specialized meanings

in which male and female allegories performed

and were part of the artist's arsenal in putting

for much of the nineteenth century, and most

together an allegorical story.

certainly the way they did in 1893 at the Fair.

Though allegory was promoted as a univer-

The sculpted and painted male bodies in the

sal language, it was not. It was a Euro-American

White City could be youthful, manly, or old. Art-

practice, not a global one, and had its own inter-

ists used male farmers to represent Agriculture,

nal history as a mode of vision. The popularity of

blacksmiths to signify Labor, warriors to stand for

allegorical figure types and stories changed over

War, and Uncle Sam to represent a male head of

time, and the depictions of male and female roles

state. The bodies of men wrestled with the ele-

largely reflected how the greater society defined

ments, guided the ship of state, or handled the

gender roles. As the art historian Hollis Clayson

reins of a chariot. They were vigorous and active,

nicely put it, at any given moment in nineteenth-

performing physical tasks or exercising responsi-

century culture, one can find a "mutual embed-

bility. If old, they were wise counselors.

dedness of female allegory and gender rela-

When the male decorators created allegori-

tions." 18

cal women at the Fair, they depicted them as the

Clayson and Warner have both probed the

fairer and more virtuous sex, the "angels of the

ways the allegorical female figure has been gen-

home" in Victorian rhetoric. They signified stan-

dered in French art and culture. Warner's work

dard nineteenth-century definitions of feminin-

looks more generally at how public decorations

ity: refinement, beauty, virtuousness, and moral-

in Paris constructed differences between men

ity. The artists also assigned the most lofty of

and women over time. Clayson's analyzes how

abstract ideals to women: Abundance, Fertility,

allegory was gendered in French imagery dur-

Fame, Victory, Liberty, Peace, Charity, Education,

ing a specific moment, the period during and just

the Arts (Painting, Sculpture, Weaving, Embroi-

after the social upheavals of the 1 8 7 0 - 7 1 Franco-

dery, Ceramics, Music, Dance, Poetry), and, on

Prussian war. Clayson's mode of feminist analy-

rare occasions, the Sciences (Architecture, Geom-

sis, which is to expose and critique social circum-

etry). They also commonly called upon female

stance, easily transfers across the Atlantic, where

figures

a different set of historical conditions shaped art-

Summer, Autumn, Winter), the four continents

to represent the four seasons (Spring,

(Africa, America, Asia,

ists' work and its reception at the Fair.

Europe),

and

single

The artists at the Fair, male and female, had

nations: France (the Marianne or Republic fig-

grown up in an Anglo-American Victorian culture

ure), America (Columbia and Liberty), German-

that assigned significantly different roles to men

ica, and Britannica. As Lynn Hunt has argued

and women. They "naturally" divided the allegor-

about the uses of allegory during the French Rev-

ical world into the same male and female spheres

olution, in times when women in the culture have

the culture handed them, giving not only differ-

no specific public identities and are powerless to

[37]

THE FAIR

vote, female bodies are easily manipulated to "be

iel Chester French (fig. 26). These freestanding

representative of abstract qualities and collective

sculptures stood across from one another in the

dreams." 19

Grand Basin that served as the entrance to the

O n the rare occasions when allegorical

women labored, they did so as childbearers (Fer-

Fair. A n artificial lake whose waters were drawn

tility, Motherhood),

Sacrifice),

from nearby Lake Michigan, the basin was a Wag-

teachers of the young (Education), and hand-

nerian scene in which bigger-than-life sculpted

workers (Arts and Crafts).

gods rose out of primordial waters. T h e basin's

nuns

(Charity,

stilled waters offered a shimmering

Whereas male bodies could be nubile or aged

reflective

at the Fair, female allegorical figures were eter-

pool for the two works and the buildings lining

nally young. An allegorical woman lingered time-

its edges. A t night the basin became a dramatic

lessly in late youth or early adulthood, perpetu-

light show as the lights decorating the Columbian

ally at the height of her beauty. Her breasts were

Fountain changed colors and those buried in the

developed, and her body was most often lithe and

wreath of The Republic gave her a halo.

ethereal. She often had wings, signifying a body

Both sculptures were closely based on French

lighter than air (Fame, Victory). But she could

prototypes.

also, like the Statue of Liberty, have a sturdy

Monnies reworked the old French idea of a fan-

In

the

Columbian

Fountain,

Mac-

columnar build. Overall, whether sveltely config-

tasy barge, a "ship of state" carrying a mytholo-

ured or more amazonian, the female body was

gized female

all but interchangeable from allegory to allegory.

figures

Artists relied on accessories—a flag, breastplate,

phantly riding in her ship of state was usually

or Phrygian c a p — a n d attributes—a globe, a bolt

the Marianne figure, an allegory for the French

figure

accompanied by auxiliary

(fig. 24) .20 In France, the woman trium-

of electricity, a wreath, a h o r n — t o give female

Republic, and the other figures represented the

figures identity. If draped in a flag, an allegori-

French citizenry (fig. 25). MacMonnies Amer-

cal woman became America; if she wore a breast-

icanized the idea or, more specifically, adjusted

plate, she was Columbia; if she carried a torch,

it to one of the Fair's metathemes: the country's

she was Liberty. A trumpet signified Fame, and

discovery four hundred years earlier by Colum-

a wreath signaled Victory; a figure accompanied

bus. He placed Columbia, a female surrogate for

by young children was Charity or Education. O n e

Columbus, in an antique chair on the top o f a

accompanied by an animal or a sheaf of wheat

pillar, guiding the ship into the fairgrounds.

was Agriculture. In these allegories, as in so much

She is a half-draped goddess wearing a classical

art and literature of the period, woman was allied

helmet in the style of Athena, and all the mem-

closely with nature. She carried grapes or cornu-

bers of her entourage are female. At the prow, a

copias, rode oceanic waves, and might lean "natu-

winged female figure of Fame extends the wreath

rally" like a vine against a tree.

awarded heroes in one hand and, in the other,

We can see this type of gendered representa-

a trumpet to sound Columbia's praises. Slender

tion in the two most prominent sculptures at the

sister figures lightly paddle the barge, represent-

Fair: the Columbian Fountain, by Frederick Mac-

ing, the artist said, the Arts, Sciences, and Indus-

Monnies, and the monumental

The

tries, the same arenas of activity represented in

Republic (sometimes called Columbia), by Dan-

the exhibition halls at the Fair. (Given that the

figure

of

[38]

23

Grand Basin.

24

Frederick MacMonnies, Columbian Fountain (Barge of State), 1892-93.

THE FAIR

25

Henri Meyer, Le Char du Triomphe de la République, 1892. Colored wood engraving, 12 VÏ x 18 in. From Le Petit Journal, supplement illustré du 24 septembre 1892.

are generic females without attributes,

her and the fountain represents the four centu-

we need a guidebook to identify the allegori-

ries of progress between the arrival of Columbus

cal meanings MacMonnies assigned to them.

and the rise of modern democracies. The Repub-

Indeed, we often need this kind of help: female

lic rose one hundred feet in the air, her sixty-

figures

allegorical figures were always attractive but often

five-foot

insufficiently articulated for viewers to determine

tal. Regal and glittering, with a gold overlay o n

body topping a forty-foot-high pedes-

what they were to signify.) While MacMonnies's

her plaster body and steel skeletal armature, she

decorative ladies delicately move the barge for-

wore a belted chiton and acanthus wreath. Her

ward, the very manly and powerful Father Time,

left hand lifts the liberty or Phrygian cap that sym-

the bearded and aged figure at the rear, strains

bolized revolution in both America and France,

his overdeveloped muscles to steer the ship with

while her right hand holds an American eagle

his scythe. A r o u n d

the

whose wings spread over the orb of the world.

fountain's waterspouts, more figures, male and

T h e globe with eagle, symbolizing the spread

the barge, alongside

female, some on horseback, sport in the water.

of democracy around the world, was the official

T h e fountain, and its outer ring o f figures and

emblem at the Fair.

horses, was contained in its own circular pool,

Like MacMonnies, French adjusted the aca-

lifted off the basin by a ring of stairs.21

demic vocabulary to fit American needs. Best

Father Time guides the ship of state toward

known today for his towering figure of Abraham

Daniel Chester French's figure of The Republic,

Lincoln at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington

who is at the other end of the basin (fig. 26).

D.C., French adopted a c o m m o n French allegor-

She awaits the barge, her arms aloft in a gesture

ical type in The Republic. Known in France as Mar-

of welcome and benediction. T h e water between

ianne, and, in very early years, as Liberty, she was

[40]

THE FAIR

routinely envisioned as a heavy-set female figure wearing a peplos that sometimes slipped off her shoulders or bust.22 She carried a sword or pike, and wore a wreath of acanthus leaves, the French Phrygian hat, or a sun crown, with sun rays radiating from her head. A few years before the Fair, the French sculptor Frédéric-Auguste Bartholdi had already adjusted the figure to fit into American history when he created the Statue of Liberty (officially, Liberty Enlightening the World) for New York Harbor. Dedicated in 1886, Bartholdi's Liberty was twice the height of Daniel Chester French's Republic. But the two hefty women had similar duties: on the one hand, they allegorized the abstract virtues of human emancipation; on the other, they were Gilded A g e hostesses, one greeting people arriving by sea in the United States and the other welcoming visitors to the Columbian Exposition. These

hybrid Franco-American

citizens

are

one more demonstration of the artistic transatlantic dialogue that prevailed at the Fair. The Republic and Liberty were also typical of the female allegorical figures of the time in carrying multiple significations, most of them abstract and diffuse. Viewers, trained in the metaphoric language of allegory, could respond to these figures' idealized bodies and attributes in any number of ways. In reading The Republic, they might feel a surge in patriotism, experience pride in American artistic achievement, or feel gratitude for living in such a great historical moment, comparable to the Renaissance of the fifteenth century when European arts were in full flower. The Republic might also bring to mind the golden age of Greece and the colossal figure of Athena, made by Phidias in gold and ivory, that once filled the Parthenon. T h e Republic s Greco-Roman classical dress confirmed

26

the c o m m o n understanding at the time

Daniel Chester French, The Republic (Columbia), 1892-93-

[41]

THE FAIR

that modern Western civilization was founded in

as one critic noted, "the tape issuing from a ticker

Greece and Rome; the wreath on her head spoke

behind her made a fanciful ribbon-like decora-

of peace, victory, and superiority; and the pike

tion around her body" (fig. 28). T h e dynamo is

and Phrygian cap in her left hand recalled the lib-

a robust Rosie the Riveter type. Rather than wear-

erty, equality, and fraternity axiom of the French

ing clinging drapery, she is dressed like a m o d e r n

Revolution and, by extension, the American one

factory worker and is seated "on a magnet with a

that gave the world a new style o f democracy. In

revolving wheel at her feet." 24 Although her ama-

her right hand, the American eagle spreading its

zonian heft may reference Michelangelo's Sibyls

wings over a globe spoke of national ambition

in the Sistine Chapel, her modern dress sets her

and colonialism.

apart, and she is the only female I've found in all the Fair's public imagery who wears a working-

In short, The Republic, with her columnar and

class outfit.

golden body, articulated the spread of American democratic values, reiterated the political

Beckwith was not alone in reworking the fem-

and artistic kinship that Americans felt with the

inine allegorical body to herald the highly pub-

French, and attributed to American civilization

licized

the same deep roots in classical Athens and Rome

ogies. French artists were also stretching

claimed by France. T h e idealized figure also spoke

conventions of allegory to celebrate contempo-

of woman as chaste, beautiful, refined, virtuous,

rary inventions. In the mural La Physique (Phys-

and upright. She was passive, with no duties other

ics) at the Hotel de Ville, for example, the French

new

late

nineteenth-century

technolthe

than those of welcome and benediction. She was

painter Ernest Duez shows a curvaceous young

the otherworldly queen of the Fair, a majestic but

woman holding a telephone receiver to her ear as

dematerialized embodiment of justice and good-

she reclines in a modern ballgown; a hot-air bal-

ness, an idealization of what midcentury Victorian

loon wafts in the sky behind her, and modern-day

culture called "true womanhood."

scientific equipment is at her side (fig. 29). Sim-

Elsewhere at the Fair, however, a few artists

ilar imagery appeared frequently in advertising

created allegorical women whose bodies were

posters and popular graphics at this time, with

more naturally human and who seemed almost

pinup girls, usually in gauzy or clinging drap-

capable of agency. J. Carroll Beckwith, in his

ery, holding aloft modern products such as light

dome at the Manufactures and Liberal Arts Build-

bulbs, brand-name beers, and even female vibra-

ing, produced four allegorical woman with robust

tors (fig. 30).

and realistic bodies, giving each an attribute of a

From our perspective today, this coexistence of

modern technology (fig. 27). 23 Representing the

beautiful female bodies with the everyday mate-

arc light, a female figure holds u p a bright globe

riality of modern machines and products sug-

from a streetlight against her billowing hair; for

gests a fundamental disconnect: the allegorical

the Morse code, a woman reads a book at a table

depiction of ideals at war with the realistic por-

with a telegraph machine beside her; for the tele-

trayal of modern machines and consumer goods.

p h o n e and ticker tape, a bare-breasted female

This dissonance is similar to the unease we expe-

figure with a modern hairdo (a bun high on her

rienced earlier u p o n seeing cupids in the print of

head) holds a telephone receiver to her ear while,

Woman's Work who had put aside their bows and

[42]

27 J . Carroll Beckwith, Electricity, dome in the Manufactures and Liberal Arts Building. From Century Magazine, July 1893. 28 J . Carroll Beckwith, The Telephone and the Ticker, pendentive, dome in the Manufactures and Liberal Arts Building. From Scribner's Monthly 12, 1892.

arrows to talk on the telephone and work a sew-

female bodies holding these products were young

ing machine, typewriter, and camera (see fig. 6).

and seductive, their beauty put to the new pur-

The old language of allegory is being enlisted

pose of making consumer products desirable.

to perform work for which it was not originally

Rather than give up allegory altogether, artists

intended. Rather than using allegorical

like Beckwith tried to modernize it.

figures

to represent the traditional virtues and vices, art-

Other male artists enlisted allegory to honor

ists were using them to celebrate modern tech-

great men of the past and present. In a commem-

nological inventions and sell commercial prod-

orative lithograph of the Columbian Exposition,

ucts. Attributes that had accompanied allegorical

the Italian artist Rodolfo Morgari used a mix-

women for centuries and had fixed meanings—

ture of styles, combining traditional classicizing

the trumpet, the wreath, the lyre, or the com-

and portraiture along with a bird's-eye map of

pass—were now being replaced by telephones

the fairgrounds (fig. 3 1 ) . True to the language of

and electric lights, attributes that advertised the

allegory, this realist/idealist pastiche presented

progress and triumph of the modern age. The

the female body as abstract and virtuous but ren-

[43]

2g

Ernest Duez, La Physique, c. 1889. Mural, Salon des Sciences, Hotel de Ville, Paris.

30

General Electric's Mazda Lamp advertisement, c. 1 9 1 0 .

Cleaveland), then president of the United States. In the heavens on the left is a group of recognizable great American (dead) men flanking Christopher Columbus, who has his left hand on a world globe, his right one on a map of the Americas, and his foot on New World thistles and palm branches. Abraham Lincoln and Ulysses S Grant are to Columbus's right and George Washington, William Tecumseh Sherman, Samuel F. B. Morse, David G. Farragut, and Philip Sheridan are on his

dered the central male bodies with human specificity. On the right half of the print, the familiar figure of America, draped in a national flag, welcomes allegorical representations of other parts of the world to the Fair. Behind this allegorical ensemble stands a young, earthbound Thomas Edison, his phonograph sitting on one table and the cylinders on which the machine recorded sounds on another. Above Edison hangs a framed portrait of Grover Cleveland (misspelled

[44]

THE FAIR

'.«OBPUS

31

R o d o l f o Morgari, Columbia Presenting the World's Columbian Exposition to the Americas. C o l o r lithograph, image 28V4 x 3 7 in. (plate 23V2 x 32!4 in.).

other side. A Christian angel looking down from

guage had in the art world. Most male artists at the

the heavens at the right blesses the ensemble.

Fair held on to the idea that their purpose as deco-

Mixing traditional allegorical figures with his-

rators was to speak of manly deeds and exemplary

torical portraits, like wrapping a half-dressed

behaviors, and they could not imagine a way to do

female body in ticker tape, registered the late

so without neoclassical gods and goddesses. Only

nineteenth-century artist's growing

a couple elected to work in other styles. Women

uneasiness

with the limitations of traditional allegory in mod-

artists, in contrast, recognizing that classical alle-

ern times. That so many artists tried to "modern-

gory was embedded in masculinist discourses and

ize" allegory rather than replace it speaks to the

Victorian binaries, gravitated to new ways of repre-

tenacious hold this centuries-old system of lan-

senting their sex in public decorations.

[45]

THE

MURAL

MOVEMENT

IN

PARIS

In the 1870s, during the Third Republic, the French government launched a grand campaign to decorate the nation's civic institutions in Paris as well as other major French cities. Over the next several decades, a corps o f muralists was commissioned to paint the expansive interiors o f such structures as the Panthéon, the Sorbonne, the École de Pharmacie, the Hotel de Ville, and the various city halls (mairies) o f Paris's municipal wards. This government-sponsored decorative campaign, monumental in both scale and scope, marked a crucial turning point for public art in France. O n the heels o f Napoleon III and the Second Empire, the new republic sought to integrate civic art into the era's program o f democratic reforms. Whereas the Second Empire had sought public edification through (limited) state-sponsored decoration, the Third Republic attempted to restore a sense o f nationalism by staging individualized encounters with communal images of French history, identity, and values. B e g u n in the 1860s and inaugurated in 1875, the Paris O p é r a a n d its decorations signaled the French government's new investment in public art. T h e Opéra, an opulent, neo-Baroque landmark designed by Charles Gamier, modeled decoration as a collaborative endeavor a m o n g architects, sculptors, and painters; many artistic hands helped create a harmonious whole. T h e interior, a lavish jewel from floor to crown, showcased a profusion o f murals. Ceilings, walls, lunettes, a n d the d o m e all featured painterly compositions. T h e showpiece o f the building was the Grand Foyer, with its grandiose decorations by the academically trained painter Paul Baudry. His mural program depicted the historical development o f the arts in relation to modern music. Baudry painted ideal forms, drawing o n myth-

T h e women artists at the Fair, especially the

in public decorations at the e n d o f the nine-

painters, were more attuned to what was happen-

teenth century and the ways they did or did n o t

ing in Paris, where traditional allegory was losing

change

its exclusivity in public art (see above). By 1890

female figures.25 W e need to consider these alter-

the conventions gendering male a n d

Parisian artists had introduced three alternative

natives to allegory to understand their occasional

artistic languages for decorating public spaces. For

appearance in Chicago, especially in the decora-

the sake o f simplicity, I will refer to them as histor-

tions for the Woman's Building.

ical realism, depicting people and events from the past; contemporary realism, rendering figures in

i

H I S T O R I C A L R E A L I S M 5V

modern-day dress and activities; and modern clas-

T h e rise o f realism—and its extreme formula-

sicism, reflecting the style devised by France's pre-

tion, naturalism—as a way of artistic seeing in

eminent muralist, Puvis de Chavannes.

the second half of the nineteenth century chal-

Historians are only beginning to understand

lenged the premises both o f idealizing and clas-

the appearance o f these new pictorial languages

sicizing. Realist artists insisted on historical a n d

[46]

ological, biblical, and historical sources to compose such allegorical murals as L'Apothéose de la Mélodie et l'Harmonie, La Parnasse, eight panels of the Muses, and ten medallions symbolizing the music of various nations. The Paris Opéra offered a vivid example of the prominent role that mural painting could play in the adornment of the nation's civic buildings. The democratic tone set by French administrators during this surge of public commissions from the late 1870s through the 1890s hinged on three key ingredients: open competitions (concours) for decorative programs, public exhibition of mural entries, and a voicing of public opinion. By exhibiting designs annually in the Salon de Paris, officials expanded the site of mural painting beyond the strictures of architectural locale, effectively enabling an inquisitive public to scrutinize these compositions at eye level. According to one American critic in 1888, Salon audiences had encountered 'Titanic canvases" in recent years by artists such as Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, Benjamin Constant, and Albert Besnard, and that year's exhibition was no exception with its display of large-scale decorations for the Sorbonne. The critic anticipated "an avalanche of decorative painting" the following year, as some of the murals for the new Hôtel de Ville would go on view at the annual Salon (Child, "Paris Art Notes," 107). Burned to the ground during the rule of the Commune in 1871, the Hôtel de Ville (completed in 1628) was quickly rebuilt in its original Renaissance-inspired form and inaugurated in 1882. Smarting from the wounds of war, Parisian citizens and officials looked to the new city hall as an assuaging symbol of a healing republic. For the nation's muralists, the structure offered enormous opportunity, particularly in the 1880s and 1890s. Faced with many walls and ceilings awaiting adornment, municipal leaders

optical facts. They gave their figures the anato-

servient to architecture. They stood by the auton-

mies of real rather than perfected bodies, they

omy of tableaux (easel paintings) and rejected the

clothed them in historic or contemporary dress,

dependency of painting, sculpture, and architec-

and they placed them in plausible landscapes or

ture required by decor (decorations). 27 They also

cityscapes.26

argued that allegories were elitist, understand-

The most radical realists, such as Gustave Cour-

able by the well-educated but inaccessible to the broader public.

bet and the impressionists in France, or Winslow Homer and Thomas Eakins in the United States,

But some public decorators became swept up

did not produce mural paintings, deeming any

in the artistic turn to realism and married its fea-

form of decoration untrue and old-fashioned.

tures to the demands of large civic commissions.

Realists declaimed decorations as an antiquated

In France, historical themes first appeared in dec-

genre, forcing artists to compromise by paint-

orations for town halls, with artists taking key

ing larger-than-life figures, idealizing the human

events from the region's past as subjects. In these

body, and treating painting and sculpture as sub-

murals, identifiable people (and people types)

[47]

commissioned a long list of painters, totaling nearly one hundred by 1889. Notably absent from this list were the impressionists, who did not seek commissions. Administrators commissioned artists directly for the most important spaces and held open competitions for the many others. Overall, they gave muralists a significant degree of discretion in selecting their subject, genre, and style. As a result, the decorations of the Hôtel de Ville used a multiplicity of artistic languages, with some rooms evincing more than a dozen painterly hands. (Eclecticism was also the rule throughout the World's Columbian Exposition, where organizers often selected several artists to decorate a large space.) Administrators nevertheless aimed to create artistic unity within the structure. One of the key debates among administrators, artists, and critics centered on the role of allegory in these compositions. Should muralists draw upon the stalwart, classical symbols of ancient Greece and Rome and of Renaissance Italy, as architect Albert Ballu advocated and as, for example, Léon Glaize did in his friezes for the Salon des Arts, L 'Union de l'Idéale et la Vérité and La Musique et la Danse? Or should artists modernize allegory by means of contemporary attributes or scenes—called l'allégorie réelle by Gustave Courbet? Henri Gervex adopted this approach in his ceiling panel for the Salle des Fêtes, La Musique à travers les Ages, wherein a modern-day theater scene inspires an allegorical reverie of music's past (see fig. 33). Some muralists abandoned allegory altogether, conceptualizing a novel public art grounded in both realism and history. Jean-Paul Laurens decorated the Salon Lobau with a series of murals representing the history of Paris and its municipal liberties. Modernist Édouard Manet advocated such realism in public art, submitting a proposal of his own for the Hôtel de Ville that featured everyday Paris as its sub-

appeared in historic and occupational costume

mural movement in the United States went into

and in town or country settings with recogniz-

full swing in the early 1900s, artists had plenti-

able buildings. Jean-Paul Laurens, for example,

ful opportunities to create murals in state capi-

decorated what today is called the Salon Lobau

tol buildings, where they also turned to depicting

at the Hotel de Ville in Paris, with three large wall

key events in regional histories.28

murals depicting events from the city's past that

In Chicago, male decorators used historic

featured buildings, full-bodied citizens, and mem-

dress on only a few occasions, notably on sculp-

bers of the royal family. Unlike allegorists who

tures of Columbus when they rendered him with

could fall back on their academic training, Lau-

bobbed hair and clothed in Renaissance tights, a

rens had to do considerable research on Parisian

tunic, and an ermine cloak. He might stand alone

history as well as on famous political and mili-

with his triumphant flag, as in the Lawrence Saint-

tary figures to replicate the details of events, land-

Gaudens sculpture in front of the Administra-

scapes, and buildings and capture a semblance of

tion Building, or he might appear in a context

what people looked like in times past. When the

more ideal than real, as in the Court of Honor

[48]

ject: 'To paint a series of compositions representing . . . the several bodies politic moving in their elements, the public and commercial life of our day. I would have Paris Markets, Paris Railroads, Paris Port, Paris Under Ground, Paris Racetracks and Gardens" (Cachin et al., Manet, 1832-1883,

398). Manet's

proposal received no reply. Yet some council members sympathized with Manet's vision of dispensing with allegory in favor of realism: "We do not want the Hotel de Ville to be handed over to the expression of an idealist a r t . . . to be converted into allegories, that is, to subjects that no longer correspond to a contemporary idea of art" (Le Triomphe des Mairies, 67; author's translation). The issue was a polemic one, to be sure. An American critic in 1892 was rankled by just such a realistic composition by Emile Blanchon representing workers in a builder's yard: "Is this, after all, decorative art? Is realism to invade our ceilings and frescoes, are our public buildings to be adorned with people clothed in cloth trousers and tailor-made dresses?" (Millar, "Fine Arts," 7). Amid the bitter disagreements, one artist emerged as a reconciling figure. By century's end, painter and muralist Puvis de Chavannes received recognition from nearly all political factions and artistic camps, as well as accolades from Americans abroad. He upheld the traditions of the French Academy with his investment in classicism and idealism yet also inspired young modernists with his penchant for abstraction and his queries into subjectivity and the unconscious (fig. 43 and plate 2). Puvis pioneered the use of pale colors and simple, unmodeled forms—a means of distilling nature in the manner he believed was necessary in mural painting, which must always harmonize with the architectural whole, resting calmly and flatly in its assigned place. An unlikely hero, Puvis had little formal artistic train-

(see fig. 1 o) ,29 There, at the top of a triumphal arch behind The Republic, a sculpture of Columbus dressed in historic Renaissance garb has him arrive at the Fair in a neoclassical chariot pulled by four horses, an ensemble called a quadriga (fig. 32). Columbus is accompanied by two generic neoclassical female figures holding the reins and guiding the horses. A male figure on horseback brings up the rear. In this instance, the sculptor used historic dress and "realist" portrait features for the seafaring Columbus but also placed him in the traditional iconography of a Roman emperor making a triumphal entry—another instance of an artist's use of hybrid pictorial language.

[49]

French muralists sometimes fused together moments in their national history. At the Hôtel de Ville, in the Grande Salle des Fêtes, two vast ceiling paintings, one about the arts of dance and the other about music, combined the old and contemporary. The central imagery in each mural displayed historical figures in the old monarchical France. At the center of La Musique à travers les Ages, Henri Gervex painted an eighteenth-century ensemble playing music, accompanied by the female figure Fame at the top and flying putti cavorting and playing other instruments around the edges (fig. 33). Gervex's historical figures, dressed in costumes of the past,

ing. In his canvases, he drew upon academic vocabularies only to reform them with his sparse compositions and slight human forms. Unlike Baudry's revelries of flesh, color, and dynamism, Puvis' painting offered an austere aesthetic of cool colors, flatness, and stillness. Puvis' dreamlike decorations adorn many of Paris's principal civic buildings, including his allegory of the seasons, L'Été and L'Hiver, for the Hôtel de Ville; La Sorbonne, a hemicycle for the Sorbonne's Grand Amphitheater; and two commissions for mural cycles in the Panthéon, one on the life of Sainte Geneviève and the other unfinished at the time of his death in 1898. Once attacked by critics for his poor draftsmanship and awkward compositions, Puvis had secured a reputation by the 1890s as one of France's great decorators. Leftist politicians, neo-Catholic conservatives, officiais of the Academy, and symbolist painters all found in his work aesthetic qualities worth celebrating and promoting. The "annexation of Puvis" by a multitude of constituents, in the words of Jennifer Shaw, points to both the scope of the Third Republic's decorative campaign, in which public art had gained political traction, and the potential power of a national painter such as Puvis to embody a particular vision of French identity (Shaw, Dream States, 139). Puvis' international influence inspired many of the muralists who adorned the White City. Throughout the 1890s art critics in the American press reported on Puvis' role as a leader in the field. Writing in 1897, muralist Will Low (future husband of Mary MacMonnies) discerned in Puvis' murals "the merits of a work nobly conceived, simply executed, and absolutely decorative in character," lessons for an American mural movement then coming of age (Low, "A Century of Painting," 16).

32

Daniel Chester French, Columbus Quadriga, top of the triumphal arch of the Peristyle.

A. K. M.

33

Henri Gervex, La Musique, à travers les Ages, c. 1 8 8 2 . Ceiling mural, Grande Salle des Fêtes, Hôtel de Ville, Paris.

THE FAIR

mingle with the

des Lettres at the Hôtel de Ville constructed the

gods. The surprise comes in the transition, at the

fluffy with rococo

flourishes,

evolution of writing from early to modern times,

right bottom edge, from the historical past into

depicting a triumphant march through history

a realist scene of a modern opera house. Such

akin to the type that Americans were so fond

a scene comes straight out of works by impres-

of making. The artist, Fernand Cormon, used

sionists such as Edgar Degas and Mary Cassatt,

one wall to depict L'Histoire de l'Écriture in temps

who took the opera and café concert in Paris as

anciens, looking at the ways writing appeared

favored themes. Three modern Parisians sit in an

in Egyptian hieroglyphs, Asian characters, cave

opera box, one looking at the viewer down on the

painting, and ancient tablets (fig. 35a). On the

floor through a pair of binoculars, the other two

other wall, Cormon traced writing in temps mod-

focusing their gaze on the stage in the mural. The

ernes, from illuminated manuscripts in the medi-

viewer looks over the heads of the first rows of the

eval era, to the invention of the printing press

audience to see the singer on stage.

in the Renaissance, to the selling of newspapers and books on the streets of contemporary Paris

In the second ceiling mural, Aimé-Nicolas

(fig. 35b).

Morot created a companion piece, La Danse á travers les Ages, comparing three dancing couples

In these sequences, in which a single activity

in different historic modes and dress (fig. 34).

develops over time, each historical period is con-

The couple in the center appears to be from the

veyed by a "realist" figure representing an entire

seventeenth century, the couple below them from

culture: an Egyptian sarcophagus for ancient

the eighteenth century, and the dancers above

Egypt, a man carving a wall for the Stone Age, a

them from the early nineteenth century. At the

monk in a cloister for medieval Europe, a fash-

very top of the mural, figures in contemporary

ionable Parisian woman and child with book and

dress dance in a modern ballroom. In both these

newspaper for the modern era. A viewer educated

decorations, the historic fades into the contem-

in the nineteenth century's belief in evolution-

porary, but old France takes center stage and is

ary history would read the long history part by

the more revered and glamorous. In the United

part, synthesizing the scenes into a grand march

States, in the "now and then" progress narratives

of innovation and progress. Cormon's historical

we've looked at, artists were not interested in the

scenes in the aggregate produced, as decorations

glory of former days but in the triumph of the

were expected to do, an ennobling idea. The idea

modern; the new for Americans inevitably pre-

was not an abstraction—Liberty, Fame, Justice—

empted the old.

but rather a celebration of man's ability through-

Artists used historical realism, then, to tell sto-

out the stages of civilization to invent new ways of

ries that would make viewers feel they were part

communicating, with each invention spreading

of a longer history. By imagining the glories of

literacy to more and more people.

the past, or by comparing the past and the pres-

Scholars have adopted the hybrid term l'allégo-

ent, realist scenes could elicit pride and patrio-

rie réelle, or realist allegory, to describe the way in

tism. Historic narratives of progress were partic-

which decorative artists like Cormon put realism

ularly capable of making viewers feel good about

in the service of larger ideas.30 It is a useful term

the age they lived in. One such cycle for the Salon

for describing the ways in which artists were fusing

[52]

34

Aimé-Nicolas Morot, La Danse à travers les Ages, c. 1 8 8 2 . Ceiling mural, Grande Salle des Fêtes, Hôtel de Ville, Paris.

35a

Fernand Cormon, L'Histoire de l'Écriture (temps anciens).

realism and allegory at the end of the nineteenth

Less known are the bas-relief decorations that

century. Courbet popularized the term in 1855

John Boyle made for the entrance to the Trans-

by using it in the title of a major painting. His

portation Building, the so-called golden portal,

was an ironic and pedagogical use of the term

where, like Cormon, he used a realist style to tell

for a theoretical painting, arguing, among other

a long history, the story of transportation from

things, that realism was the authentic language of

earliest times to the present (fig. 36) .31 Although

modernity. But the term can also be used, as I use

we do not have photographs of all the sculptures

it here, to describe the ways late nineteenth-cen-

Boyle made for the Transportation Building, a

tury decorative artists used modes of realism to

few of his bas-reliefs were published in Art Trea-

make public works that were not simply descrip-

sures from the World's Fair, enough to tell us that he

tive but presented ideas or ideals that aimed to

followed the popular evolutionary paradigm. The

inspire, elevate, and educate the public. One

sculptured frieze on the south side of the door

such realist-allegorical hybrid was the neoclassical

was titled Ancient Transportation, and the one on

female figure who held a modern artifact like a

the north side was titled Modern Transportation.

telephone or electric light. Another is the cupid

The descriptions in Art Treasures that accompany

holding a telephone. Cormon's fusion was more

the photographs are numbingly detailed but offer

subtle in that he used realism to create ideas and

a telling example of the way a nineteenth-century

ideals without any intervention from allegorical

mind read the cycle, going from early to mod-

men and women.

ern, from simple to complex. The writer points out that many of the primitive forms of transport

4

R E A L I S T A L L E G O R Y |f

were still in use in non-Western countries (fig.

Only a few artists at the Chicago fair used realism

37). "First, the rude litter of the mountaineers,

in the service of allegory without a hint of neo-

the most primitive method of travel; then a chair

classicism or the use of symbolic attributes. The

carried on the back of an Indian as is done to this

best-known example is Mary Cassatt's mural for

day over the mountains of South America; then

the Woman's Building, which we will look at later.

the jinrikisha, in which the Japanese ladies take

[54]

35b

F e r n a n d C o r m o n , L'Histoire de l'Écriture (temps modernes), c. 1882. Murais, Salon des Lettres, H ô t e l de Ville,

the air, drawn by their humbler compatriots . . .

luggage along in rather dangerous proximity to

followed by the dromedary of the Bedouin, the

the passengers, as may be seen in any of our great

horse of the Arab, and the series concluded with

stations." 33 T o the left of this relief, as a pendant

the highest type of ancient civilization, the Gre-

to the primitive family in an oxcart, a family sits

cian galley. "32

in the comforts of a Pullman dining car, waited upon by African American waiters and porters

Related to this longer frieze was a smaller

(fig. 40).

panel of an elderly man, a mother, and her baby riding in a crude cart pulled by oxen and tended

Art Treasures presents Boyle's friezes in the

by a young man who presumably is the woman's

same discursive terms in which they were con-

husband (fig. 38). This image further identified

ceived: as a progress cycle comparing primitive

this side of the doorway as an indexing of primi-

transportation systems in the panels to the left of

tive means of transportation.

the doorway with the superior modern ones to

Art Treasures then described in detailed realist

the right. A n d Boyle rendered the grandeur and

prose the "modern transportation" systems on the

glory of man's inventive capacity without relying

north side of the doorway, with their many com-

on conventional neoclassical figures. Using a real-

forts (fig. 39). "There were sailors under the com-

ist style, he created ethnographic types wearing

mand of an officer hauling freight up the side of

dress appropriate to a historic moment, race, and

the vessel by the means with which modern inven-

class. Boyle made his figures culturally specific,

tion has made labor easier. There is a locomotive

sometimes stereotypically so, and represented so

and a group of travelers in the background, and

many parts of the world that it appeared as if all

a group of travelers by rail. These were a young

the world's populations participated in his epic

couple and an old man, very carefully worked

technological story of advancement from

out in every detail of dress and accessories, even

invention of the wheel to the coming of steam

the

to the parasol carried by the lady and the roll of

power and electricity. Native Americans had long

rugs in a shawl strap in the hands of the old gen-

hair and skirts made from animal pelts, the Asian

tleman. They were followed by porters wheeling

woman on the rickshaw is in a kimono, and the

[55]

36

Louis Sullivan, Golden Portal, Transportation Building.

37

Right, top: J o h n J . Boyle, Ancient Transportation, large panel, east entrance, Transportation Building.

38

Right, second from io^.John J . Boyle, Ancient Transportation, small panel, east entrance, Transportation Building.

39

Right, second from bottom: J o h n J . Boyle, Modern Transportation, large panel, east entrance, Transportation Building.

40

Right, bottom: J o h n J . Boyle, Modern Transportation, small panel, east entrance, Transportation Building.

THE FAIR

Arab man wears pantaloons and a fez. In the final

transportation in allegorical code. In the Apothe-

scene, in an American railway dining car, the fig-

osis of Transportation, a young, neoclassical male

ures all wear contemporary dress, including the

nude flies over a globe of the world (fig. 4 1 ) . He

porters in their red-cap uniforms. Each set of fig-

hovers over four horses, as if he were Apollo driv-

ures stands for the idea of an entire culture—

ing a quadriga, with the horses symbolizing, per-

Native American, Japanese, Arabic, Greek, Euro-

haps, the four continents and representing early

pean, or American.

forms of ground transportation in which the as

horse provided the power. That the horses romp

if they were participants in a historical march

in oceanic waves references the great waters of

Boyle composed

these cultural groups

through time and space. One group follows

the world, especially those Columbus crossed,

another, each with a different transport system,

but also those traversed in modern maritime sys-

but all the wheels, horses, moving legs, and roads

tems. The two women in the waves carry attri-

going in the same direction lead to the railway

butes to convey the triumph of modern trans-

dining cars of modern America. This was Boyle's

port: one holds palm branches and a cornucopia;

way of putting realism in the service of allegory;

the other, thunderbolts, which she raises into the

he rendered the history of transport as a world

air, symbolizing electricity and the forces driv-

parade, effectively conveying one of the grand

ing modern transportation. Elsewhere Boyle cre-

ideological messages of the Fair: that his country

ated two allegorical sculptures in the round that

was in the vanguard of material and social prog-

Art Treasures described as depicting "inventions

ress. Inside the building, Boyle fortified the prog-

that have made possible the advances . . . of mod-

ress paradigm with a series of portrait figures of

ern industry." The goddess of Sea Transportation,

Leif Ericson, J . Edgar Thompson, James Watt,

with Conquest to one side and Commerce on the

Denis Papin, Jacques Montgolfier, Cornelius Van-

other, wore a diadem of "intertwined dolphins"

derbilt, George Stephenson, George William Lit-

and carried a sextant. She stood at the prow of a

tler Garrett, and Thomas Scott, all men who had

ship. Her companion, the goddess of Land Trans-

34

portation, accompanied by Agriculture and Mer-

contributed to the history of transportation.

Placing each man on his own pedestal, he created

cury (god of speed), mounted the cowcatcher of

another procession, this one of Great Men.

a locomotive, stylistically extending the folds of

Boyle was criticized for eschewing the allegori-

her peplum (fig. 42). The goddess holds a small

cal body in these friezes and portraits. "Idealists,"

locomotive in her right hand and rests the other

Art Treasures reported, referring to those who

upon a gear lever, as would a brakeman. Here Boyle fused realism with allegory, having his god-

favored conventional allegory for public decorations, considered his reliefs "prosaic."

35

dess hold a modern machine and act out a mod-

As if he

ern male occupation—that of a train engineer. 36

anticipated such criticism, Boyle made some allegorical sculptures for the building, demonstrat-

Boyle's use of both allegorical and realist lan-

ing that he was master of more than one lan-

guages—sometimes in pure forms, sometimes as

guage of decoration. Over the main doorway to

hybrids—was exceptional at the Fair. One could

the Transportation Building, in his Apotheosis of

find such ambidexterity in Paris but not yet in the

Transportation lunette, Boyle told the history of

United States. As a realist, Boyle was a minority

[58]

THE FAIR

voice among the male decorators, his presence

butes. What artists found appealing about Puvis'

testifying to some of the same unrest and provoca-

murals was his ability to avoid the customary con-

tion surrounding the large-scale decorative proj-

ventions for neoclassical allegory while manag-

ects in Paris, where artists were no longer united

ing to create scenes that appeared to be timeless

on the issue of how a decoration should look,

and universal. His stylistic innovations—and his

speak, or function. It was only a matter of time

vagueness—fostered a public debate and drew an

before Americans would have similar debates

international following unlike that of any other

over the appropriate style and subject matter for

decorator in the last half of the nineteenth cen-

public decorations. When contacted about cre-

tury (fig. 43 and plate 2). Though he had detrac-

ating murals for the new Library of Congress in

tors and critics who waffled in their enthusiasm,

Washington, D.C., the next big decorative project

Puvis became France's most-sought-after mural-

in the country, John White Alexander hedged his

ist. His success depended upon substantial sup-

bets by offering to paint in any of three styles: the

port both from traditionalists and from modern-

"Ideal," the "Historical," or the "Realistic."37

ists. He revitalized decorative painting, and his refined mural style was an important stimulus of

i

M O D E R N C L A S S I C I S M ^J

the expansive mural movement that swept across

The muralist in France who captured the most

late nineteenth-century France and, soon there-

attention for his reformation of mural painting

after, the United States. Puvis' reputation was

was not a devotee of realism. Pierre Puvis de Cha-

international and transatlantic; in the mid-1890s,

vannes continued to people his murals with fig-

he agreed to paint murals for the Boston Public

ures in the nude or in semiclassical dress and

Library, his only project outside France.38

then to place them in pastoral landscape set-

Among the hallmarks of Puvis' style were his

tings. Although he occasionally introduced some-

tempered modeling of his figures and his unusu-

thing modern—a hot-air balloon, a chemist's vial,

ally pretty palette; he favored muted blues, greens,

or contemporary dress—these little moments of

ochres, and creamy yellows. His landscapes were

realist details were not the source of his inter-

sparse and rudimentary, mostly grass and water

national fame. As scholars have shown, Puvis

with occasional gentle hills and rocky cliffs, evok-

became famous because he renovated classical

ing an indeterminate time long ago. And the fig-

allegory and brokered the divide between hard-

ures in the landscape often perform very elemen-

core traditionalists and contemporary artists such

tary tasks, such as bathing, stretching, dressing,

as those in the new movement known as symbol-

reclining, thinking, music making, and carrying

ism. Puvis gently softened the colors in his murals,

goods. They also work on agricultural and build-

simplified the dress and anatomy of his figures,

ing projects. Spatially, he tended to string his fig-

and massed his forms, creating figural groupings

ures across the landscape in a way that suggested

and individual bodies whose poses and gestures

a flowing frieze or procession. He generally gave

were poetically suggestive but elusive in mean-

the profiles of figures or figural groups distinctive

ing. In his murals, the viewer could not know

shapes and silhouetted them against green grass

for sure whether a given figure represented Jus-

or blue sky. Many figures make inexact gestures,

tice or Charity because the artist eschewed attri-

such as raising a hand or looking into space, that

[60]

invite diverse interpretations. And

sometimes

from the Franco-Prussian war of 1 8 7 0 - 7 1 . In

he ran an uneven line of slender trees across

keeping with tradition, his figures were nude,

his murals, creating a series of small stages for

draped, and robed and freely drawn, it seemed,

the languorous groupings posed in the intervals

from the classicist's lexicon of allegory. His pasto-

between them. He continued the vegetation in

ral visions not only evoked the Greek and Roman

the painted frames he made for his murals, tend-

past that was central to the pedagogies of art

ing to favor a thick border of leaves, a kind of styl-

academies but also reinforced French national

ized swag, around all four sides.

pride. They fit comfortably into the French cus-

Puvis' painted world lacked temporal, spatial,

tom of constructing a national history as begin-

and narrative specificity, offering instead a kind

ning in Greco-Roman civilization. As the Ameri-

of fantasy world, a Utopia, or, as Jennifer Shaw has

can neoclassical muralist Kenyon Cox explained,

described it, a "dreaminess" and a spiritual qual-

Puvis' art appealed to everyone: he was "a classi-

ity that greatly appealed to critics and viewers in

cist of the classicists, a primitive of the primitives,

search of alternatives to the hard and fixed mean-

a modern of the moderns." 40

ings of conventional allegorical decorations. Not

For all their innovations, Puvis' murals did not

only young painters looking for a new mural style

change the traditional definition of the sexes that

but also the radical symbolist circles in Europe

allegorists sustained throughout the late nine-

found Puvis to be a modernist they could admire,

teenth century. His murals were as deeply gen-

a stylish decorator and a man challenging the sta-

dered as those of his fellow muralists, offering

tus quo.

59

no challenge to the social order. Puvis' imag-

But Puvis' paintings also appealed to conser-

inary men and women live in complete har-

vative elements, to the academicians who cham-

mony with one another, but, as in more tradi-

pioned traditional allegory and the national-

tional allegories, the two sexes have very different

ists looking for confirmation of French recovery

duties, their bodies and tasks tightly locked into

[61

THE FAIR

the usual nineteenth-century polarities. Men are

In The Arts of Peace, w o m e n — s o conspicuously

active, women are sedentary. Men labor together,

absent from War—now mingle with men to sym-

women lounge together. Men think, build, and

bolize the return to order and harmony (fig. 45).

and

In Melchers's vision of peace, as in a Puvis mural,

care for children, and occasionally d o some arts

men and women inhabit separate spheres. T o

create; women perform domestic chores

and crafts. Older men are wise elders; the occa-

the right, one woman holds a ceramic vase as an

sional older woman is a crone, spinning wool.

offering, and another holds a flower; at the cen-

W o m e n are deeply aligned with nature, picking

ter, a third carries a child and forms a little family

apples from trees, bathing in water, holding flow-

group with a man and a boy. T h e fourth woman

ers, making garlands, and reclining sensuously

may represent literature, as she has leaves o f

on fields of green. "Each gender serves its allot-

paper on her lap and is in a pose of meditation.

ted task," Linda Nochlin has said of Puvis. "Puvis'

T h e muscular man behind her represents the

works function ideologically to produce an aes-

sciences, while his complement at the far right,

thetic harmony out of what in contemporary

holding a skull, represents philosophy. T h e frieze

society is a source of disharmony, conflict, and

opens up a bit at the left to include leafy trees,

contraction." 41

but the figures are still arranged, as they were in

O n e finds this same rote gendering and im

the companion mural, in a narrow frontal plane.

posed harmony between the sexes in the two

T h e figures to the right stride while others cluster

lunette paintings created for the Manufactures

around a sculpture of Athena, goddess of both

and Liberal Arts Building by Gari

Melchers,

war and peace. O n e man actively petitions the

one of the few muralists at the Chicago fair who

goddess on behalf of the representative commu-

incorporated Puvis' modernized classicism into

nity around him.

his work. T h e themes Melchers chose, The Arts

Melchers, like Puvis, relegated Arcadian m e n

of War and The Arts of Peace, were popular at the

and women to separate sexual spheres. What

time; indeed, Puvis himself had taken them on in

would happen to Puvis' essentialized men and

the 186os. 42 In War, men march right to left, as

women, one wonders, in the hands of a female

if o n a shallow stage (fig. 44). Each has a differ-

artist? Would w o m e n give pastoral women differ-

ent duty and takes on a distinct pose. T h e man

ent kinds of bodies and j o b s to do, or would the

on the horse leads the way with his outstretched

conventions hold? We will explore this question

arm. T h e musician blows his horn on the right

in the next chapter. Puvis exerted a notable stylis-

while nearly nude classical figures carry game,

tic influence on many of the women decorators.

and another stops to fix his footwear. A virile foot

But in matters of content, they rejected his relega-

warrior at the center controls two mastiffs in a

tion of men and women to separate and unequal

gesture that dramatizes his toned body. Although

tasks. When Mary MacMonnies painted the tym-

these figures convey more fixed meanings than

panum in the Woman's Building, she adopted

many in Puvis' murals, they are stylistically orga-

Puvis' decorative style but recast his women as

nized with the French muralist's frieze aesthetic

active agents of their own destiny.

in mind.

Almost all o f the women who made decora-

[62]

44

Gari Melchers, The Arts of War, Manufactures and Liberal Arts Building. 20 x 40 ft.

45

Gari Melchers, The Arts of Peace, Manufactures and Liberal Arts Building. 20 x 40 ft.

THE FAIR

tions at the Fair reformulated the artistic conven-

resent women's hardships in the past and their

tions. They brought a female gaze to the task and

emancipation in the present.

changed the narratives from male to female. The

In short, female artists represented their sex

lead sculptor, Alice Rideout, used the language of

very differently in their own spaces than male

traditional allegory, with touches of realist dress,

artists depicted women elsewhere at the Fair.

but came up with a post-Victorian pantheon of

Like men, women took the white female body as

female skills and virtues consistent with progres-

their primary vehicle, but they radically changed

sive women's thinking in the 1890s. The women

the meanings commonly attached to it. Women

painters attracted to Puvis de Chavannes' mod-

altered the dimensions and dress of female bod-

ernized classicism reinvented his iconography,

ies and gave them new activities and occupations.

giving their female figures active bodies and phys-

Female artists also invested their women subjects

ical work. The most adventuresome of the female

with the power to dream of change and a better

muralists turned to realist vocabularies to rep-

tomorrow.

[64]

4

2

|r

In no previous exposition has woman essayed so important and conspicuous a part as she has been called upon to perform at the Great Columbian Exposition of 1893. At no time in her history has she been accorded such a place as she now occupies as an integral part of a mammoth display of the achievements of mankind. It seems fitting that contemporaneously with her advanced position as part of the world's force she should display the benefits which her emancipation has worked, and that side by side with the products of man's brain and energy, woman's should be placed for comparison. MAJOR BENJAMIN C. T R U M A N ,

History of the World's Fair, 1893

THE WOMAN'S BUILDING T H E B I R T H OF OFFICIALLY

SANCTIONED WOMAN'S BUILDINGS A T AMERICAN

INTERNATIONAL

fairs was tightly embedded in the debates that raged around women's issues and gender equality in the last quarter of the nineteenth century. Emblematic of the waves of American women seeking a broad range of reforms benefiting their sex, such buildings were typically proposed, organized, and administered by middle- and upper-class white women. Starting with the original Women's Pavilion at the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition of 1876, these display spaces were peculiar creatures in that they had an explicit social and political agenda; they sought to foster recognition of and respect for woman's work in and outside the home. Whereas all the other exhibition halls at fairs were organized around a type of artifact—machines for transportation, agricultural equipment, or works of fine art—woman's buildings exhibited all categories of objects—works of art, books, inventions, handiwork, anything that was the result of woman's labor. In addition to housing

[65]

THE

W O M A N ' S

B U I L D I N G

exhibits, the Woman's Building of 1893 included

The 1893 Woman's Building was the second

a large assembly hall for congresses and lectures.

stand-alone pavilion of its type at an American

The public programming in these venues sensi-

exposition, and although others would follow it

tized audiences to the debates about female capa-

at subsequent fairs, it was the queen of a short-

bilities by addressing topics such as woman's stam-

lived genre. 2 Its opulent structure and global cov-

ina and rights for higher education; her skills

erage were far superior to that of the 1876 Cen-

as teacher, nurse, and artist; and the pros and

tennial Exhibition in Philadelphia as well as those

cons of dress reform, suffrage, and the like. The

that came later.3 The first Women's Pavilion was

"Negro Buildings" that appeared in American and

a hastily built and undistinguished

international fairs after 1893 were built around

designed by a man and featuring, suffragists com-

similar activist agendas, showcasing the produc-

plained, too much fancywork created by ladies of

building,

tions of black men and women who historically

leisure (figs. 46 and 47, and see sidebar p. 67).

had been rigorously excluded from world's fair

When the idea of a fair in honor of Columbus's

exhibition halls, including woman's buildings.1

discovery of America began to be widely discussed in the late 1880s, women mobilized early to

Buildings exclusively dedicated to the work of a single sex or race were inevitably celebratory;

ensure that their sex would be better represented

they compensated for the lack of representation

in Chicago than it had been in Philadelphia.

and recognition elsewhere at a fair and lauded

Women's groups had different conceptions

the group's progress in the workplace and in civil

of how they wanted to be represented at the

rights. Invariably, these buildings aroused contro-

Fair. Suffrage advocates had the most radical

versy. Two issues were always at stake: quality and

demands. They believed that assigning women to

equality. Were the exhibitions in these buildings

a segregated exhibition space like the one in Phil-

held to the same standards of quality enforced

adelphia kept women powerless and denied them

elsewhere at the fairs? And did they promote or

equal treatment. They did not want women ghet-

demote the standing of their constituency in the

toized once again at the Chicago fair and asked

broader culture? Artists particularly struggled

for female representation on all the Fair's admin-

with the question of whether inclusion in a segre-

istrative boards and juries and assurances that the

gated exhibition helped or hindered their effort

art and inventions of woman would be exhibited

to become professionals with equal livelihoods

alongside those by men in every exhibition pavil-

and standing as white men. Some women decided

ion. Calling themselves the Queen Isabella Asso-

to exhibit exclusively in the Palace of Fine Arts,

ciation, they asked that Queen Isabella of Cas-

where their work would be shown alongside that

tile, the woman who commissioned and paid for

of men and would have the imprimatur of selec-

Christopher Columbus's trips to the New World,

tion by a jury; others chose to exhibit works both

be recognized as the "co-discoverer with Colum-

in the Woman's Building, where they could show

bus of the New World" and share his limelight at

their solidarity with women, and also in the Pal-

the exposition. To make sure the queen was rec-

ace of Fine Arts, where they had a better chance

ognized, the "Isabellas" commissioned Harriet

of being noticed by critics, collectors, and other

Hosmer in 1889 to create a monumental sculp-

artists.

ture showing the queen sacrificing her jewels to

[66]

THE AT

WOMEN'S

THE

18T6

PAVILION

CENTENNIAL

EXHIBITION

The women of Philadelphia planned, funded, and managed the first official fair building devoted to women's work, the Women's Pavilion at the 1876 Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition. Facing serious fiscal challenges, male organizers called upon local women in 1873 to help raise funds for the fair, a difficult task during the depression years of the mid-i87os. With the founding of the Women's Centennial Executive Committee, thirteen women officially participated in the planning of the exhibition, dedicating themselves to raising the necessary capital. Elizabeth Duane Gillespie, great-granddaughter of Benjamin Franklin, headed the committee and orchestrated a nationwide campaign for funds. In return, Gillespie requested "a sphere for women's action and a space for her work" in the fair's Main Exhibition Hall (Gillespie, A Book of Remembrances, 279). The Centennial Board agreed, only to renege on the commitment, shutdng out female organizers just months before the fair was set to open. Still seeking an official presence on the fairgrounds, Gillespie convinced the board to erect a Women's Pavilion (fig. 46). The men stipulated, however, that her committee raise the needed funds. Women did just that. The Women's Pavilion provided over forty thousand square feet of exhibition space for the work of nearly fifteen hundred women from at least thirteen countries (fig. 47). The small collection of fine arts included paintings by Emily Sartain and Eliza Greatorex and sculpture by Harriet Hosmer. The diverse displays of women's work included new designs for female underdress, household gadgets, and furniture for the home, as well as an index of the 822 charities that women ran and contributed to through-

•

46

Women's Pavilion, Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition, 1876. Wood engraving from Frank Leslie's Historical Register of the United States Centennial Exposition,

47

i8j6.

Interior, Women's Pavilion, Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition, 1876. Stereograph.

[67]

out the world. Case after case of fancywork—embroideries, wood carvings, painted porcelain, dried flowers, and even a sculptural relief in butter—filled the pavilion with an uneven array of female handicrafts. Other exhibits highlighted the professional contributions of w o m e n in fields such as medicine, science, business, teaching, and social work. A display of inventions by women featured such labor-saving devices as a washing machine for blankets and a dual-temperature stove. A n engineer from Canada, Emma Allison, provided a living display as she operated the pavilion's steam engine, which powered the building's facilities as well as a printing press for the New Century for Women, the official journal of the Women's Centennial Executive Committee. T h e Women's Pavilion evidenced a self-conscious bid by women to showcase the diverse contributions of female labor to modern-day society. T h e women o f 1876 aimed to persuade fairgoers that professional achievement and feminine virtue are compatible endeavors. Although criticized by some woman's rights advocates for being too conservative, the Women's Pavilion became a salient symbol o f the movement. A n d most important, the Centennial women demonstrated the viability o f dedicating a building to the official display of woman's work, paving the way for similar buildings in later expositions, most notably at the World's Columbian Exposition.

finance

the explorer's trip (fig. 48). They also

by both the Isabellas and the Auxiliary, an uneasy

requested an Isabella Pavilion at the Fair to serve

consolidation of the two approaches emerged.

as a clubhouse and an assembly hall for confer-

Although the moderates' desire for a separate

ences and lectures on woman's issues.4

building won out, the suffragists' demand for an

In the long run, the Isabella Association lost

assembly hall was folded into the Woman's Build-

out to more politically moderate women who

ing. T h e desire to dedicate the Fair equally to

were commissioned by the government to rep-

Q u e e n Isabella and Christopher Columbus, how-

resent woman at the Fair. Calling itself a "Wom-

ever, fell on deaf ears. No one came up with the

an's Department or Auxiliary," this group

of

money to cast the Hosmer plaster of Q u e e n Isa-

well-placed Chicago women was more palatable

bella into bronze or a prominent place to install

to the men in the U.S. Congress who ultimately

it. T h e plaster for the sculpture went on display in

decided the issue. T h e women talked of a segre-

front of the California State Building at the Fair. 5

gated, single-sex exhibition hall, but bigger and

In June 1890 the all-male World's Columbian

better funded than the one in Philadelphia, and

Commission, established by an act of Congress,

they wanted it dedicated to female achievements

created and appointed the Board of Lady Manag-

not only from the United States but from coun-

ers, whose mission was to advise on the representa-

tries all over the world. After months of petitions

tion of women at the Fair. T h e appellation "Lady"

[68]

After the 1893 fair, women secured a separate exhibition space at the 1895 Cotton States and International Exposition in Atlanta. The exposition's Board of Lady Managers oversaw both speaking events and exhibits at the Woman's Building, which was designed by Elise Mercer of Pittsburgh. However, no woman's building was erected three years later at the Trans-Mississippi and International Exposition in Omaha. During the planning stages for the Paris Universal Exposition of 1900, Bertha Palmer and her female compatriots argued publicly for an independent exhibition space for American women. Facing an all-male commission, they met with resistance. French officials did agree to a Woman's Pavilion (Palais de la Femme), which U.S. commissioners hoped would quell female discontent. Privately, however, one such commissioner admitted that the pavilion was "a miserable fake," housing restaurants, sitting rooms, and even a hair salon (Rydell, "Gateway to the 'American Century,'" 139). By 1904 the woman's building model had lost traction. That year at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis, the Building of the Board of Lady Managers served as the headquarters of the board and a site for entertaining during the fair rather than as a grand exhibition space. The era of significant woman's buildings at international fairs had ended.

affixed to "Manager" did not go unnoticed. The term was a Victorianism that suffragists especially found condescending and indicative of the conventional mind-set that ruled the Fair.6 The Board was to consist of 117 Lady Managers—and an equal number of alternates—including 2 representatives from every state and territory and the District of Columbia. The group included 8 members-at-large and 9 "resident women" from Chicago. Some of the Lady Managers were political appointments; others were self-nominated. From the middle and upper classes, the women were prominent in their local communities either for their own activities or for those of their husbands. Among them were very wealthy women, owners of businesses, and influential members of women's clubs and charities. All were volunteers and had

48

Harriet H o s m e r , Queen Isabella of Castile, 1892.

Jr?* A. K,

M.

THE

W O M A N ' S

B U I L D I N G

to pay their way to Board meetings in Chicago

sive tone of suffrage activism, finding it unlady-

(fig. 49). The lily-whiteness of the group was an

like. A few members of the Lady Managers iden-

affront to women of color, and African Americans

tified themselves as suffragists, but their number

bitterly and publicly protested their lack of rep-

was too small to shape policy; Palmer was open

resentation at the Fair and on the Board of Lady

to suffrage programming in the lecture hall but

Managers. Their protests were to no avail; the

considered getting the franchise but one of many

issue was so contentious that the Lady Managers

reform movements dedicated to improving wom-

had to act on the complaint, but they nonethe-

en's lives. In time, the middle-of-the-road activism

less chose not to accept women of color into their

of Palmer and others on her Board would begin

ranks, a decision that has long sustained a stormy

to merge with the politics of the more radical suf-

cloud over the building's history.7

fragists—and eventually the drive for woman's

The majority of the Lady Managers were

right to vote would succeed. The Woman's Build-

active members of national and local clubs ded-

ing of 1 8 9 3 was one of the places where women

icated to improving conditions and opportuni-

of different political persuasions learned to work

ties for women and children. By the 1890s, thou-

side by side, an important step along the arduous

sands of American women had moved into the

path to universal suffrage.

public sphere by volunteering their services and

Historians have closely analyzed this great late

leadership skills to all-female clubs and societies

nineteenth-century migration

dedicated to causes as varied as temperance, the

upper-class women from the strictures of the Vic-

of middle- and

settlement-house movement, opposition to pros-

torian parlor into a varied array of public activ-

titution, and the creation of protective legisla-

ities, from reform movements to charitable or

tion for factory workers and child laborers. Some

philanthropic organizations, art clubs, and uni-

women spearheaded the kindergarten movement

versities. A new "woman consciousness," histo-

and the opening up of art schools, colleges, and

rians have argued, emerged at the end of the

universities to women. Some were philanthro-

nineteenth century as women of means became

pists. They pressed their causes in churches, club

sensitive to gender inequities in the culture at

rooms, charity organizations, woman's seminaries

large and became aware of how many doors were

8

closed to them. As suffragist Frances Willard said,

Some were active suffragists; others were sympa-

"The greatest discovery of the nineteenth cen-

thetic to the suffrage movement but did not make

tury is the discovery of woman by herself." 9 Many

it their primary cause. Many women reformers

middle-class women of this era were not inter-

at the end of the century, including many who

ested in reforming male-female relationships in

and colleges, and newspaper and journal articles.

worked on the Woman's Building, saw suffrage as

the home, nor did they seek outside employment,

a hot-button issue that threatened woman's pri-

but they did object to being defined exclusively by

mary responsibilities to home and family. Like

their domestic labors. They sought enlarged def-

Bertha Palmer, the president of the 1 8 9 3 Wom-

initions of "womanhood" that would allow them

an's Building, they were uncomfortable with

to grow and develop their minds and talents in

what they perceived to be the angry and aggres-

preparation for a life not just inside but also out-

[70]

49

Bertha Palmer, left, in white dress and hat, presides over a session of the Board of Lady Managers, September 1 8 g l .

side the home. Given that the nineteenth century

In that these women reformers so often spoke

categorized men and women by their anatomy,

to the innate feminine instincts they brought

assigning each sex a "natural" set of characteris-

to their causes, historians have invented a vari-

tics, women reformers foregrounded the nurtur-

ety of names for them, such as "social or munici-

ing and self-sacrificing characteristics "embodied"

pal housekeepers" and "domestic or family femi-

in their sex and lauded woman's innate instinct

nists." Nancy Cott, the historian of women whose

for the arts. They also presumed themselves the

lead I follow here, prefers the terms municipal

guardians of morality both at home and in the

housekeeping and civic maternalism to describe the

civic sphere. Believing that their natural traits

kind of reform efforts I have been discussing as

made them the appropriate guardians of wom-

well as the activities that prevailed at the Wom-

an's welfare and fulfillment, they defined temper-

an's Building, urging us to reserve the words fem-

ance, kindergartens, higher education, art-school

inism and feminist for more radical politics. (The

classes, and better working conditions for women

word feminism was not in circulation in this coun-

and children to be issues peculiar to their sex. Not

try, she tells us, until about 1 9 1 0 . ) Cott argues

only would their reforms make modern women

that women endorsed a fluid spectrum of civic

into better wives and mothers, they asserted, but

causes in the late nineteenth century, all of which

they would make for a better society, or "civiliza-

originated in and generated new kinds of female

tion," in the rhetoric of the era. If the natural tal-

"consciousness," though not all based on a belief

ents of women were tapped for civic duty, Ameri-

in the equality of the sexes. At the outer or most

can society would gain 50 percent more teachers,

radical edge of the spectrum, she places the femi-

nurses, and artists, the three female activities the

nism of the suffragists that sought parity between

Woman's Building fully endorsed.

the sexes and actively critiqued male culture for

[71]

THE

W O M A N ' S

B U I L D I N G

maintaining sexist gender hierarchies; next are

tables, and expected to be addressed, as did their

the municipal housekeepers whose female con-

mothers, by their husbands' names in the soci-

sciousness was "socially constructed from women's

ety pages. But their other foot was out the door.

c o m m o n tasks," and third was a "communal con-

They were restless with the demands and rou-

sciousness based

and

tines of domesticity and increasingly stepped out-

T h e Woman's Building of 1893 was driven pri-

voluntary activities in the public sphere. Not yet

marily by the second of Cott's formulations. T h e

the fully formed "New W o m e n " their daughters

exclusive,

on

solidarity with

men

side the h o m e to pursue a wide range of woman's

women of the same group, local or global."

administrated

might become, neither were they still the Victo-

the building, decorated it, and gathered the dis-

rian matrons whose days and duties centered on

plays expressed a "female consciousness" deeply

hearth and home. Like many of Henry James's

e m b e d d e d in a separatist and essentializing dis-

heroines, the women in power at the Woman's

course that assumed men and women to have

Building could express their dissatisfaction with

different bodies, natures, and ways of being in

the narrow definitions proper families assigned to

the world. In that these women could not have

womanhood, but they were far less articulate or

constructed

clear in defining the new femininity; they could

all-women

their

team

that

all-woman

project

without

the approval and support of many middle- and

not yet project the woman athlete on a bicycle

upper-class men who similarly subscribed to sepa-

or tennis court, the woman careerist or profes-

rate sexual spheres but were sympathetic to their

sional, the woman scientist, or the single woman

wives' and sisters' desires to enlarge their contri-

fulfilled by something other than staying h o m e

butions to public life, the building also expressed

and caring for her parents. They were "post-Vic-

a

upper-class

torians" in their desire to expand the highly cir-

"communal consciousness" that had not been

cumscribed roles they had been handed as chil-

operative in the 1876 fair. 10

dren, but they were not yet the New W o m e n w h o

burgeoning

white

middle- and

used dress and changes in lifestyle to signal their

O n e can also characterize the female con-

changing female identities. 11

sciousness that dominated the Woman's Building as a "post-Victorian" sensibility, a term I use

Indeed, in the 1890s, adult females debated

to describe the liminal m o m e n t when many adult

the definition of the New Woman, many of them

American women, raised in the manners and

resisting any change that would require them

strictures of bourgeois Victorian homes, began to

to dress differently or otherwise draw attention

forge new female identities without shedding all

to themselves in public. In a very spirited essay

of the traditional proprieties they had acquired at

of 1895, "The New Woman," Lillian W. Betts

the feet of their traditional mothers. They were

laid out a position that I take to be post-Victo-

women whose sense of self was in transition, on

rian. She took exception to those who character-

the verge of becoming something else—progres-

ized the New Woman as "smoking, drinking, and

sive women, modern women, or "new" women.

demanding what she calls liberty." In the article,

Most of the Lady Managers still had one foot in

she rejects the spelling of woman with a capital W

the Victorian parlor. They wore fashionable femi-

and any efforts to link her to words like progress or

nine dress, with gloves and hats, presided over tea

career. Betts's New Woman is a public citizen who

[72]

works on civic issues that affect the home. She has learned "that if she would have a clean house she must have a clean street; she must go further and have a clean neighborhood; and perfection, which is the aim of her life, demands a clean city, town, community." She is a woman who 'joins an organization that has cleanliness for its object, and she sees to it that those about her obey the written and the unwritten laws of health." Because she raises children, she "is a member of a kindergarten association." Betts's New Woman "does not exaggerate her own importance or that of her affairs" and is "the flower of this marvelous century." In other words, she retains her femininity. 12 No matter what their cause or activity, post-Victorian women in the 1890s found it natural to work separately from men, just as men did from women. As historians such as Estelle Freedman and Nancy Cott have shown us, all-women organizations were the primary vehicle females used to move outside the privacy of the home and into the public sphere. 13 This was particularly the case

50

for genteel women who did not have to work for

Mrs. Potter Palmer, c. 1893

a living. In their clubs, charities, associations, and colleges, women learned the skills they needed to speak in public, petition for change, raise

cultural construction of gender had yet taken

money, and envision a fairer and better tomor-

enough hold to dislodge the period's biological

row. These all-women ventures, however, had an

essentializing of men and women.

inherent paradox: they silently maintained an

At its first session, the Board of Lady Managers

ideology of essentialism. Single-sex organizations,

elected Bertha Palmer as its president. Forty-one

no matter how progressive their ideals, invari-

at the time, the wife of a wealthy Chicago devel-

ably upheld the separate-sphere ideology, rou-

oper, and a mother of two sons, she exempli-

tinely assigning men and women different iden-

fied the female consciousness of clubwomen and

tities and opportunities. Both men and women

the wariness of suffrage that many had in 1890

took these differences for granted; they may well

(fig. 50). She was outspoken about various wom-

have been familiar with the suffragist arguments

en's causes, but suffrage was not one of them.

about the inequality imposed by patriarchal fam-

Although she had never before held elective

ily structures, but no arguments for the social and

office, Palmer proved to be an inspired admin-

[73]

THE

W O M A N ' S

istrator and articulate manager. In the many let-

B U I L D I N G

Palmers bought pictures, often with the help of

ters she wrote to her coworkers and in the three

Sara Hallowell, a knowledgeable art consultant

public addresses she gave on behalf of the Wom-

who later helped Bertha Palmer find women dec-

an's Building, she comes across as a tough nego-

orators for the Woman's Building. Hallowell, a

tiator, a brilliant facilitator, and an articulate dip-

Chicagoan who lived much of the time in Paris,

lomat who kept her eye on the prize: getting the

introduced the Palmers to Parisian artists, includ-

building up, seeing to its decoration, and fill-

ing Mary Cassatt.14 Bertha's ease in the interna-

ing it with exhibitions of women's work from

tional world of fine arts and her desire to main-

around the world. If the need arose, she could

tain a position in it fueled her determination to

compromise to get the j o b done. She was par-

decorate the Woman's Building with major sculp-

ticularly adept at keeping the radical suffragists

tures and murals by American women artists. Ber-

and more moderate clubwomen from warring

tha Palmer was wealthier than most of the Lady

openly with one another. She spent three years

Managers, but like many of them, she had come

managing this project, at times traveling through

to her progressive views on woman's issues and

Europe gathering international contributions to

her contributions to charities through club activ-

the exhibitions.

ities. Women's clubs represented "the mature

Palmer's success may have had something to do

woman's college," as one historian nicely put it,

with the legendary iron fist in a gloved hand said

a continuing-education program for women like

to characterize strong women from the South.

Palmer who had been born too early to have easy

Bertha Honoré was born in Louisville, Kentucky,

access to college education. 15 Women's clubs in

in 1849 to a father of French descent and a

Chicago, historians have agreed, were among

mother from the Southern aristocracy. She led a

the strongest and most progressive in the coun-

childhood of privilege and went to an all-woman

try.16 Palmer was a member of the prestigious Chi-

academy, graduating in 1867 from the Visitation

cago Woman's Club, "a finely equipped train-

Convent School in Georgetown,

Washington,

ing school," a contemporary wrote, "wherein

D.C. In 1 8 7 1 she married Potter Palmer, twenty-

one thousand thinking women absorb the knowl-

three years her senior and a multimillionaire real

edge which is power—power in the civic life of

estate developer from Chicago, who was instru-

Chicago."" She also held membership in the all-

mental in bringing the Fair to his hometown.

women Fortnightly Club and was a patron of the Women's Trade Union League.

Like most rich women of the Gilded Age, Bertha Palmer knew a lot about the construction and

In the years of the Fair, Palmer's primary cause

decorating of new homes and the management

was the social and economic welfare of working

of multiple residences. She and her husband

women and children. She repeatedly singled out

had just built a huge mansion—"the Castle"—

women forced to work for a living—widows, work-

on Lake Shore Drive, a street and neighbor-

ing mothers, poor women—and pleaded for bet-

hood Potter Palmer was developing. They were

ter work conditions and pay equity. Though she

also building a major art collection of predom-

believed in helping women and had a cordial

inantly modern French pictures to display in its

relationship with Susan B. Anthony, she generally

gallery. On their frequent travels abroad, the

found the tactics of suffragists too militant and

[74]

51

President's Office, Woman's Building.

the issue of giving women the vote too polarizing.

ing these dry and copious records citing the num-

She made suffragists welcome in the Woman's

ber of women entering the workforce as teachers,

Building, but she did not put them in positions of

nurses, and clerical workers. But this was an era

power. In her forceful address at the completion

that believed in the "science" of statistics; lists of

of the Woman's Building, Palmer laid out her pri-

how many women had taken paying jobs were

orities this way: "Without touching upon politics,

for Palmer a comfortable, period-piece mech-

suffrage, or other irrelevant issues, this unique

anism for demonstrating woman's

organization of women for women will devote

Palmer also used her skills as an interior deco-

"progress."

itself to the promotion of . . . woman's indus-

rator to express her solidarity with working-class

trial equality and her receiving just compensa-

women. When the fisherwomen of New Jersey

tion for services rendered. It will try to secure for

were denied display space in the Fisheries Build-

her work the consideration and respect which it

ing, Palmer came up with the novel idea of drap-

deserves, and establish her importance as an eco-

ing the ceiling of her elegant office in the Wom-

nomic factor." 18

an's Building with the fishing nets and baskets the

One of Palmer's primary initiatives at the

women made and used in their trade (fig. 5 1 ) . 1 9

Woman's Building was to ask each state and inter-

The strangeness of decorating a lady's parlor with

national exhibitor to compile statistics on the

a working woman's tools captures the post-Victo-

salaries and number of women in its workforce.

rian ethos of Palmer and her colleagues and the

These statistics were displayed in the building,

earnest do-goodism of Gilded Age matrons; it also

and many of them were printed for broader distri-

reveals the central place of the working woman in

bution. Few fairgoers likely spent any time absorb-

Palmer's philanthropic universe.

[75]

ACHIEVEMENTS AND NUMBERS

IN P A I N T ,

LACE,

Brimming with artwork, handicrafts, books, statistics, photographs, inventions, demonstrations, and exhibits on professions, the Woman's Building at the World's Columbian Exposition showcased a variety of female accomplishments. Bertha Palmer and the Lady Managers sought to accommodate all applications for exhibition space, though requests exceeded by at least fourfold the square footage of the building. The Board relied on a national network of woman's state committees to gather the artifacts for display. In addition, international calls for participation incited profuse interest, so countries often had to make do with disappointingly small space allotments. Despite such constraints, the Board decided not to exercise its "power of rejection," in Palmer's words, choosing instead to install every item sent from foreign committees as well as a wealth of state-selected American exhibits (Addresses and Reports of Mrs. Potter Palmer, 1 5 1 - 5 2 ) . The organizers filled every nook, wall, and square foot of the Woman's Building—placing the mediocre alongside the exceptional—displaying a staggering eighty thousand items in all (fig. 52). The Board's encyclopedic approach to the building's exhibits was in step with the overall display tactics of the Columbian Exposition, where an accumulation aesthetic prevailed. Organizers wanted to be comprehensive rather than selective. T o signal excellence, exhibits throughout the Fair were juried for special awards in the form of medals and diplomas; over one-third of exhibitors received such recognition. The Woman's Building participated in this jurying process but engendered criticism from male reporters for placing femininity above merit in the judging. T h e critic for the Illustrated American, for instance, dismissed the exhibits of the Woman's Building as "a gorgeous wealth of mediocrity" (Weimann, The Fair Women, 318). Further, women disagreed among themselves about the kinds of displays that should be showcased; some championed the educated woman's modern contributions to science, fine art, literature, and various professions, rejecting other women's preferences for traditional, handmade creations in lace, textiles, and flowers. Handiwork nevertheless prevailed in the Woman's Building. Contributions of native lacework and needlecraft came from around the globe, filling the ground floor. Queen Margherita of Italy sent her collection of historical and contemporary laces, and Denmark showcased a lavishly embroidered silk petticoat from the seventeenth century. A panoply of applied arts included hair flowers from Norway, a history of female costuming from France, hand-painted fans from Austria, Mexican wood carvings, a replica of a Byzantine church gate covered in gold leaf for the Russian façade, and a reconstructed Buddhist temple housing Siamese silks and jewels. The American applied-arts display covered half of the north wing, featuring needlework, costumes, and ceramics from nearly every state. Painting and sculpture adorned the prime spaces of the Hall of Honor, including sculptures by Anne Whitney and Vinnie Ream Hoxie, both of whom had voiced opposition to the building's segregationist display. In one of the smaller rooms that flanked the Hall of Honor to the east and west, the Smithsonian Institution organized an ethnological exhibit of African and Native American material culture, including Navajo loomed textiles, Eskimo garments, and metalwork from eastern Africa. (Throughout the Fair, such anthropological exhibits showcased the wares of "simpler" cultures, setting up a contrast

[76]

52

Floor Plan, Woman's Building. Right: Ground floor. Left: Second floor.

with those of "advanced" Western society.) Adjacent, the Inventions Room offered a sampling of contemporary woman's labor-saving creativity, such as a dish-washing machine, a sewing machine, a gravity elevator, and the crowd favorite, an egg and cake beater (fig. 53). Some critics found the display disappointing, however, because "none of the most valuable and scientific inventions" made it to Chicago when "hundreds and hundreds of women's names" appeared in U.S. patent books at the time (Henrotin, "Outsider's View of the Women's Exhibit," 562). The nearby Scientific Rooms highlighted the achievements of Maria Mitchell, a self-taught astronomy professor at Vassar College and the first woman elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. The Educational Room featured a display of nurse-training programs, and the Process Room showcased raw silk and woolens from Utah and Iceland. Wrapping the gallery's corridors on the second floor was the distinguished Keppel Collection of engravings and drawings, including sixteenth-century prints by Diana Ghisi of Mantua as well as more recent compositions, such as lithographs by Rosa Bonheur and drypoints by Mary Cassatt and Ellen Day Hale. The Library, on the gallery's west side, held more than seven thousand volumes by women writers representing twenty-five nationalities and over twenty languages (fig. 54). Mary Lockwood, head of the Board's Library Committee, supervised this immense task, aided by Edith Clarke of the Newberry Library in Chicago, who catalogued the collection. Organized by subject, it featured literary masterpieces by Jane Austen, George Eliot, Harriet Beecher Stowe, George Sand, and many others, as well as scientific studies, professional monographs, woman's rights publications, and rare books and manuscripts, such as a twelfth-century encyclopedia from Germany entitled Hortus Delicarium. After much persistence, the women of the state of New York, led by Blanche Bellamy, secured a literary exhibit of twenty-five hundred works by women writers from the Empire State (35 percent of the total collection), including Charlotte Ramsay Lennox's The Female Quixote (1752)—the oldest New York text on display—and thirtyone works by Lydia Maria Child, abolitionist and woman's rights activist. Two Record Rooms to the north and south of the Library presented statistics on female philanthropy, working conditions, economic realities, educational access, and professions in the form of books, manuscripts, pamphlets, and wall charts. Bertha Palmer believed that statistical evidence was crucial to further the modern campaign for woman's education and training. She asked each exhibiting state and country to provide statistics on the economic and social status of their female citizens. The French committee offered a particularly thorough and innovative contribution. The women of France compiled "the first statistics ever essayed of the demographic part played by women in social economy," presenting their findings in attractive charts, maps, albums, and display cases (Elliott, Art and Handicraft in the Woman's Building, 169). Such numerical reporting surfaced throughout the Woman's Building, serving as an informational backbone to the visual exhibits. The Woman's Building also functioned as a locus of female activity. Many women gave live demonstrations: lace makers and potters demonstrated their crafts, a German blacksmith labored at her anvil, and Philadelphia Cooking School founder Sarah Tyson Rorer gave daily lessons on preparing Indian

[78]

53

Top left: Inventions & Patents, Woman's Building.

54

Top right: Candace Wheeler, designer, New York Library (southeast corner), Woman's Building.

55

Lower left: Gymnasium, Children's Building, 1 8 9 3 .

56

Lower right: Ceylon T e a Room, Woman's Building.

corn in the Model Kitchen. In the adjacent Children's Building, youngsters tried their hand at wood carving and clay modeling, attended classes on lipreading for the deaf, and flexed their muscles in the gymnasium (fig. 55). An important feature was the Organization Room on the gallery level of the Woman's Building, which provided twelve thousand square feet of exhibition space for over fifty associations, including the National Science Club, the Association of Collegiate Alumnae, the Columbian Association of Housekeepers, and the Woman's National Indian Association. Notably, the National American Woman Suffrage Association offered leaflets—including a copy of the proposed constitutional amendment—and invited visitors to sign a petition for woman's right to vote. The female organizers made a conscious attempt to give their space traditional, homelike qualities. On the gallery level's east side, several reception rooms offered visitors a place to meet or relax. The largest parlor, the Cincinnati Room, displayed Rookwood pottery by local women. Visitors also flocked to the Ceylon Tea Room and the Roof Garden Café for rest and rejuvenation (fig. 56). Gaining a reputation as the best restaurant on the fairgrounds, the café served about two thousand patrons each day by October, up from two hundred per day when the Fair opened in May. Although most of the large exhibition halls at the Fair had lunchrooms and cafés, the Woman's Building drew uncommon attention for its intimacy and domestic feel. Artifacts made by women were also displayed in state buildings and in larger exhibition halls at the Fair. According to Bertha Palmer, 12 percent of the exhibits in the Transportation Building were by women, along with 26 percent in the Fisheries Building and 46 percent in the Horticulture Building. Notably, 104 American women exhibited paintings, sculptures, and prints in the Palace of Fine Arts. This number was about 19 percent of the artists represented in the U.S. displays, a number on par with the percentage of female exhibitors at the National Academy of Design and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in preceding years. Some women artists sent works to both the Woman's Building and the Palace of Fine Arts. For example, Amanda Brewster Sewell painted the Arcadia mural in the Woman's Building and contributed several canvases to the Palace of Fine Arts exhibition. But women still faced exclusion from Fair activities. Male leaders shut women out of key departmental positions and advisory committees. After a failed bid to head the Department of Fine Arts, art agent Sara Hallowell had to settle for the prominent yet subordinate role of assistant chief to Halsey C. Ives. The Board of Lady Managers appealed directly to the U.S. Congress to secure female representation on official juries throughout the Fair, resulting in the appointment of fifty-seven women judges. Three American women—Mary Hallock Foote, Emily Sartain, and Mary Solari—along with twenty men eventually were asked to serve on the International Board of Judges for the Fine Arts. In addition, women served on the Board of Judges for other departments in which women's work was on display, including those of Ethnology, Agriculture, Manufactures, and Liberal Arts, thereby extending the reach of female contributions at the Fair beyond the walls of the Woman's Building.

[80]

A. K. M.

THE

W O M A N

S

B U I L D I N G

In two of her speeches, one dedicating and the

hold to the various factories where such work is

other opening the Woman's Building, Palmer

now done of spinning, carding, dyeing, knitting,

was outspoken in her support for definitions of

the weaving of textile fabrics, sewing, the cutting

women that went beyond the domestic sphere.

and making of garments and many other labori-

She poked fun at men who still adhered to the

ous occupations has enabled her to lift her eyes

Victorian paradigms that confined women to the

from the drudgery that has oppressed her since

home. After thanking the members of Congress

prehistoric days. The result is that women as a

for commissioning the Board of Lady Managers,

sex have been liberated."22 Thinking much more

she chided them. "Even more important than the

about women of her own class rather than the

discovery of Columbus, which we are gathered

considerable female workforce in the new facto-

together to celebrate, is the fact that the General

ries, Palmer encouraged women to better them-

Government has just discovered

woman."20

With-

selves in the time they gained from their new

out ever using the term New Woman, Palmer, in

liberation from domestic chores. Above all, she

effect, was beginning to define her by scorning

believed that women should go to school. 'They

the Victorian ideals of womanhood and declar-

now have time to think, to be educated, to plan

ing the death of idealized women on pedestals

and pursue careers of their own choosing." 23 She

presiding over the home. Criticizing attitudes

decried woman's "intolerable bondage of igno-

that had confined women while not clearly defin-

rance" and spoke out against those who claimed

ing the New Woman of the future typifies the

women were "too delicate and nervous" or did

post-Victorian politics that ran throughout the

not have enough "gray matter of her brain" to

Woman's Building. "I am not a believer in the

undergo the pressures of the classroom.24 Like so

pedestal theory—never having seen an actual

many post-Victorian female reformers, she went

example of it," Palmer continued, and "I always

out of her way to assure her audiences that edu-

suspect the motives of any one advancing it. It

cated women would not destroy the family but

does not represent the natural and fine relation

would make better wives and mothers. She advo-

between husband and wife or between friends."21

cated "the thorough education and training of

Palmer wanted no more old-fashioned senti-

woman to fit her to meet whatever fate life may

mental idealizing of women in what she and her

bring, not only to prepare her for the factory and

female colleagues regularly referred to as the

workshop, for the professions and arts, but more

present "age of enlightenment." (See sidebar,

important than all else, to prepare her for presid-

p. 82.)

ing over the home." 25 Woman's new opportuni-

Palmer credited the industrial revolution for

ties for education, Palmer said, would make her

emancipating women from the home. "Of all

"a more congenial companion and fit partner for

the changes that have resulted from the great

her illustrious mate."26 And on another occasion,

ingenuity and inventiveness of the race," she

she said, "No course of study is too elaborate, no

said, "there is none that equals in importance to

amount of knowledge and culture too abundant

woman the application of machinery to the per-

to meet the actual requirements of the wife and

formance of the never-ending tasks that have pre-

mother in dealing with the interests committed

viously been hers. The removal from the house-

to her hands."27 Such reassurances—so typical of

[81]

WOMEN

SPEAK

OUT

Each morning at eleven o'clock, from May to October, women gathered in the Assembly Room of the Woman's Building to listen to one or two of their peers deliver an address on a topic relating to women and society. Throughout the exposition, over three hundred women, Americans as well as internationals, spoke at this so-called Congress of Women. Mary Eagle, chair of the Congress committee, organized a continuous program of speakers that began on May 15 and concluded on the Fair's final day in October (Sundays excluded). During the summer's 147 sessions, women gave 254 formal addresses as well as about 50 impromptu speeches. They discussed such subjects as higher education, domestic science, dress reform, history, the home, art, literature, professional work, woman's influence, and woman suffrage. The Committee on Auxiliary Work organized an additional 91 instructive, short talks geared toward working women, including educational, philanthropic, and industrial topics. The Assembly Room seated about fifteen hundred people and hosted a capacity crowd on many occasions. T h e daily audience averaged about six hundred people. Keen interest in women's thoughts and accomplishments, as well as their public speaking ability, made for a spirited environment. Addresses typically drew discussion from the floor, which one (male) historian of the Fair described as "both entertaining and instructive" (Johnson, A History of the World's Columbian Exposition, 1:224). Although the presenters voiced a variety of ideas and agendas—not always in agreement with one another—the Congress generally underlined the intelligent, productive contributions of contemporary women to family and society. Laura de Force Gordon, in her address "Woman's Sphere from a Woman's Standpoint," emphasized woman's active role in defining the terms of her accomplishments and saw the story of the Woman's Building itself as evidence that "henceforth and forever 'woman's

municipal housekeepers—responded directly to

station, she believed that a civilization was mea-

nay-saying men who claimed that book learning

sured by its fine arts, a conviction that coursed

would distract women from their duties at home

through the overall upper-class agenda of the

and would, as a consequence, force men to be

Fair. She voiced the tacit consensus among those

both mother and father, housekeeper and bread-

working on the Woman's Building—and among

winner. In the debates around woman's pursuit

middle-class and upper-class women generally—

of higher education, the feminizing of men was

that women were sensitive to beauty and had

as much an issue as the masculinizing of women

since the beginning of time been "natural" hand-

(see sidebar p. 84).

workers and artists. Had they not had the duty

Alongside her advocacy for higher education,

throughout the Victorian era to play the piano,

Palmer hoped that women would use their new

sing the after-dinner aria, or paint watercolors of

freedoms to practice the arts. Like others of her

the garden's flowers? Fin-de-siecle women like

[82]

sphere' in life will be defined and determined by herself alone" (Eagle, The Congress of Women, 76). North of the fairgrounds was a second speaker's forum for women, the Congress of Representative Women. Held May 15-21 at the Art Palace (the new home of the Art Institute of Chicago after the Fair), the Congress kicked off a series of speaking events organized by the World's Congress Auxiliary. The male-run auxiliary had agreed to a separate Woman's Branch, nominally headed by Bertha Palmer, which organized this congress on women. (Female speakers also participated in subsequent congresses during the Fair, such as those on science, religion, and literature. This integrationist approach, however, had its limitations: dual planning committees—one male, one female—remained the rule for all the World's Congress Auxiliary events.) The Congress of Representative Women was an undeniable success. The program featured concurrent sessions—up to eighteen at once—in various halls in the Art Palace, totaling eighty-one sessions by week's end on topics such as education, science and religion, philanthropy, moral and social reform, the political status of women, civil law and government, and industries and occupations. A total of 330 women spoke during this inaugural event of the World's Congress Auxiliary. When suffrage leaders such as Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Lucy Stone were slotted to appear, crowds proved nearly unmanageable. Although both congresses addressed many of the same subjects, such as dress reform, the Congress of Representative Women offered programming with a more radical edge than that of its Woman's Building counterpart. Suffragists played a key role in the event's organization, much to the discountenance of Bertha Palmer and other Lady Managers who wished to keep politics out of the spotlight whenever women took the stage.

Palmer found the arts and the feminine to be so

A. K. M.

ists and musicians will, consequently, never reach

intimately linked that they could imagine paint-

the last possible combination of tones, or of tints,

ing and sculpture, ceramics and music as female

because their fields will widen before them, dis-

lifelong professions. In one

Palmer

closing constantly new beauties and attractions.

argued that if women were offered the same edu-

lecture,

We can not doubt that human intelligence will

cation as men, they would increase the coun-

gain as much by development; that it will vibrate

try's artistic output by 50 percent. It was wom-

with new power because of the uplifting of one-

an's nature to be aesthetically sensitive. "We are

half of its members." Better-educated women

told by scientists that the educated eye and ear

would mean a more cultured society at large. As

of to-day are capable of detecting subtle harmo-

women drank deeply at "the long-denied foun-

nies and delicate gradations of sound and color

tain of knowledge," Palmer said, their artistic abil-

that were imperceptible to our ancestors: that art-

ities would flourish.28

[83]

THE

COLLEGE

GIRL

Around the time of the Fair, American and English magazines and newspapers began to feature images of a young woman dressed in academic robes and a mortarboard. This figure likewise appeared in Lydia Field Emmet's mural on the walls of the Woman's Building and was referenced by Rosina Emmet Sherwood and Mary Cassatt in their compositions (see figs. 82, 83, and 87). The figure of the College Girl, as the press came to call her, synthesized the (contested) achievements of the New Woman and symbolized a new generation of women earning diplomas at century's end (see fig. 85). In the three decades after the Civil War, women had made great institutional strides in the arena of higher education. By 1890, nearly two-thirds of the nation's 1,082 colleges were open to women; of these, 43 percent were coeducational and another 20 percent admitted women only. Twenty years earlier, in 1870, merely 41 percent of the 582 institutions nationwide had accepted female applicants. And by 1900, 80 percent of American colleges, universities, and professional schools would open their doors to women. Lobbying for access to higher education resulted in several institutional models, namely coeducational universities, women's colleges, and coordinate women's colleges. (Radcliffe College opened as the "Harvard Annex" in 1879, for example, and Barnard College functioned as a female annex to Columbia University beginning in 1889.) Private women's colleges provided early opportunities, especially in the Northeast, with Vassar opening in 1865; Wellesley and Smith, in 1875; and Bryn Mawr, in 1884. Mills College in Oakland, California, the first women's college west of the Rockies, was founded in 1852 and chartered in 1885. By the 1890s, coeducation had gained sufficient acceptance that new

It followed that Palmer and her fellow manag-

As this is an American Exposition, the creation of

ers envisioned the Woman's Building as a prime

the buildings and all the adornments should nat-

opportunity to showcase women in the arts. Once

urally be the result of American taste and skill. It

granted permission to erect a separate building,

would be a humiliating confession of weakness

they wanted their building at the Fair to be deco-

should we be obliged to go to other nations to

rated as fulsomely and professionally as the ones

perform this series for us."29 Although she did not

put up and decorated by men. They insisted that

get all the money she requested for decorations,

all aspects of its architectural design and public

that setback did not stop her from asking some

decorations be commissioned from women, and

of the artists to volunteer their services and create

from American women, no less. When Palmer

murals out of patriotism and service to their sex.

reported her choices at the third session of the i

Board of Lady Managers in 1892, she reiterated

THE COMMISSIONS

the Fair's nationalist agenda. "It went without say-

Palmer's number one task was to commission

ing that an American should naturally be chosen.

a design for the building and its sculptural and

[84]

universities like the University of Chicago—founded in 1892 and located just blocks from the Fair— admitted female students. Due in part to a persistent scarcity of teachers, along with financial strains, midwestern and western schools were early adopters of coeducation. Public institutions such as the University of Iowa and the University of California, Berkeley, accepted women from their inception in 1847 and 1868, respectively, as did private colleges like Oberlin College in Oberlin, Ohio (1833), and Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota (1866). Alternatively, the University of Michigan changed its academic policy and admitted women in 1870, representative of schools that (often grudgingly) shifted to coeducation when a separate or coordinate women's college proved fiscally impossible. Early coeducation, however, usually came with restrictions on interactions between male and female students or structured student experiences along gendered lines. Women at Oberlin, for instance, cooked meals and laundered clothes for their male peers. And although Stanford University had opened as a coeducational institution in 1891, Jane Stanford herself narrowed the door in 1899 when she imposed a quota of no more than five hundred enrolled women at the university. Many college girls came from a range of white middle-class families, with some struggling to pay tuition and others having comfortable means. Although only 2.2 percent of women who were eighteen to twenty-one years old in 1890 enrolled in college, that figure represents fifty-six thousand women and nearly 36 percent of all students enrolled that year. Black college women, however, remained a rarity; estimates stand at a mere thirty students nationwide in 1891.

painted decorations. Throughout this process, she expressed concern about whether she would be able to find American women of sufficient talent and training who also possessed the self- confidence and physical strength to take on big public commissions. The hardiness of the female body was in continual debate in the late nineteenth century, its presumed "weakness" used to explain why so few women attended schools of architecture and why women were not up to the task of public decorations. The widespread assumption was that women lacked the inherent strength to mount the scaffoldings and climb the ladders necessary to paint murals or produce

[85]

larger-than-life sculptures. The issue of female strength and endurance haunted the commissions, and Palmer had her disappointments in all three media—architecture, painting, and sculpture. Palmer had to persuade Daniel Burnham, the chief of construction at the Fair, that a woman architect was up to designing a major public building. He wanted to give the assignment to the well-known Richard Morris Hunt, who already was working on several structures at the Fair and had a large staff. But Palmer prevailed in this first of many strong-willed interventions. Knowing that the 1876 Women's Pavilion in Philadelphia

The acceptance of the idea of the College Girl in the 1890s signaled a cultural victory by the women who worked diligendy in the 1870s and 1880s to overturn the biological arguments against female education. In his widely read Sex in Education (1873), Boston physician Edward Clarke had argued that the intellectual rigors of education put women at risk physiologically, and he warned his readers of the biological degeneration awaiting women who engaged in activities of the mind at the expense of the body. He claimed that neurasthenia, hysteria, insanity, and failing reproductive health would afflict women who depleted their limited bodily energy in the unnatural pursuits of education. Prominent physician S. Weir Mitchell joined the chorus, and another asked, "Why should we spoil a good mother by making an ordinary grammarian?" (Rosenberg, Beyond Separate Spheres, 8). Such public questioning by medical professionals prompted some educators and state legislators to reconsider their policies for female students. This biological line of attack against female higher education was perhaps the most difficult obstacle faced by women in the 1870s and 1880s who fought to open college doors and to overturn conventional beliefs. At the core of Clarke's argument was an assumption of innate biological difference—a supposition that men and women had distinct physical and mental characteristics. Many female leaders in the late nineteenth century likewise believed in a natural distinction of the sexes, steeped as they were in the prevailing evolutionary discourses of the era, both biological and cultural. Claims by Clarke and others that (Anglo-American) female education threatened racial health resonated with

had been designed by a man, and been much crit-

and the commission went to twenty-three-year-old

icized as a result, she persuaded Burnham to run

Sophia Hayden, the first female graduate of the

a competition inviting designs exclusively from

Massachusetts Insitute of Technology's four-year

women architects. If that call to women did not

architectural program.30 Hayden's design called

result in a successful design, she tactfully agreed

for a three-story pavilion in Italian Renaissance

that they would then turn to a male architect.

style (fig. 57, and see fig. 4). Teaching mechani-

On February 1, 1891, Burnham put out a call

cal drawing in Boston at the time, she had not yet

to women for an architectural design, to be sub-

built any structure and was far younger and less

mitted seven weeks later. Thirteen women, most

experienced than the other architects working

of them young, submitted proposals. It was a

at the Fair. As she told a reporter, the commis-

blind competition; no names were

attached

sion meant that she would be "going into active

to the designs. Burnham deemed three of the

architectural work earlier than I had expected." 31

designs competitive enough to be juried. Ber-

Hayden came to Chicago for most of April and

tha Palmer participated in the selection process,

May 1891 to work with Palmer and Burnham and

[86]

nineteenth-century whites, including women. Advocates of female education did not dismiss the idea of biological difference so much as invert the relation of education and health, countering Clarke's assertions of nervous-system disorders and infertility with an image of a healthy college girl, vigorous in body and mind. Author and suffragist Julia Ward Howe, in her book-length rebuttal Sex and Education: A Reply to Dr. E. H. Clarke's "Sex in Education " (1874), challenged the notion that education was to blame for poor health, pointing to the strictures of the home and of the corset as most detrimental to the health of the nation's girls. She stated that a lack of physical training, not the acquisition of knowledge, impaired women's bodies. Further, women physicians rejected the tenets of nineteenth-century (male) medicine, which upheld a biological fragility on the part of women as well as a female/body versus male/mind polarity, and insisted instead on the similarities between men and women. In addition, women in the 1880s who wished to advance female higher education turned to statistics as a weapon of reform, tapping into the era's positivist faith in empirical evidence to show that female graduates were predominantly healthy. Feminist responses in support of higher education gradually gained traction, and the 1890s marked a new level of cultural acceptance of the girl graduate. The practical applications of a college education, however, remained a matter of debate among women themselves. Was higher education an extended lesson in the traditional roles of domesticity, preparing women to be good wives and mothers? Or did this intellectual training pave the way to a professional, public life?

^

A. K. M.

to refine her design. By August, she had com-

dedicated to inventions by women and statistical

pleted drawings for the building, which, like the

records, and some were meeting rooms, offices,

other major pavilions, had designated spaces for

and parlors. A notable feature was the Assembly

sculptural decorations on the outside and painted

Room that could hold over a thousand people, a

murals inside. The building's primary space was a

response to the Isabellas' desire for continuous

three-story-high Hall of Honor dedicated to great

programming on women's issues. Hayden also

women of the past and present (see figs. 73 and

added a roof garden with facilities for refresh-

74). This central gallery, marked "Rotunda" on

ments and afternoon teas, an architectural fea-

the floor plan, had a glass ceiling that provided

ture that visitors commended as an appropriate

considerable natural light for the decorations

"feminine" touch. In July 1891 the construction

and exhibitions beneath (fig. 52). Around the

crew broke ground for the building, and the

great hall, on two stories, were smaller rooms for

work was complete in the spring of 1892, the first

a variety of exhibitions that were put together by

of the large pavilions to be completed on the fair-

state or foreign committees. Other rooms were

grounds. Sadly, Hayden did not attend the open-

[87]

57

Aerial view, Woman's Building.

ing of the building or the exposition, citing the

rized another competition, calling for a sculpted

stress of the j o b , particularly the strain of working

pediment repeated at the east and west entrances

with Burnham (and perhaps with Palmer), which

and two freestanding figural g r o u p s — e a c h twelve

brought

Fulfilling

feet tall—repeated six times around the roofline.

Palmer's biggest worry, an editorial in the Amer-

Twenty-one women sculptors, some of them (like

ican Architect and Building News cited Hayden's ill-

Bessie Potter) fairly well known, answered the call

ness as proof that women were not fit to be archi-

and sent in drawings and plaster models. An all-

tects.32

male jury reviewed the designs without names

on

a

nervous

breakdown.

Palmer also weathered problems with Alice Rideout,

another

woman, who won

young

and

the sculpture

attached to them. Predictably, given that the men

inexperienced

favored neoclassical allegory as the correct lan-

competition.

guage of the Fair, they awarded the commission

Sculpture was the privileged decorative art at the

to a traditional allegorist. Alice L. Rideout, then

Fair, and Palmer was as concerned about

finding

in her early twenties, was still in art school in San

a quality artist for this assignment as she had been

Francisco. Given the exalted position of sculpture

in choosing a female architect. Palmer autho-

a m o n g the fine arts, Rideout was awarded the

THE

W O M A N ' S

highest-paid commission of all the woman artists: $8,200 total, $3,200 for the pediments and $2,500 for each of the two cornice sculptures.

B U I L D I N G

of Honor, the grand ceremonial space of the Woman's Building. Each painting was to be fiftyfour feet long and fourteen feet wide.37 Palmer and Hallowell looked to artists in Paris, where a mural movement was in full force and where "the influence and criticism of the tremendous number of critics," as Palmer said, created higher standards of achievement. They also looked to women whom they knew to have close attachments to male mentors or spouses who could critique and help with the projects. "We may have one done by an American and one done by a French woman as there may not be two American women who are competent and willing to do this work," Palmer anxiously wrote Hallowell.38

Because the public sculptures at the Fair were usually greater than life size, and made of staff, an inherently unstable material, they were fragile and had to be constructed on-site. Sculptors and painters worked on their pieces in temporary shops and studios on the fairgrounds, and their finished works were later moved to the building they were to adorn. Rideout, however, resisted coming to Chicago, perhaps because she still relied on her San Francisco teacher, the German sculptor Rupert Schmid. Out of frustration, Burnham suggested giving the commission to another woman, but Palmer was able to persuade Rideout to come to Chicago and work alongside and be inspired by the other sculptors on the fairgrounds.33

Finding someone capable of the physical labor entailed by murals was not the only hurdle in Palmer's recruiting; she also had a limited budget. She could offer $3,000 for each mural—the amount was the same for male mural painters— but this payment had to cover all of the expenses of materials, the setting up of a studio, the hiring of models, transatlantic shipping, and installation. And given that women artists had no realistic chance to profit by selling such huge canvases after the Fair was over, Palmer counseled Hallowell to "stimulate the patriotism" of potential mural painters, underlining how "rare" it was for women to "have an opportunity" like this.39

As for muralists, the planners of the Woman's Building assumed from the beginning that women painters would execute their large canvases in their home studios, roll them up, and send them to Chicago to be affixed to the interior walls of the building.34 But Palmer worried that she could not find women with enough space in their studios to paint large canvases and wondered whether there were two Americans "who are competent and willing to do this work.'"'5 She sought advice on her selection from Sara Hallowell, her family's art agent and advisor. Hailing from Chicago, but with a residence in Paris, Hallowell made her career helping American dealers, museums, and private clients form modern collections.36

Palmer's concern about female stamina once again became a self-fulfilling prophecy when her first choice, Elizabeth Jane Gardner, turned down the offer. Gardner, an American expatriate who had been painting in Paris since 1864, had been the first American woman to receive a Salon medal, giving her the privilege of hanging her works in Salons without being juried. In her midfifties at the time, Gardner had "the advantage of a very expert master," namely William Bou-

Hallowell helped Palmer secure the two most important commissions from American women painters working abroad: the two monumental tympana, one for each end wall of the high Hall

[89]

THE

W O M A N ' S

B U I L D I N G

guereau, the most popular academic painter in

nies, who was creating the centerpiece Colum-

Paris, whom she would marry in 1896. 40 But Gard-

bian fountain at the entrance to the Fair. Freder-

ner declined Palmer's invitation to create the two

ick had rented four large workshops in Paris, and

tympana. "I have carefully considered the propo-

Palmer and Hallowell rightly reckoned that one of

sition which you presented in your very attractive

those spaces could also accommodate the making

manner to paint two large decorative panels for

of large murals. They also knew that Mary had just

the Woman's Building at the Columbian Expo-

finished copies of two Botticelli frescoes ( 1 8 9 1 ) ,

sition," she wrote Palmer, falling back on cultur-

each seven by ten feet, proof that she could work

ally conditioned expectations that women were

on a large scale.42 That MacMonnies showed an

not up to the task of executing large paintings.

immediate willingness to take on the assignment

"My warm interest in the success of the undertak-

warmed Palmer's and Hallowell's hearts.

ing, the interesting subjects which you proposed,

During the discussion with MacMonnies, Mary

and the honor of doing so important a work, all

Cassatt's name surfaced as a possibility for one of

tempted me to try to think that I could do it. But

the tympana. Although Cassatt was not yet well

in consulting the plan which you kindly loaned

known to American audiences—she would not

me I find that the space to be covered is four

have a solo American exhibition until 1895, two

yards in height and I know that I should not be

years after the Fair—Hallowell knew her, and the

equal to the physical fatigue necessary in paint-

Palmers had met her by 1 8 9 1 , when they acquired

ing on a high ladder. Believe me, I am very sorry

a set of her color prints and a pastel (fig. 60) ,43

to refuse, but my health would not allow me to

To offer a commission to Cassatt, however, took a

undertake the commission." 41

leap of faith, because she was known in Paris as a

Stylistically, Gardner was a traditional painter.

leading impressionist, a painter whose bright col-

She painted, like her teacher, Bouguereau, in a

ors, bold compositions, and contemporary sub-

very tight, academic style, her figures highly illu-

jects were controversial. And she was known to be

sionistic with a fine glossy finish. Had she taken

a strong-willed individual with uncompromising

the mural commission, her decorations would

points of view. Whether she would even entertain

undoubtedly

the idea of a mural was uncertain given that she

have included

sweetly

idealized

women and children (fig. 58). She was a safe

and her impressionist colleagues considered pub-

choice. The next two artists whom Palmer and

lic decorations a retrograde genre. Would Cassatt

Hallowell approached were not. The first, Mary

break with her circle's antimural sentiments and

MacMonnies, created realist easel paintings with

create a decoration? At forty-eight, with all the

the bright colors and lively brushstrokes associ-

manners and hauteur of an upper-class lady, she

ated with the more radical impressionists (fig.

might also be uncomfortable painting from lad-

59). T o Palmer and Hallowell, she offered three

ders or scaffolding.

distinct advantages: she was experienced

but

Hallowell and Palmer took the risk and offered

young enough at thirty-three to be hungry for

Cassatt a commission for one of the tympana. Cas-

greater notice; she had been noticed by Puvis de

satt agreed to it without much deliberation; no

Chavannes, the foremost French muralist of the

such project had ever come her way. Though she

day; and she was married to Frederick MacMon-

wished she had more time, she would later thank

[90]

58

Upper left: Elizabeth Gardner, Crossing the Brook, 1 8 9 3 . Oil on canvas, 7 2 x 42 in.

59

Above: Mary MacMonnies, Self-Portrait, 1 8 8 9 . From Ev 'ry Month: An Illustrated Magazine of Literature and Popular Music, November i 8 g 6 .

60

Lower left: Edgar Degas, Portrait of Mary Cassatt, c. 1880—84. O f

on

canvas, 28!^ x 23V8 in.

THE

W O M A N ' S

B U I L D I N G

Palmer went to younger artists who had studied abroad but were living on the East Coast. She had nothing to offer them other than the prestige of the commission and the possibility that someone would want to buy the decoration when the Fair was over. She took her usual approach, appealing to their patriotism and dedication to the uplift of women. Predictably, none of the artists she contacted liked the idea of working for nothing; they rightly felt they should be paid for their labors and knew that building decorations, given that they had lofty subjects and were made for particular spaces, did not have much value after the structure came down.45 But Palmer persevered and, with the help of Candace Wheeler, persuaded four young East Coast artists to take on these smaller wall murals: Amanda Brewster Sewell, Lucia Fairchild, and two sisters, Lydia Field Emmet and Rosina Emmet Sherwood.46 In line with MacMonnies's subject of "primitive" women, Sewell and Fairchild were to present women in the distant past; Emmet and Sherwood were, like Cassatt, to portray modern women.

Bertha Palmer for giving her a chance to work in a format that was not open to women painters in Paris. "I have enjoyed these new experiences in art immensely and am infinitely obliged to you for the opportunity you have given me."44 Cassatt's acceptance of the commission infuriated her good friend Edgar Degas-—they had a falling out because of it—as well as Camille Pissarro, who considered Cassatt's decision to make a decoration an abandonment of realist principles and the mark of a fallen painter (see sidebar p. 94). MacMonnies agreed to a tympanum painting about "primitive woman," a subject appropriate for a painter who admired the work of Puvis de Chavannes. And Cassatt agreed to a tympanum about "modern woman," a theme suitable for a painter of contemporary life. MacMonnies, using one of her husband's large studios, created her mural the usual way: the canvas was stretched against a wall, and the painter climbed on ladders and scaffolding (fig. 61). Cassatt, who had enough money to make special arrangements, used a technology that Claude Monet and others had devised for large works. She built a glass-roofed studio behind her summerhouse in Bachivillers and had her helpers dig a deep trench and install a pulley system that allowed her to move the huge canvas up and down and paint on it while standing or seated at ground level.

Finally, Palmer asked women's committees in England and France to raise funds and to commission muralists from their own countries to decorate the two entryways to the Hall of Honor. The English committee commissioned a ceiling painting, spandrel decorations, and two triptychs for the east entry hallway, one each from Annie Louisa Swynnerton, a British painter, and Anna Lea Merritt, an American expatriate living in London. Though we have descriptions of the subject matter of these paintings, and a drawing of a section of one, photographs of these murals, alas, were never made (see fig. 1 1 6 ) . The French commissioned Parisian artists Louise Gabillot van Parys and Louise Abbema to paint murals for the west entry hallway. The preliminary designs Abbema

Having secured artists for the two big murals— the only paintings the Fair commissioners agreed to pay for—Palmer then decided she needed more murals to bring her great hall in line with the decorated interiors of other buildings. She found prominent spaces for four panels, each twelve by eleven feet; they were to face one another, two in the middle of the east side of the Hall of Honor and two others in the middle of the west side of the Hall of Honor (fig. 62). For these,

[92]

THE

IMPRESSIONISTS

AS

ANTIMURALISTS

When Mary Cassatt received the mural commission, she discussed it with her fellow impressionist painters Edgar Degas and Camille Pissarro. Degas, with his sharp tongue, heatedly advised against accepting the assignment. Cassatt wrote to Louisine Havemeyer, art collector and friend, about her conflict with him: I am going to do a decoration for the Chicago Exhibition. When the Committee offered it to me to do, at first I was horrified, but gradually I began to think it would be great fun to do something I had never done before and as the bare idea of such a thing put Degas in a rage and he did not spare every criticism he could think of, I got my spirit up and said I would not give up the idea for anything. Now, one has only to mention Chicago to set him off. (Mathews, Cassatt and Her Circle, 229) Described by Havemeyer as "addicted to the habit o f throwing verbal vitriol," Degas unleashed a fury of insults o n his friend, dismissing the idea that an impressionist—let alone a female impressionist— would execute a public decoration (Mathews, Cassatt: A Retrospective, 3 1 2 ) . 'You ought to hear Degas on the subject o f a woman's undertaking to d o such a thing, h e has handed m e over to distinction [sic]," confided Cassatt to Pissarro in June 1892 (Mathews, Cassatt and Her Circle, 229). Cassatt's plaintive words f o u n d n o sympathetic ear in Pissarro, who explained his aversion to "decoration" and, m o r e specifically, to the "decorative picture" in a letter to his son that October: Speaking about Miss Cassatt's decoration, I wish you could have heard the conversation I had with Degas on what is known as "decoration." I am wholly of his opinion; for him it is an ornament that should be made

and van Parys made for their murals were photo-

male artists all reported to the American painter

graphed in Paris, published in the Fair handbook,

Frank D. Millet, director o f decorations at the

and displayed in the French section o f the build-

Fair. Millet prepared the contracts f o r the Wom-

ing's art exhibition. 47 But because the French

an's Building artists, but h e did not communi-

women's committee never came u p with money

cate with them directly. Palmer was the titular

for finished versions, or f o r shipping and instal-

head o f decorations; n o t being an artist herself,

lation, the murals were never completed. Palmer

she gave minimal instruction about content and

seems to have taken such frustrations in stride—

style.48 A l t h o u g h she corresponded with the art-

at least publicly—but must have been

ists, she did not travel to look at work while it was

pained

when women failed to perform as expected.

in process and met only with Sophia Hayden a n d Alice Rideout when they worked on-site. With

i

THE PROGRAM

the exception of the Emmet sisters, w h o must

Bertha Palmer was the sole coordinator o f the

have conferred with each other, given the close

decorations

coordination o f their murals in theme, style, a n d

f o r the Woman's

Building. T h e

[94]

with a view to its place in an ensemble, it requires the collaboration of architect and painter. The decorative picture [tableau-décoration] is an absurdity, a picture complete in itself is not a decoration. (Rewald, Camille Pissarro, 204) This antimuralist sentiment among the impressionists hinged on the term decoration, which had recently gained new exposure, new meanings, and new adherents. Defining the qualities of the decorative was a difficult exercise at century's end: a "decoration" could be a monumental mural situated in a public, architectural space; an easel-sized painting or large panel designed for a domestic interior; or the qualities of color, harmony, and flatness within an individual composition. Living in France during these years, Cassatt worked among the communities of artists who were rethinking decoration. During much of the nineteenth century in France, decoration was the highest of artistic genres: a large-scale painting featuring historical or mythological subjects that resided in a public setting and aimed to visualize communal values. Many artists regarded a decorative commission as the greatest of professional challenges. Impressionists, however, did not ascribe to this view, claiming that murals compromised artistic autonomy. Mural painting had rules. Most importantly, murals were expected to harmonize with their surroundings, which forced painting to play second fiddle to architecture. Moreover, murals traditionally told didactic tales through allegory, the artistic language of the Academy. Impressionists remained committed to depicting views of modern life on easel-sized canvases that were both portable and self-sufficient and not beholden to a specific space or building.

scale, n o n e o f the artists m e t with o n e a n o t h e r ,

m a k e changes. Cassatt r e f u s e d to send a sketch,

n o t even M a c M o n n i e s a n d Cassatt, w h o were

insulted that h e r compositions s h o u l d b e subject

b o t h in France. M a c M o n n i e s w o r k e d in a Paris

to ' j u r y i n g " o r oversight. Instead she p r o v i d e d a

studio a n d Cassatt w o r k e d in h e r country estate

written description o f h e r design a n d eventually

in Bachivillers s o m e forty to fifty miles north-

a p h o t o g r a p h f o r the h a n d b o o k . W h e n , in late

west o f Paris. Palmer's c o r r e s p o n d e n c e with Mac-

i 8 g 2 , Palmer b e c a m e aware that the two tym-

M o n n i e s a n d Cassatt p e a k e d rather late in the

p a n a were d i f f e r e n t in scale a n d color, she unsuc-

process, w h e n she asked each o f t h e m to sub-

cessfully asked the artists if they c o u l d repair the

mit sketches o f their tympana to h e r a n d h e r

lack o f stylistic consistency, b u t h e r request c a m e

Executive B o a r d . M a c M o n n i e s sent in a sketch

too late f o r either artist to m a k e m a j o r changes. 4 9

that p r o m p t e d Palmer to voice c o n c e r n a b o u t the artist's p r o m i n e n t use o f bare-breasted

Palmer did n o t lay out a detailed artistic pro-

fig-

g r a m f o r the murals, leaving e a c h artist very

Americans.

m u c h o n h e r own. T h e p r o g r a m for the sculpture

B u t M a c M o n n i e s stood h e r g r o u n d a n d did n o t

competition was "woman a n d w o m a n ' s work in

ures that m i g h t o f f e n d provincial

[95]

A l t h o u g h disparaging public decoration, artists such as Cassatt, Degas, Pissarro, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and Claude Monet did experiment with decorative elements in their compositions, painting broad, flat areas of bright color and patterning and seeking overall harmony of color and form. Yet mining the decorative for impressionist goals proved difficult. In a letter to his son in 1887, Pissarro criticized paintings by Monet then on view in Paris for stumbling in their decorative aspects: ' T h e effect is certainly decorative, but there is little finesse and crudities are prominent; I d o n o t know if it belongs to our vision which aspires to harmony and demands an art which while not decoration is yet decorative" (Rewald, Camille Pissarro, 107). Pissarro's nimble prose evinces the complexities of decoration: decorative qualities prove admirable, but a work o f (public) decoration is to be avoided. By the 1890s the artistic category o f decoration had surged to the forefront of aesthetic debates in France. During the preceding two decades, the government of the Third Republic had led a grand campaign to adorn the nation's civic and cultural institutions. Academic painters converged on Paris to embellish public spaces with lavish decorations. As a formidable patron o f the arts, the government granted mural decoration a new level of visibility, which crescendoed in the 1890s with the completion of several important new buildings. Years earlier, in 1877, Renoir had publicly lambasted the nation's mural campaign in the pages o f L'Impressionniste: "Decorative paintings in our public buildings are stilted, exhausted, out of proportion and far from being in harmony with what they should be in decorating." H e acerbically characterized Paul Baudry's murals in the O p é r a as "pale, weak, bleached, without energy, disappear[ing] a m o n g the gilding and the lights" (Herbert, Nature's Workshop, 95). Cassatt

history." 50 T h e closest Palmer came to describing

and their intimate connections shown with all

the mural program more fully was in a letter she

that has tended to promote the development of

wrote to Hallowell about the tympana. "Of course

the race." 52 T h e Board wanted, in other words, a

we should want something symbolic showing the

progress cycle, the kind of evolutionary success

advancement of woman," Palmer explained. "My

story that structured so many of the male-made

idea was that perhaps we might show woman in

decorations at the Fair.

her primitive condition as a bearer of burdens and doing drudgery, either an Indian

But what would a story about woman's "ad-

scene

vancement" from primitive to modern times look

or a classic one in the manner of Puvis, and as

like? Men had art-historical templates for depict-

a contrast, woman in the position she occupies

ing American progress stories, but women did

today." 51 A prospectus that the Board of Lady

not. Asher B. Durand's painting Progress and J o h n

Managers issued for the Woman's Building said

Boyle's History of Transportation, which we saw in

something similar: "The footsteps of women will

chapter 1, were typical in their detailing of man's

be traced from prehistoric times to the present

mechanical and industrial inventiveness and the

[96]

also acknowledged the disadvantaged position of Baudry's compositions, yet unlike Renoir, she did not fault Baudry for this. In a letter to Bertha Palmer in October 1892, while at work on her own mural, Cassait wrote, "Better painters than I am have been put out of sight, Baudry spent years o n his decorations. T h e only time we saw them was when they were exhibited in the Beaux-Arts [in 1874], then they were buried in the ceiling of the Grand O p e r a " (Mathews, Cassait and Her Circle, 238-39). In his diatribe, Renoir pointedly blamed both the École des Beaux-Arts and the architect for the era's failures in decorative art. He suggested that artists, in their academic training, had learned only to ape past masterpieces, not "how to be a decorator," whereas architectural professionals lacked the requisite visionary and organizational acumen to effectively lead a creative team toward a holistic composition. As a result, painters produced works that were "simply huge easel paintings based on academic recipes" (Herbert, Nature's Workshop, 95). Impressionists such as Renoir were n o t antimuralists per se; more accurately, they expressed distrust of and acute disappointment in works that were publicly showcased (and officially sanctioned) as decoration in the last decades of the nineteenth century in France. T h e blurring of easel painting and mural painting—lamented by Renoir and d e e m e d "an absurdity" by Pissarro—especially unnerved the impressionists. N o t only did academic hacks, in their opinion, pass off monumental canvases as decorations, but the École also fostered just such a disassociation o f mural painting from its architectural setting—first, by displaying mural entries for government commissions at official Salons beginning in 1886 and, second, by admitting the decorative arts, as a genre, into the Salon in 1891. However, the perceived adulterations of the decorative by the Academy were perhaps less threaten-

increasing ease mankind enjoyed with the intro-

"his-story." As Alice Rideout, the principal sculp-

duction of new technologies such as the printing

tor of the Woman's Building, told a reporter,

press, the steamship, the train, and the telegraph.

the "most difficult task" for her, and presum-

These cycles, presented as a national or global

ably for all the women artists, "was the choice of

history, drew their subject matter exclusively from

subjects." 53 Given the inherent sexism of the late

the male sphere.

nineteenth-century allegorical vocabulary, if an artist like Rideout wanted women to be some-

N o models were available for visually portraying woman's progress through the ages. If women

thing more than amazons, idealized beauties, or

were going to have a pictorial history that fea-

generic goddesses, she had to invent symbolic

tured them, it would have to be invented. T h e

figures

women decorators would have to take the lead

protagonists, shaping contemporary culture and

and stories in which w o m e n were active

stories of the Fair—Progress, Evolution, Modern

managing their own destinies.

Civilization—and change their perspective from

Although the artists who decorated the Wom-

male to female, telling "her-story" rather than

an's Building worked in different styles and in dif-

[97]

ing to impressionists than the appropriations of the decorative by a young, new cohort of modern artists who comprised the symbolist movement. Turning away from a naturalist investment in the contemporary world, these painters explored the subjective self, the imagination, and the timeless and spiritual qualities of art. In particular, a group of artists who in 1888 called themselves the Nabis—including Pierre Bonnard, Maurice Denis, Paul Serusier, and Edouard Vuillard—aimed to broaden the definition of decoration and to unmoor such compositions from their architectural locales. Inspired by the work of Paul Gauguin (named "above all a decorator" by the influential critic Albert Aurier in 1891), the Nabis crafted a new category of painting—essentially the "decorative picture" (or decorative panel) derided by Pissarro in his i8g2 discussions with Degas and Cassatt (Prather and Stuckey, Gauguin, 156). Fusing a modernist and decorative aesthetic, these younger artists reconceptualized painting, exhibiting their decorative panels alongside standard easel paintings. They also sought to revitalize a craftsmanlike vision of artistic unity, wherein painted decorations played an essential role in the modern domestic interior. Although the impressionists saw the decorative picture as an affront, the aesthetic coherence that the Nabis sought in their interior decorations echoed Degas' and Renoir's calls for artistic collaboration between architect and painter. Pissarro, for one, changed his tune by the mid-i8gos, broadening his taste for the decorative to include more selective, synthetic visions of nature. But the prescient Cassatt was the first to resist the antimuralist sentiments of her fellow impressionists, when she undertook the challenge to paint a modern, public decoration in 1892. O p e n to experiment, Cassatt crafted her version of decoration in Modern Woman by borrowing symbolist elements to modernize naturalist forms.

A. K. M.

ferent places, their visions of the evolutionary his-

comfortable articulating but also what they gar-

tory of their sex were remarkably coherent. T h e

bled or left unsaid. No one mandated that their

similarity in conception came neither from per-

decorations leave out men, for example, yet the

sonal contacts between the artists, which were

women decorators all did. They saw it as "natu-

few, nor from Palmer's meager instructions, but

ral" to tell a separatist story of women working

rather from common transatlantic understand-

alongside other women, as they did in their clubs

ings about woman's progress across history and

and associations, rather than in mixed company.

about female culture in modern times. No mat-

Though males appear in an occasional cameo,

ter what their political views were on the status of

the artists excluded them from major roles. Even

women, the women artists making public art at

more remarkably, all the artists sidelined mater-

the Fair told the story of women in a notably uni-

nity; there are very few babies or mother-and-

fied voice. Theirs was a consensual history.

child groupings in the decorations. When they

In examining women's depictions of their his-

represented motherhood, they did so as only one

tory, we need to look not only at what they felt

of woman's many capabilities and occupations,

[98]

WRITING

"HERSTORY*

By 1893, when the artists of the Woman's Building visualized a history of women, female writers had already presented a similar story in textual form. At century's end, women recognized the need to write their own history—a separatist tale that would trace the long line of female contributions to society, from savagery to civilization. Co-opting the (masculine) language of progress and evolution—the ideological stuff of the Fair—women turned to the developing discipline of anthropology to legitimate a modern vision of womanhood with the historical weight of the ancient past. Although they may have conceptualized this vision in universalizing terms, womanhood was hardly a monolithic category. Women's history meant many different things to a diversity of female constituencies. Promoters of domesticity, outspoken leaders of woman's rights, religious adherents, and advocates of higher education all adopted an anthropological discourse during the late nineteenth century, finding in ancient society the maternal roots of a history that needed telling. The work of male anthropologists in preceding decades offered evidence of woman's formidable position in the cultures of the past. This evolutionary literature established that humanity's earliest civilizations were predominantly matriarchal. In Das Mutterrecht (1861), Johann Bachofen wrote an influential scientific history of the family that acknowledged the role of matriarchy, or mother right, in the social organization of "savage" and "barbaric" societies. "Mother right" described the practices of naming children after their mothers, tracing genealogy through the maternal line, assigning daughters the right of inheritance, and endowing female members of the community with political and religious power.

not her only one. This absence is most profound in the large tympanum by Mary Cassatt, which has no mothers with their children even though this was her signature theme during these years. Removing maternity from the center of women's lives was one way in which post-Victorian artists collectively revised the earlier generation's priorities and demonstrated a widespread desire to redefine woman's capabilities and enlarge her sphere of activity.

Histories of women were of the long, globe-trotting genre we looked at in chapter 1 that tracked woman's conditions from prehistoric to modern times. Other books bundled together biographical accounts of famous women throughout history, and one souvenir for the Fair, a five-hundred-page book "Dedicated to the Women of America" brought together fifty essays on women's contributions to national history from the era of Columbus to that of the Woman's Building (see sidebar above) ,54

In looking at women artists' representations of the history of their sex, it is helpful to review the lively and contentious discourse about women's history in printed texts at the time of the Fair.

Commonly, historians broke woman's story into three early historic eras before the modern age: savage and barbaric times, classical antiq-

[99]

According to Bachofen, matriarchies had been observed chiefly among Pre-Hellenic cultures, including those of Lycia, Athens, and Egypt. American anthropologist Lewis Henry Morgan built upon Bachofen's findings in Ancient Society (1877), a study of the development of civilization that reflected Morgan's theory of cultural evolution and his understanding of kinship systems. In North America, Morgan observed matriarchies among Native Americans, noting, for instance, that the Delawares and Mohegans continued to honor descent through the female line. Although the evolutionary paradigm formulated by Bachofen and Morgan recorded a powerful history of women that stretched back thousands of years, matriarchy eventually met its demise, as their interpretation had it, with the triumph of patriarchy and advanced civilization. Bachofen asserted that mother right marked a cultural stage rather than the historical circumstances of a particular group of people. Modeling a trajectory of cultural development, he positioned matriarchy as a middling stage, preceded by hetaerism (or hedonism) and superseded by patriarchy. Mother right possessed a "primordial character," the mark of an earthbound system that would grow obsolete as societies developed politically, intellectually, and spiritually (Bachofen, Mother Right, 88). Both anthropologists regarded patriarchy as a welcome advance. With the establishment of individual property and monogamy, they maintained, civilizing societies gradually adopted patriarchal structures. This change to descent through the male line proved a "natural remedy," in Morgan's opinion, whereas matrilineal descent

uity, and the Dark Ages, when patriarchal struc-

including those of ancient Greece as well as mod-

tures demoted women and confined most of

ern-day Native Americans, had more autonomy

them to domesticity (though some strong women

and political power than they did in the interven-

became celibates and served society through the

ing Dark Ages when monogamy was institution-

church). Finally dawned the modern age, when

alized, making women and children the chat-

women "awakened" from centuries of oppres-

tel of men. Suffragists in particular argued that

sion. The rhetoric historians used for the contem-

the division of labor and power between women

porary period was keenly emancipatory, using the

and men had never been stable and that long

same terms abolitionists had used decades earlier

before the modern "father-age," there had been

for freeing the slaves. Women, like blacks, were

centuries of a "mother-age" when women had

"awakening" or "rousing" from a long sleep; they

far greater authority than men did and worked

were "emerging" from the Dark Ages; they were

harder than they did to guarantee the survival

day."55

of the race. In clan and tribal cultures, the argu-

at the "dawn of a new

Accounts of the earliest history of women pro-

ment went, women did not marry but lived in

voked the most heated discussion among the-

communities where they and their children had

orists and historians. The question was whether

privileges and autonomy and were not subjected

women in "primitive" or "barbarian" societies,

to the laws of men.

[100]

represented "the remains of an imperfect condition o f social life and family law" (Morgan, Ancient Society Mb)In the 1890s the authors of women's history p e n n e d a different story. Well versed in evolutionary literature, suffragist Elizabeth Cady Stanton harnessed the historical cachet of the matriarchate in a speech of the same name that she wrote for the National Council o f W o m e n in 1891. Marshaling the evidence of Bachofen, Morgan, and others in support of contemporary woman's rights, she asserted that "the leading, independent position w o m e n held for ages" collapsed only after a long-fought cultural victory by men, with traces of the mother-age persisting into the Middle Ages (Stanton, "The Matriarchate, or Mother-Age," 218). Woman's present-day inferiority in a system of patriarchy thus represented a cultural deficit, n o t a biological one. Further, Stanton discerned historical importance in the "civilizing power" of motherhood. "Instead o f being a 'disability,' as unthinking writers are pleased to call it, maternity has been the all-inspiring motive or force that impelled the first steps towards a stable h o m e and family life" (221). In ancient societies, woman was protectress o f the h o m e , agriculturalist, physician, advocate of peace, and the sentimental force of kinship. Civilization began with "primitive" woman and her survivalist strategies to nurture the family. Modern woman, perhaps unexpectedly, f o u n d in primitive woman a source of inspiration, a precedent, and an avenue to advancement. Whereas suffragists such as Stanton f o u n d "dignity and self-

"and their opinions had equal weight on all ques-

Suffrage radicals such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton used current historical and anthropological

tions." Stanton even imagined that history might

studies like J.J. Bachofen's 1861 Das Mutterrecht

repeat itself, with contemporary women

and Lewis H. Morgan's Ancient Society of 1877

ing back into power equal to the authority they

to argue for woman's biological and intellec-

had during the era of matriarchy. "It may not be

tual superiority over man's. In "uncivilized" cul-

for woman's supremacy, but for the yet untried of

complete

equality,

when

com-

tures such as early Egypt or contemporary Native

experiment

American tribes, Stanton argued, women lived in

united thought of man and woman will inaugu-

the

tribes or clans in which they governed, worked,

rate a just government, a pure religion, a happy

and, most importantly, had primary rights to their

home, a civilization at last in which ignorance,

children. 56 "Children belonged to the mother,

poverty, and crime will exist no more," she wrote.

not to the father," Stanton asserted, citing Amer-

"Those who watch already behold the dawn of

ican Indian tribes as examples of nonpatriarchal

the new day."57

societies "where the woman possessed controlling

Historians of the matriarchal era also identified

influence and power." She lauded early societies

it as the period in which women did most of the

where men and women ruled equally. "Women

hard work of maintaining and ordering society.

sat in councils of war and peace," Stanton argued,

Because women gave birth, Stanton's argument

[101]

respect" in ancient woman's ruling power—looking to that history as a motivating force in the current struggle for "complete equality"—other women discerned a long history of feminine influence (227). Advocates of home and hearth, for example, saw in primitive woman's labor (despite the drudgery) a noble model of female strength and societal value, a needed icon for domesticity in an age of industrialism. Similar histories of women took shape in the many speeches at the Congress of Women. In an address entitled "Woman's Awakenment," Anna S. Green declared, "History, modern and ancient, is replete with examples of what good women have done." Electa Bullock, in "Industrial Women," gave industrial work a homespun legacy. And Juliet Corson, in "Evolution of the Home," placed women at the center of both home and civilization from humanity's earliest days to the modern 1890s (Eagle, The Congress of Women, 649, 510, 714). Writing a history of women that heralded the "advanced" status of primitive women was a difficult exercise, given that female drudgery routinely accompanied female power in ancient times. Nevertheless, many women found inspiration in the way things were and aimed to parlay that historical precedent into substantive change for the future. On the nature of that change—woman's social, cultural, economic, and political status at the turn of the twentieth century—women held varying points of view. Collectively, however, women recognized the cultural value of penning "herstory."

A. K. M.

went, they had an instinctive desire to sustain the

and ornamental work."58 Women, in other words,

human race, and they did everything necessary to

were the first artists. This discourse about woman's work in the

provide food and shelter for their people. In the earliest stages of civilization, the only occupations

"primitive" or "barbarian" era was deeply embed-

delegated to men were hunting and fighting. In

ded not only in the decorations but also in the

the "mother-age," as the handbook to the Wom-

objects exhibited in the Woman's Building. T o

an's Building put it, "the energies of men were

show off the country's first artists, Palmer com-

absorbed in hunting and fighting," and women

missioned the Smithsonian for a large exhibition

tended entirely to family life, growing the crops,

dedicated to Native American clothing, beadwork,

cooking, making clothes, and other utilitarian

and pots, cast as examples of woman's brilliance

artifacts. These "premodern" societies were "the

in working with her hands in ancient cultures. By

originators of most of the industrial arts. While

displaying eighty cases of Indian crafts ("Wom-

man the protector fought or hunted, woman con-

an's Work in Savagery") in a hall otherwise filled

structed the home, ground the grain, dressed

with examples of contemporary lace making, nee-

the skins and fashioned them into garments. She

dlework, and arts and crafts pottery, alongside

invented the needle, thread, and the shuttle, and

the fine arts of paintings and sculptures, the plan-

was the first potter. She originated basket making

ners implicitly created a progress story of wom-

[102]

63

Native American Women display, Woman's Building.

i T H E S C U L P T U R E 5V an's work in the arts (fig. 63). That story began with the displays of woman's superior hand skills

Stylistically Alice Rideout was a traditional allegorist, younger and less daring than most of the

in "uncivilized" native cultures; those skills then

women painters (fig. 64) .60 But even within the

evolved into the embroidery, watercolors, and

rules of allegory, Rideout reset artistic conven-

easel paintings on view elsewhere in the build-

tions so that she could tell woman's distinctive his-

But the most dramatic proof of woman's

tory and celebrate the many modern occupations

ascendancy in the arts resided in the building's

of her sex. Indeed, Rideout's sculptures convey

grand public works, in the decorations where

a youthful eagerness, as if she was afraid to leave

women artists gave a sculpted and painted face to

out any aspect of modern woman's work. She

their own confined past and liberated present.

compared women in the Dark Ages with eman-

ing.

59

[103]

THE

W O M A N ' S

B U I L D I N G

cipated women in the present and then broadly

a ten-foot-high winged goddess striding forward,

covered what she took to be late nineteenth-cen-

her head high and her eyes raised as if looking

tury woman's virtues and modern opportunities.

and moving into the future (fig. 66). This icono-

In so doing, her work gives us a rough template

graphical Girl of Hope, as I call it, is a female type

of the consensual progress story that women dec-

that also appears in the building's murals. 62 Typi-

orators told about their sex at the Fair.

cally she stares out into space beyond the viewer,

Rideout had two assignments, both standard

a stance that registers her interior life and her

Beaux-Arts types of decorations. T h e first was

dreaming about her future. W h e n she strides for-

for two twelve-foot-high cornice sculptures, to

ward, as Rideout's winged female does, she con-

be repeated six times and installed high on the

sciously references the Victory of Samothrace with

building's roofline. Cornice sculptures animated

her drapery clinging to her moving body. Ride-

the tops of buildings and were to be seen from

out described her Girl of H o p e as having a "spir-

below as silhouettes against the sky and then

itual nature" that "is expressed in the upward

more closely from the building's popular roof

look, typifying the aspirations to loftier, bet-

garden (fig. 65). Cornice sculptures routinely

ter things." In each hand, she holds a symbol of

had three figures, modeled in the round, con-

woman's celebrated virtues—the palm branch of

sisting of a monumental striding figure (usually

peace in one and a flower representing feminin-

female and often Fame) with one or both hands

ity in the other. Her foot rests on a pelican in a

in the air, leading or blessing two smaller allegor-

nest, a "symbol for love and sacrifice." 63

ical figures beneath her and to either

side.61

Bit-

T h e female figures to each side of Virtue con-

ter, we remember, executed similar three-figure

form

works for the entranceways to the Administration

women as charitable and beneficent. T h e bare-

Building (figs. 20 and 21). Rideout's second com-

breasted woman with two young children, one of

mission was for a neoclassical pediment to crown

them nursing, was a conventional allegorical rep-

to

nineteenth-century

constructions

of

the two main entrances of the Woman's Build-

resentation of Charity, while the nun placing her

ing (see fig. 7 1 ) . Pediments were conventionally

jewels on a church altar represented Sacrifice and

muldfigural, with reclining figures at either end,

Beneficence. Rideout's invention was in choos-

seated figures as the triangular shape of the pedi-

ing figures that articulated the discursive para-

ment opens up, and standing figures at the apex.

digm of woman's history then in circulation: the

T h e same design was used for both doorways.

bare-breasted mother evoking early moments in

Rideout named one of her three-figured cor-

woman's history—"primitive" or "savage" women

nice sculptures Woman's Virtues and the other The

in scant clothing—and the nun representing the

Spirit of Civilization. Read together, the two group-

second period, the "Dark Ages," when w o m e n

ings give us a synoptic narration of the female

worked either in the h o m e or through the church.

progress

story that emerged

throughout

the

Rideout's second cornice sculpture compares

Woman's Building, a tale starting with early con-

a modern girl with a woman from the Dark Ages

finement

and ending with present-day emancipa-

and allegorizes her emergence from the chains of

tion. At the center of Woman's Virtues, in lieu of

patriarchy (fig. 67). T h e sculptor anchored the

the traditional figure of Fame, Rideout designed

composition with a looming amazonian

[104]

figure

64

Alice Rideout working on the pediment of the Woman's Building, 1892.

65

Alice Rideout, Woman as the Spirit of Civilization and Woman's Virtues, attic cornice groups, Woman's Building. 1 0 ft.

THE

W O M A N ' S

B U I L D I N G

she called Civilization. Looking down rather than

(fig. 68).67 It is well known that early woman's

up, Civilization appears to have just arrived to

rights activists were closely allied with abolition-

bless and encourage the two women at her feet.

ists, and both suffragists and abolitionists adopted

She "has come from above," Rideout explained,

an emancipatory

to "bring better things to humanity." Like her sis-

instances like this, parallel imagery depicting

ter in the other sculpture, Civilization is winged

escape from bondage. 68 Rideout also borrowed

and attired in clinging drapery. In her left hand

the other seated figure from abolitionist imag-

she holds a torch—enlightenment, freedom, a

ery, recasting the black slave looking up at Abra-

way out of darkness—and in her right, a flower,

ham Lincoln as liberator as a young female stu-

rhetoric

that had, in

rare

a symbol of femininity. And at her feet rest Athe-

dent, lifting her eyes and head to her rescuer, the

nian symbols of her wisdom, "the sapient owl, his

winged figure of modern civilization (fig. 69) ,69

perch a pile of books," and a Medusa shield.64

In the masthead for The Liberator, an abolitionist

Rideout's allegorical invention in this cornice

newspaper published by William Lloyd Garrison,

piece rests primarily in the two side figures, their

the liberator was not Lincoln but Christ, bearing a

attributes, and their bodily response to the arrival

cross beneath which a slave prays for deliverance

of the winged goddess. The woman on the right

on the left while a slave owner flees on the right

is from an older generation, whereas the modern

(fig. 70). These liberation tropes were in wide cir-

figure to the left is a girl. The matronly woman,

culation in the late nineteenth century. Rideout

her body and head smothered in old-fashioned

converted the rhetoric from male to female and

dress and headwear, appears incapable of free-

from black to white, and she changed the politi-

ing herself from gravity's pull. She is "woman as

cal cause from that of freeing slaves to that of lib-

she existed through the darker ages," Rideout

erating woman.

explained, her body leaden, her downcast face

The body of the young female responding to

solemn. She registers abject defeat. She repre-

the winged figure also recalls Annunciation imag-

sents, in the artist's words, the "crouching figure

ery, specifically that of the Virgin looking star-

of the unfortunate woman who has not yet come

tled by the angel's news of imminent birth. The

within the light of civilization."65 The woman, as a

adaptation of traditional religious imagery to sec-

reporter described her, with her bowed head, was

ular causes was also a popular visual strategy at

"abashed and in chains" that she had broken in

the time, a way of evangelizing and spiritualiz-

response to the arrival of the winged liberator.66

ing emancipatory struggles. Rideout clothed her

She holds one arm released from its binding up

virginal female in progressive dress—a mutton-

to the sky, signifying her moment of release, but

sleeved blouse and generous skirt that allowed

her body remains fixed.

women to move freely. Her counterpart from the Dark Ages is weighted down by a fitted bodice

Though the chains are not apparent in the two photographs we have of the sculpture and may

and swaddled head.

have been eliminated in the final version, viewers

The contemporary figure's modernity is also

would have easily understood the pose as one of

spelled out in numerous attributes of higher edu-

struggle, a rerun of abolitionist images of African

cation: an open book on one knee, a pen in her

Americans breaking the chains of enslavement

hand, a mortarboard on her head, and a globe

[107]

THE

68

W O M A N ' S

B U I L D I N G

Ami Not a Woman and a Sister? Cover vignette from Lydia Maria Child, Authentic Anecdotes of American Slavery, 1838.

69

Thomas Ball, Freedman's Memorial to Abraham Lincoln (Emancipation Monument), Park Square, Boston, 187g.

of the world behind her. She configures a new iconographical type, the New Girl Student, about whom we will learn more in chapter 3. The mortarboard is her primary attribute, marking an association between girls and scholarly headdress that became so deeply embedded in American culture that the first honor societies for women college students were called the Mortar Board.70 Along with the Girl of Hope, and another trope yet to be considered, the Female Artist, the New Girl Student represents a consensual type that the women decorators commonly engaged in 1893 to get across their messages. These types dramatically replaced the lithe goddesses and amazonian females that men favored in their decorations.

In her pediment design, Rideout represented a variety of woman's work in the home and in the public sphere. She had a lot of acreage to fill because each pediment was forty-five feet long and rose seven feet in the center. She came up with eight allegories, some involving groups of two to four figures. The figures were all female save for a reclining male in each corner (fig. 7 1 ) . " Some of her working figures wear classical garb, and others are in contemporary dress. The classicized figure in the center is Girl of Hope, her hair cascading out from beneath a myrtle wreath as if she were striding forward. She carries a flag in her right hand (patriotism) and scales and the Bible in the other (justice and religion). On the left of

[108]

70

The Liberator masthead, 1856.

71

A l i c e Rideout, Woman's Place in History (or Woman's Work), p e d i m e n t , W o m a n ' s Building, 1892. 7 ft. high in c e n t e r x 4 5 ft.

THE

W O M A N ' S

B U I L D I N G

this central figure, Rideout sculpted a woman as

turning wheels. Younger men do the most phys-

teacher, holding a book in her left hand while

ical work whereas the bearded older men are

gathering the three children at her feet with her

the teachers. A female companion accompanies

right hand and touching a schoolhouse, sculpted

two groups of male workers, one on each side,

in relief. The next three female figures allegorize

carrying no specific meanings other than being

the arts and learning: one figure is Music, with a

attractive. Waagen filled the corners of his pedi-

lyre in her hand; another is Drama, with masks as

ment with a favored male theme at the Fair, that

her attribute; and the third, Science, wears a mor-

of man conquering the wildness of nature; little

tarboard cocked on her head (the Girl Student

cupids are, like children, playing with reclining

again) and has a compass and a globe. Nursing

lions they have tamed. 72

as a female profession comes next in Rideout's

Rideout filled her space with women, not

scheme, configured as a woman giving aid to a

losing any opportunity to celebrate a mod-

fallen male warrior positioned next to a smashed

ern female activity. As difficult as the pediment

cannon in the pediment's left corner.

may be to see so high on the building, the icon-

On the right side of the Girl of Hope, Rideout

ographical choices she made and the active,

sculpted a veiled nun, her hands placed on a bas-

robust female bodies she sculpted were suffused

relief of a church to represent woman's work in

with women's politics. She created an allegorical

religious orders. A woman with two children rep-

vocabulary that decentered domesticity and cel-

resents motherhood as well as Charity, followed

ebrated woman's occupational and social posi-

by a woman with a book (Literature) who poses

tions outside the home. Although women do

for a woman sculptor or painter. In the pedi-

not perform brute labor or work with machines

ment's right corner, Rideout created her most

in Rideout's pediment, her figures have active

explicit nod to domesticity: a mother and child

bodies, twisting and turning at their work. Ride-

near a reclining male at a table with food on it.

out's pediment is aflutter with activity, whereas Waagen's is static and inert. Waagen's imagery

If we compare Rideout's pediment to one by the male artist M.A. Waagen for the Mechanical

of man as mechanical genius was rote and shop-

Arts Building, we see how each work mapped a

worn by 1 8 9 3 , but Rideout was inventing hers,

separate sexual sphere (fig. 72). Waagen's ped-

creatively reshaping allegorical vocabulary to

iment presents men as scientific, mechanical,

express a panorama of woman's opportunities in

strong, wise, and ingenious. He includes far more

the modern world.

women than Rideout did men, and these women

Practicing the arts, seeking higher education,

are predictably decorative and virtuous. A cere-

teaching, nursing, mothering, working for chari-

monial Columbia sits on a throne at the center of

ties and churches—this is the landscape of mod-

his pediment with the sword of justice and palm

ern woman's work that appears not only in Ride-

of peace at left. At her feet are Mercury with a cor-

out's sculptures but repeatedly in the decorations

nucopia (Commerce) and Minerva holding out a

made by women at the Fair. Notably absent

wreath to him (Fame). The male figures at work

from their inventive depictions are explicit rep-

on either side practice the mechanical arts: a

resentations of the sciences, working- or labor-

blacksmith, a printing-press operator, a mechanic

ing-class occupations, or the new urban profes-

[110]

72

M. A. Waagen, The Triumph of Invention, pediment, Mechanical Arts Building.

sions women were entering, such as clerical work,

Building and look at the ways painters reimag-

department-store sales, work as telephone opera-

ined the female body, we find that all the women

tors, photojournalism, and the like. T h e decora-

decorators were in a collective struggle to wrest

tions were silent about these professions. More-

it away from male stereotypes. A n d in comparing

over, they did not tread on the male domain of

mural decorations by women with those of men,

physical labor, technology, the mechanical arts,

as we did in looking at Rideout's and Waagen's

transportation, and statesmanship.

pediments, we realize the degree to which some-

O n e of the most important contributions of

thing as seemingly insignificant as decorations

Rideout was her recasting of the female body to

on public buildings, whether in Paris or Chicago,

give it meaningful activity and agency. As we turn

could uphold or challenge the dominant cul-

now to the mural decorations at the Woman's

ture's construction of men and women.

[111]

4

3

Woman must write her self: must write about women and

bring

women to writing, from which they have been driven away as violently as from their bodies. . . . Woman must put herself into the text—as into the world and history—by her own movement. HELENE CIXOUS, The Laugh of the Medusa, 1975

THE M U R A L S IN

THIS

CALL

TO

ACTION,

HÉLÈNE

CIXOUS

ASKED

WOMAN

TO

WRITE

HERSELF

INTO

THE

history books. This is precisely what the women artists of 1893 wanted to do in the Woman's Building; they wanted to insert the story of their sex into a Fair where murals and sculptures made men concrete players in history and women so abstract as to be invisible. The painters commissioned to make murals for the four walls of the grand Hall of Honor joined hands with the sculptor Alice Rideout in visualizing woman's lot in the past and her promise in the future. The Hall of Honor in the Woman's Building was a three-story-high space spanned by a glass ceiling. Visitors went up the stairs at either of the two entrances and passed through a vestibule leading into the classicized court with its magnificent skylight (figs. 73 and 74). The gallery was cream colored with gold trim and was dedicated to women throughout human history. Countering the attention paid to great men elsewhere at the Fair—we remember the lineup of American heroes in the lithograph by Rodolfo Morgari—the names

[ 1 1 3 ]

THE

MURALS

of great women were emblazoned in cartouches

of them, MacMonnies and Fairchild, radically

that marched above the gallery's cornice on all

rescripted the Puvian Arcadia into a place where

four sides (see fig. 3 1 ) . Names from the past such

women labored strenuously. T h e three muralists

as Rebecca, Ruth, Hypatia, Boadicea, Joan of Arc,

painting the modern woman also followed Puvis

Godiva, Isabella, Elizabeth, Charlotte

Corday,

in posing figures in timeless gestures and string-

Victoria, George Sand, De Stael, Madame Recam-

ing them gently across the surface as if in a shal-

ier were j o i n e d by Sophia G. Hayden and Bertha

low frieze. Unlike Puvis, however, all three of

H. Palmer in the present (see fig. 87). 1

them worked with figures in contemporary dress,

Visitors encountered not only the march of

thereby j o i n i n g those mural reformers who were

names but the murals that Palmer had worked

making realist allegories of modern life. Mary

so hard to secure: the two large tympana that

Cassatt, as a founding member of the impression-

anchored the ends of the space and the four rect-

ist group, was the most provocative and revision-

angular murals at either side of the wide door-

ist muralist at the Fair. She responded to Puvis by

ways. Together

a

contemporizing the dress and activities of w o m e n

progress cycle for women that enlarged and reen-

in Arcadia and transforming his heterosexual

the six murals constructed

forced the paradigmatic history we have already

paradise into a woman-centered landscape

found in Rideout's sculptures (figs. 73 and 74).

learning and art making.

of

T h e murals presented woman's history in two i

parts: early times and the modern age. Mary Mac-

EARLY WOMEN

^

Only one artist, A m a n d a Sewell, adopted Puvis'

Monnies, A m a n d a Brewster Sewell, and Lucia Fairchild painted woman's bondage in the past;

untroubled vision of woman's distant past. In her

Mary Cassatt, Lydia Field Emmet, and her sis-

wall mural, Arcadia, Sewell's female figures were

ter Rosina Emmet Sherwood depicted woman's

not as attenuated and abstracted as Puvis', but

emancipation in the present. In their choices of

they were similarly relaxed and languid, attired

style, the six women allied themselves with the

in semiclassical

artists reforming neoclassical allegory, particu-

the fecundity of nature and domesticated ani-

larly Puvis de Chavannes, then at the height of his

mals (fig. 75 and plate 2). Two young women in

critical acclaim. All adopted at least one of Puvis'

the foreground set the tenor of the panel; one

hallmarks, the painted frame or swag of leaves

reaches u p to pluck a piece of fruit from a t r e e —

around the edges of the murals.

a motif Puvis used often—while the other reclines

The

painters

in

the

Woman's

dress and closely allied

with

and gently holds out her hand to a nearby goat.

Building

responded in other ways to Puvis' modern clas-

Two women in the background effortlessly carry

sicism. T h e three paintings of the female past

j u g s of water on their heads, and a third holds a

looked to his work for evoking a generalized early

basket of fruit. A small, Pan-like figure, the only

state of civilization when men, women, and chil-

male in the scene, pipes in the middle ground; his

dren lived close to nature and its demands. All

music-making reenforces the harmony of Sewell's

of them, however, changed Puvis' convention-

Edenic landscape. As in Puvis' Arcadias, the sun

ally gendered populations of men, women, and

shines on the female figures in repose, who are

children to exclusively female societies, and two

doing nothing more strenuous or challenging

[114]

73

Hall of Honor, looking north, toward Mary MacMonnies's tympanum.

74

Hall of Honor, looking south, toward Mary Cassatt's tympanum.

THE

M U R A L S

than picking fruit or carrying water. 2 Notably,

work. In MacMonnies's mural, w o m e n do all the

Sewell represented prenuptial rather than mater-

labor necessary to sustain an agricultural society.

nal women, adopting an emphasis on youth that

Reading from left to right, half-dressed female

ran throughout the Woman's Building decora-

figures sow seed in the foreground and prepare

tions, a theme that we will revisit later.

the fields with an ox-driven plow in the middle ground. An exhausted worker kneels to drink

Sewell's compliance with the Puvian formula Mac-

from a vase offered to her by a younger woman

Monnies and Fairchild reconfigured the female

(fig. 77). In the center of the mural, women,

helps us see how much more radically

actors in their murals. MacMonnies, whose easel

accompanied by their children, balance large

paintings were deeply indebted to impression-

jugs on their heads, having drawn water from a

ism, freely acknowledged her turn to Puvis as a

source in the distance (fig. 78). Next appear two

model for her large tympanum, Primitive Woman,

mother-and-children groupings working at the

telling one reporter that the master himself had

traditional domestic chores of raising and caring

come to her Paris studio and given his approval.

for the young. T h e figure in a dark shroud near

In choosing to paint women in an early Arcadian

the center of the triptych who holds two babies is

culture, she had taken her initial cues from him.

the only woman who does not exert herself. She

She acknowledged struggling to find a way to con-

is statuesque, creating an off-center focal point.

ceptualize the burdens of early women and told a

H e r heavily draped figure obviously references

reporter she had considered other visions of the

the Virgin Mary holding the baby Jesus, but she

primitive—"savages" from the Stone A g e or "ori-

is also a stilled and thoughtful Girl of Hope, look-

ental women" from a distant culture—but decided

ing out of the picture into her unknown future.

that such scenes would be too particular and not

In the right corner of the panel, men make

express, as decorations should, an "abstract and

a rare appearance in this communal sisterhood

universal idea." Like Puvis, she "finally settled on

(fig. 79). They have returned from the hunt. Two

the simplest draped figures of women," as she

men in the distant background are on horseback.

wrote, "without special type or costume in a land-

A third, dressed in animal skins, prominently

scape background that might be of any time or

hands off the carcass of a deer to one woman

country, and is certainly not

un-American." 3

while another female kneels before him, preparing a drink of crushed grapes. Dressed in skins

But her final version of the tympanum conceptualized

and gendered

like the bearded hunter, two boys play with a d o g

"primitive" women

in the right corner.

radically differently than Puvis would have (fig. 76 and plate 2). Although MacMonnies echoed

In creating a woman-dominated agricultural

Puvis' soft-colored palette and friezelike compo-

society that has no father-mother families and in

sitions, she subverted his interpretation of what

which male labor is confined to hunting, Mac-

women do and how they signify. She organized

Monnies constructed early woman's culture in a

her mural loosely into three scenes into which

form akin to that suggested by the anthropologists

she crowded many more women than Puvis cus-

and suffragists who argued that matriarchies ran

tomarily would. She also showed every woman ful-

the prehistorical world before the turn to patri-

filling a j o b . In Puvis' murals, men d o the hard

archal law and hierarchy. MacMonnies, however,

[ 1 1 6 ]

75

A m a n d a Brewster Sewell, Arcadia, 1893. O i l o n canvas, 12 x 11 ft.

ftoiEk

KniTHAH.PAI.Hllj

miXCM

76

Mary MacMonnies, Primitive Woman, 1892-93. Tympanum, oil on canvas, 14 x 58 ft.

77

Mary MacMonnies, Primitive Woman, detail left side.

-

I

I",

jeawa • mmmBatsmmu nim

78

Mary MacMonnies, Primitive Woman, detail center.

79

Mary MacMonnies, Primitive Woman, detail right side.

THE

M U R A L S

made no brief for matriarchies. H e r women, she

Fairchild, born and raised in Boston, imagined

told a reporter, were in servitude. "These women

her female subjects as seventeenth-century New

indicate with the completest possible simplicity";

Englanders, the white European Pilgrims and

they are "the bearers of burdens, the tillers of the

Puritans recognized at the time as the founding

earth, the servants of man, and more than this,

mothers of American womanhood. She painted

lot." 4

the date, 1650, in the right border of the paint-

Rather than depicting a golden age, her mural

ing and in the left border, the title Puritan Settlers.

showed a dark age, a dystopia.

(Some Fair literature gave the title as The Women

being without ambition, contented with her

In picturing woman's labor as the grueling

of Plymouth.) Dressing her figures in long home-

work of survival, MacMonnies reengineered Puvis'

spun dresses and aprons, with some in linen caps,

soft and sensuous sylvan nymphs into workhorses.

and placing them in a crudely settled landscape,

Her women use their limbs to labor in the natu-

Fairchild conjured up a national past when wom-

ral world, and extract wealth from it, so that the

an's work revolved around raising and educating

human race can survive. Just as Rideout rescripted

children, making thread and cloth, sewing, and

allegorical women, MacMonnies rethought Puvis'

tending to f o o d preparation and cleanup. Fair-

conventionally gendered paradise.

child visualized the scenario emphasized in writpast,

ten histories of women that presented the Dark

the one by Lucia Fairchild, also casts women at

Ages as a period when women were indentured

work, but they now perform a range of family and

to domestic service. O n e female writer described

The

third mural

imagining woman's

Fairchild

the Pilgrim or Puritan woman as one "who walked

set her scene solidly in the next stage of human

meekly by the side of her husband in exile, rear-

history, as historians of women told it: the Dark

ing his children, sharing loss and contumely for

Ages, when monogamous marriage and Chris-

his sake." 7

domestic chores (fig. 80 and plate

3). 5

tianity confined woman's work to homemaking. Nineteenth-century

historians

differed

Fairchild's composition pivots around a Girl

about

of H o p e standing at the center of the canvas dry-

when these Dark Ages arrived—sometimes with

ing a metal pan. She seems to be a self-portrait, as

the rise of military power, sometimes with the

Garfinkle has suggested, her features like those in

invention of monogamy, always with the rise of

a photograph and a drawing o f the artist.8 She is

Christianity—but they all agreed that centuries of

disengaged from the other figures, and her labor-

oppression of women followed. "It was this whole-

ing body is momentarily inert as she looks u p

sale, violent suppression of the feminine ele-

from her washing and stares longingly into space.

ment," wrote Elizabeth Cady Stanton in her his-

T h e girl seated to her left with her back to us may

tory of early women, "in the effort to establish

also be dreaming of better times; her pose carries

the Patriarchate, that, more than any other one

our eye toward a scene of early teaching, in which

cause, produced the Dark Ages." 6 Fairchild refer-

a woman with an open book on her lap raises

ences the indictment against the church for pro-

her right index

ducing patriarchal systems of governance and

ered round her. T o the left are two girls sewing.

family life in the background of her panel, where

In the left foreground, a mother cradles a baby,

a church steeple signifies settlement.

and a group of four young women spin thread.

[120]

finger

to instruct those gath-

80

Lucia Fairchild, The Women of Plymouth (or Puritan Settlers), 1893. Oil on canvas, 12 x 11 ft.

Each woman performs one of a litany of every-

emphasis is on youth and early

day female chores, the ceaseless rhythms of which

Although the woman on the left-hand side of the

entrap and confine her. No men appear within

mural is a mother and the woman with the book

this bastion of female culture. All of this activity

is an experienced teacher, the other females are

takes place in a leafless landscape with but a few

younger. We can determine their relative ages by

signs of civilization: two tree stumps in the lower

looking at hairstyles. If the hair is pulled up and

right, a white wooden Protestant church deep in

back on a woman's head, as with the mother and

the background, a horse and wagon and field-

teacher, she is a young adult; if the hair is long, as

workers to the right of the church, and a rudi-

it is on most figures, she is a girl.

mentary log cabin in the left foreground. Like

MacMonnies's

community,

Fairchild

all-women populated

This emphasis on the younger woman—and

agricultural her

adulthood.

the marked absence of middle-aged or elderly

domes-

women—runs through all the murals, as it does

tic landscape with young women and girls; the

throughout the visual production at the Fair.

[121]

THE

In the

i8gos,

artists typically g e n d e r e d

MURALS

men

ist allegory. T h e E m m e t sisters, Lydia a n d Rosina,

a n d w o m e n by age as well as by activity. T h e

a n d Mary Cassatt p u t their f e m a l e figures in con-

male body was represented t h r o u g h o u t the life

temporary dress—ballgowns, day dresses, artist's

span, b u t the f e m a l e o n e was c o n f i n e d to youth

smocks, a n d student r o b e s — a n d styled their hair

t h r o u g h early m o t h e r h o o d , culturally u n d e r s t o o d

in c u r r e n t fashions. T h e o l d e r w o m e n wear their

to be h e r years o f greatest beauty a n d attractive-

hair parted in the m i d d l e a n d pulled back into

ness. W o m e n artists, just like their male counter-

a low b u n , and the y o u n g e r ones wear their hair

parts, located the f e m i n i n e in the y o u t h f u l b o d y

h a n g i n g loosely down their backs.

a n d n o t in the o l d e r o n e . With only a c o u p l e o f

T o m a k e their realism speak o f all m o d e r n

exceptions, artists did n o t invent a vocabulary to

w o m a n h o o d — n o t specific i n d i v i d u a l s — t h e

depict the mature w o m a n , or the elder, the wise

ists placed their c o n t e m p o r a r y

old w o m a n k n o w n as the crone. T h e Victorian

tings that lacked specificity of time or place. T h e

fascination with virginal girls a n d with attractive

E m m e t sisters used neoclassical pavilions as back-

y o u n g f e m a l e lovers and y o u n g wives persisted

drops to f e m a l e activities, whereas Cassatt placed

d e e p into the century.

her

in

groomed

country

in set-

landscapes.

T h e s e settings n o t only lacked temporal speci-

W o m e n artists did, however, depart from their male counterparts by visualizing w o m e n

women

figures

art-

ficity b u t were decidedly n o n d o m e s t i c , thereby

doing or

distancing m o d e r n w o m e n f r o m the parlor, tea

entrapped by domesticity, as Fairchild did. A n d

table, ballroom, b o u d o i r , a n d g a r d e n s a n d parks

backbreaking

work,

as

MacMonnies

did,

as we turn now to the three murals about m o d e r n

w h e r e realist artists traditionally p l a c e d

w o m e n , we will find artists instilling m a i d e n h o o d

These

with new meanings. T h e s e artists created Ameri-

f e m a l e activities outside the h o m e .

spaces were

deracinated

them.

backdrops

to

can girls w h o did not just d r e a m of a better future

T h e E m m e t sisters also used draperies, attri-

but p e r f o r m e d new ways o f b e i n g female. By giv-

butes, a n d stock allegorical gestures to gently

ing m o d e r n y o u n g w o m e n an inner self b u t also

elevate their realist figures into the realm of the

desires and ambitions, these muralists participated

symbolic. Cassatt, however, discarded these con-

in the formation of a new female identity. T h e y

ventional devices. She divided h e r mural into

h e l p e d formulate the m o d e r n "American girl," as

three o u t d o o r scenes, each o f which

she was called at the time, a y o u n g w o m a n enjoy-

fully

ing a sustained period o f growth between child-

i c o n o g r a p h i c tradition. She retold classic stories

h o o d a n d marriage. T h e New Girl, as o n e writer

t h r o u g h m o d e r n reenactments.

modernized—and

thought-

feminized—an

older

described her, had time to develop h e r individual

T h e three painters f o c u s e d o n the y o u n g e r

self and was "the living p r o o f o f the marvelous

g e n e r a t i o n ' s activities outside the h o m e . T h e i r

advancement o f w o m a n , a n d the h o p e f u l proph-

figures are mostly girls a n d y o u n g w o m e n n o t yet

ecy of h e r increasing possibilities and powers." 9

married or e n c u m b e r e d by adult responsibilities. T h e y are explicitly m o d e r n in that they pursue

4 M O D E R N W O M E N |r

new activities in education a n d the arts. T h e y are

T h e three muralists commissioned to paint mod-

the y o u t h o f 1893, the c o m i n g g e n e r a t i o n that,

ern w o m a n all chose to speak in the style o f real-

having m o r e opportunities than previous ones,

[122]

represented the woman of the future. The murals about modern women in the Woman's Building

F

were joyous, all of them projecting the convic-

0

tion that today's female youth would have a better tomorrow.

R

The American girls who occupy these murals represent the New Woman in the making in the 1890s. They are not yet the brazen and independent amazons associated with New Woman imag-

J

ery; they do not act up by riding bicycles and playing croquet, wearing shirtwaists or bloom-

u

ers, or smoking. They are rather New Girls, a type along the way in the evolution of the full-blown New Women of 1900 (see sidebar p. 128). These

N E

girls sometimes let down their hair, wearing less inhibiting dress than did their Victorian sisters— no hats, gloves, or parasols. And they move their limbs and bodies with new vigor and physicality, taking up previously "male" intellectual and creative activities. They also express their newly won independence by appearing without chaperones in public spaces. And they pointedly defy the Victorian stereotyping of women as angelic and vir-

Charles Dana Gibson, "Scribner's for June"

tuous or frail and neurasthenic. 10

(girl riding bicycle). Illustration, Scribner's Mag-

But the modern girls in the murals still retain

azine, 1895.

a middle- and upper-class white Victorian veneer, wearing dresses rather than the more

radi-

cal shirtwaists and skirts that Charles Dana Gibson gave the girls he popularized in the i8gos.

than the girls pictured on the walls of the Wom-

The Gibson Girl epitomized the idea of a "new

an's Building—she bicycled and played sports—

womanhood," but she was called a "girl," which

and she was assertively nouvelle in her dress (fig.

at the time described an undifferentiated age

81). Also unlike the females in the murals, Gib-

group that started in childhood and ended with

son Girls were rarely students or artists and

marriage." In the early 1890s, when Bessie Pot-

were seen alongside men, the artist often pok-

ter began a series of small sculptures of young

ing fun at the ways the New Girls' self-confidence

females in modern dress, she used the rhetoric

and aggressiveness bewildered and frustrated

of the time, calling one of her 1895 sculptures

male company. 13 When the American Girl was

An American Girl and another that year The Gibson

depicted by women, there was no jest or humor.

Girl.12 The Gibson Girl was more physically active

Nor were the girls attended by men; indeed the

[123]

THE

MURALS

murals are silent about how New Girls interact

82). The student rests her head on one hand and

with boys or, in the future, will interact with men.

looks out at the viewer, her pose of contempla-

The activities they pursue in education and the

tion rendering her also a Girl of Hope. But this

arts could, of course, develop into career paths,

woman brings new qualification to her dream-

but here, too, the murals are silent; none of the

ing; whereas her sisters in the past were tied to

artists developed themes of professionalism. The

physical and domestic labors, this newly educated

murals do not say what women will do with their

Girl of Hope is liberated from traditional chores.

new skills. Given the Fair's promotion of Amer-

Emmet provides no clue about the nature of the

ica as a "civilized" culture, the modern girl in the

girl scholar's dreams for her future, but she regis-

murals could easily be read as a guarantee that

ters her student as having new desires. The small-

the coming generations of women would con-

scale replica of The Victory of Samothrace on a high

tribute to the country's sophistication and that

pedestal behind her strides briskly forward, as in

women would make better use of their leisure

Rideout's iconography, allegorizing woman's new

time by reading and practicing the arts. Or vis-

ambitions. Although the title of Emmet's panel

itors might have viewed the girls as harbingers

speaks of woman's contributions to science and

of new lifelong achievements for women. This

art and literature, the artist painted no attribute

ambiguity in the murals about the implications of

specific to mathematics or science: no test tube,

modern girlhood speaks clearly to the post-Vic-

beaker, dissecting tool, or weights or measures

torian woman's dilemma in 1893. This woman

that accompany male scientists. In 1893, women

could promote new ways of growing up female,

artists occasionally depicted a compass to suggest

but she could not clearly envision new ways of

geometry and architecture and a globe for geog-

being Woman.

raphy, but they did not envision women in spe-

In Emmet's and Sherwood's panels—Art, Sci-

cific scientific fields. The open book on the lap of

ence, and Literature and The Republic's Welcome to

the young scholar serves as a general attribute of

Her Daughters—the modern girl's ambitions are

learning, but it also references literature, a field

embedded in imagery of students and artists.

in which women had long excelled as novelists

Knowing their panels would hang together on

and poets.14

one side of the Hall of Honor, the sisters painted

Women in the arts, however, were coherently

in the same scale and used a similar female type.

expressed, and their attributes were easy to read.

Their figures do not interact—each is self-con-

We saw a number of them when we decoded the

tained in her own pursuit—but their bodies flow

cover of the Fair handbook, which shows a mod-

one to the other, signifying their solidarity and

ern girl surrounded by attributes of the fine

shared commitments to new lines of training. The

and domestic arts. Emmet's mural dedicated

young women's actions and the items they hold,

four figures to woman's artistic roles in needle-

along with their occupational dress, clearly iden-

work, painting, sculpture, and music. In the cen-

tify their pursuits. In Emmet's mural, the young

ter of the mural, a woman in a day dress reaches

woman in a cap and gown with an open book in

for thread to use in her needlework, while in the

her lap reiterates the iconography of the female

right corner, a woman wearing an apron sits at an

student that Rideout used in her sculpture (fig.

easel. The figure behind her in a studio smock

[124]

82

Lydia Field Emmet, Art, Science, and Literature, 1892—93. Oil on canvas, 12 x 1 1 ft.

THE

M U R A L S

works on a sculpture of a modern woman, and

fashion for progressive young women of the day.

the woman at the far left, in an evening gown,

Like Emmet's scholar lost in thought, Sherwood's

plays the violin. Also within the setting are two

guitar player is in the center of her canvas, her

very traditional attributes for the feminine: flow-

gaze flowing out of the picture and beyond. Like

ers and landscape. T h e white lilies in the orien-

the scholar in the foreground of Emmet's mural,

talized pot next to the woman at her easel were

this Girl of Hope is a fully realized contemporary

a well-rehearsed symbol for female virginity and

woman who dreams of what she might do with

purity as well as a favored flower in the "aesthetic

her new freedoms and her musical practice.

movement" at the end of the nineteenth century.

Two palm branches, the traditional symbols

A n d the pleasing bit of landscape beyond the

of peace, lead our eye from the guitar player

pulled-up corner of a curtain not only lets in light

(Music) to Sherwood's image of a mature woman

but associates femininity with nature, a c o m m o n

and young boy. This image is unique

essentialist pairing in this period.

these decorations about modern woman,

In the other panel, The Republic's Welcome to

among first

because it is the only depiction of motherhood,

Her Daughters, Sherwood similarly mixed new and

a female

old symbolic vocabulary (fig. 83). Her allegori-

because the woman is considerably older than

figure

holding a child, and

second

cal woman representing the Republic, dressed in

all the other female figures, her age conveyed by

the traditional neoclassical peplum, adhered to

her more ample figure and lap, her mature hair-

tradition, but Sherwood gave her a realist body

style, and the matronly style of her gown. Sher-

and face, making her muscular and firm limbed.

wood, who was a mother herself, stripped the

With dark hair piled on her head, she looks more

woman and child of the usual Victorian senti-

like a contemporary woman in a tableau vivant

mentality, departing from the classic nineteenth-

or in a public pageant than an idealized neo-

century trope presenting mothers as eternally

classical abstraction. She raises her right hand

young and beautiful, their babies healthy and fat

to place a laurel crown on the heads of the two

cheeked, the two of them locked in a sentimen-

young women ("daughters" in the title) who are

tal embrace. Her matron sits not on a throne but

stepping u p the staircase of life to receive their

on a profusion of fabric that covers the stairs, and

rewards. T h e figure in evening dress, with a scroll

she is accompanied by two attributes that give her

or a diploma in hand, is another representation

unusual complexity. O n e is her wreath represent-

of the female student. O n e step below, the figure

ing fame and achievement, which she has handed

in an apron and dress holds a sculpture of a nude

over to the child. This suggests the enlightened

Diana in her hand, symbolizing the visual arts.

motherhood that Bertha Palmer described in

Both w o m e n lift their eyes and climb upward,

her speeches. She represents the mother type

their striving bodies like that of the Victory of

that the younger women in the murals, with their

Samothrace in Emmet's panel, a period metaphor

new skills and education, will become. Looking

for female ambition, emancipation, and progress.

brightly into his own future, the child proffers his

In the center of Sherwood's panel, a woman

wreath as if to say, "Mother's learning enhances

dressed in a contemporary art nouveau gown

mine; I am one of the legacies the New Girl will

strums a guitar, an instrument at the height of

bequeath to the world."

[126]

83

Rosina E m m e t S h e r w o o d , The Republic's Welcome to Her Daughters, 1 8 9 2 - 9 3 . Oil on canvas, i 2 x 11 ft.

THE

NEW

GIRL

AND

THE

NEW

W O M A N

In the early years of the 1890s, forward-thinking women were on the cusp of acquiring a new cultural label. Contemporary voices, both sympathetic and critical, weighed in on the "New Woman," some lauding her awakening to consciousness and her ambitions and others denigrating her misguided aspirations and her seemingly dangerous behavior toward the responsibilities of marriage and family. First used by Henry James as a literary phrase, the term New Woman later appeared in the American press, when in May 1894, British novelist Marie Louise de la Ramée, under the pseudonym Ouida, capitalized the term in an article for the North American Review. De la Ramée regarded the New Woman as a "menace to humankind," with "her fierce vanity, her undigested knowledge, her over-weening estimate of her own value and her fatal want of all sense of the ridiculous" (Ouida, ' T h e New Woman," 615). Her biting commentary came in response to an article published in the journal two months earlier, 'The New Aspect of the Woman Question," by her compatriot and fellow novelist Sarah Grand. Where de la Ramée saw ferocity and gracelessness, Grand discerned self-respect and dutiful resistance. Declaring that "the day of our acquiescence is over," Grand granted the New Woman a lofty position and commended her noble aims. Women were not seeking more than they deserved, she asserted, but responding to a crisis of masculinity: T h e trouble is not because women are mannish, but because men grow ever more effeminate" (Grand, T h e New Aspect of the Woman Question," 274-75). Although d e

la

Ramée and Grand strongly

disagreed with one another, they both recognized that once-rigid definitions of Victorian womanhood (as well as manhood) were giving way, ushering in a modern woman unlike her predecessors.

The other attribute is at the woman's feet—

a rare instance of an artist representing a surro-

a large book or perhaps an artist's portfolio for

gate self as both enlightened mother and practic-

storing prints and drawings. Its significance is

ing artist, a woman, in modern parlance, "doing

not entirely clear, but like the handbook image

it all."

of a contemporary woman with her foot on a

Another plausible reading of this image would

book, which marked her as educated, the port-

be to see the mother not only as an archetypal

folio could symbolize the woman's learnedness

modern mother but also as an archetypal female

or her achievements as an artist (see fig. 7 and

reformer, looking after the welfare of families.

plate 1). Sherwood was married and was a mother

The Woman's Building handbook called the fig-

when she made the mural (eventually she had

ure "Woman the Benefactor," an identification

five children), but she did not give up art making

Sherwood must have given the editor. 15 And given

after having children, as so many women did. She

the woman's age (she could conceivably be the

made a living from her art throughout her life.

child's grandmother) and her fine gown, Sher-

So this attribute might well be autobiographical,

wood may well have sought to invent a matronly

[128]

T h e New W o m a n was a learned w o m a n — c o l l e g e educated, professionally trained, and critical o f the gender conventions that had shaped her mother and grandmother. Gaining traction in the 1890s and in full force by 1900, the New W o m a n reigned as a cultural icon until her eclipse by the more brazen flapper of the 1920s. Independent and rebellious, the New W o m a n d o n n e d a reformed dress, rode a bicycle, played basketball, traveled unchaperoned, and claimed a host o f new freedoms, including, most importantly, a right to the same education as m e n (see fig. 8 1 ) . Attending women's colleges in the 1870s and 1880s, the first generation of New W o m e n held firm to many o f their genteel values and habits while making new strides in the field of higher education. T h e second generation of New W o m e n received their education in the 1890s, often from New W o m e n o f the previous generation, and increasingly at coeducational institutions. This younger group of w o m e n rejected the genteel propriety o f their mothers, seeking self-fulfillment and institutional equality. After college, the w o m e n o f this generation became settlement-house and educational reformers, nurses and physicians, writers, artists, businesswomen, and teachers—the many professionals celebrated in the artwork and exhibits of the W o m a n ' s Building. Despite such successes, however, the increasing presence of the New W o m a n in American culture stimulated intense debate in the press, where the gende and selfless Victorian Lady drew vivid comparisons to the headstrong, vocal, and selfish New Woman. In ' T h e New Lady" in Century Magazine in January 1896, Rebecca L. Leeke faulted the press for its inordinate coverage of the contemptible New Woman and maintained that "the old-time lady has n o t g o n e away to stay; she has merely stepped aside to

1893

figure to show that modern woman could simul-

woman r e f o r m e r — t h e clubwoman, the philan-

taneously be mother, artist, and philanthropist,

thropist, the activist for civic

reforms—whose

she did not do so with much clarity. Sherwood's

causes helped women, children, and the family. 16

ambivalent speech in configuring a "new" woman,

Sherwood's vignette of the woman and child

as well as the Emmets' and Cassatt's silences about

is the only attempt in the painted decorations

how women could use their new education, is sig-

to envision what the New Girl might b e c o m e in

nificant, not as a fault but as an indication of the

adulthood. Otherwise, the Emmets' murals and

limits to what middle- and upper-class American

Cassatt's tympanum are speechless about the next

women could imagine saying in public about the

phase of the female life cycle. Sherwood's New

progress of their sex. They heralded the c o m i n g

Girl has grown up to be a self-possessed mother,

generation's move out of the h o m e into school

grandmother, and woman reformer responding

and studio, but they could not envision w o m e n

to her maternal instincts and looking after the

practicing professional careers either alongside

needs of the young. If Sherwood also wanted her

or separate from motherhood.

figure

that incorporated qualities of the

[129]

avoid being run over by the wheel of the new woman, and will reappear when the dust has settled" (476). Before the advent of the New Woman was the New Girl, an important transitional figure whose experiences in America's high schools in the decades after the Civil War nurtured the development of college-bound, professionally aspiring New Women at century's end. In steadily increasing numbers, young women in the late nineteenth century attended secondary school, leaving behind the strictures and obligations of domestic life, if only temporarily, for the challenges and relative freedoms of an academic peer culture. This growing population of schoolgirls was principally middle class, native born, white, and raised in the urban Northeast, yet it also included girls from rural, midwestern, western, and immigrant backgrounds. Parents who could forgo the income potential of their adolescent daughters sent them to private academies and, more and more, to public high schools. Girls actually outnumbered their male classmates in increasing ratios, as boys tended to leave their studies earlier to earn their bread and to pursue careers. British educator Sara Burstall, who traveled throughout the United States in 1893 observing America's schools, reported in The Education of Girls in the United States (1894) that more than 163,000 girls attended high school in 1889-90, over 70 percent of whom enrolled in public institutions rather than private ones. During those years, only about 3,400 black female students attended public high school (statistics on private school attendance were not gathered).

Male artists, in contrast, h a d n o trouble depict-

gown appears to be so newly powerful a n d author-

ing what they took to be the dire c o n s e q u e n c e s of

itative that she tames (or emasculates) the beasts

w o m a n ' s new opportunities. In the 1890s, paint-

(men) a r o u n d h e r (figs. 85 a n d 86 and plate 4).

ers and illustrators p r o d u c e d a p l e t h o r a o f images

With a simple gesture o f c o m m a n d , the New Girl

depicting the girl student as a h o m e wrecker, a n d

S t u d e n t — a rose o n the b e n c h beside h e r side sig-

a threat to normative society. In his illustration

nifies h e r f e m i n i n i t y — u s e s h e r new education to

o f the "girl a b o u t to graduate," Charles Howard

disarm the m e n a r o u n d her. T h e artist, in a car-

J o h n s o n gives us a w o m a n asleep at h e r desk hav-

t o u c h e o n the frame, dedicated the painting to

ing the type o f nightmare a m a n imagines she

"the college girls o f A m e r i c a . " Exhibited in the

would have, with pots, pans, a n d wash bins peti-

Palace o f Fine Arts at the 1893 Fair, it was per-

tioning for h e r attention (fig. 84). A n o t h e r exam-

haps the only image of a female student outside

ple, this o n e a m o r e subtle painting, voices simi-

of those in the W o m a n ' s Building. T h e girls o n

lar male anxiety a b o u t what w o m e n might d o with

the walls o f the W o m a n ' s Building were serious

their new learning. Frederick Stuart

Church's

students. C h u r c h ' s figure is slight and amusing;

Knowledge Is Power transforms the biblical story of

he recognizes h e r as the New Girl b u t at the same

Daniel in the lion's d e n , a p o p u l a r subject in art,

time sees her as a threat to the status quo, using

into a picture a b o u t m o d e r n A m e r i c a n girls. T h e

her education to wield new power over m e n . If

y o u n g w o m a n in mortarboard a n d a scholar's

w o m e n artists at the Fair had difficulty visualizing

[130]

The seeds of New Womanhood took root in the female experiences of high school and in the activities of New Girls. Coming of age in a spirited peer culture of academics and social camaraderie, female students excelled, acquiring new notions of selfhood, independence, and ambition. Competing alongside boys during the late decades of the nineteenth century, girls fared decidedly well. Scoring points academically, writing for school newspapers, holding class offices, and playing sports, New Girls tasted a life rich in possibility for their sex. Although gender divisions did persist within the workings of coeducational schools, girls nonetheless navigated new avenues of participation, sharing in school culture alongside their male cohorts. Outside the classroom, girls socialized with friends on strolls around the city, flirted with male peers, and celebrated their penchant for fun and (unattended) companionship. After commencement, New Girls often resisted returning to domesticity and abnegation, having enjoyed an invigorating sense of freedom and agency. As an expanding set of vocations became respectable options for middle-class young women, high school graduates in the 1880s and 1890s increasingly headed out enthusiastically to work as bookkeepers, librarians, nurses, teachers, and more. Some worked a few years and then married. Others, in smaller numbers, pursued higher education, deferring marriage or declining it altogether. The relatively large number of New Girls nationwide kindled the aspirations of a smaller, roughly concomitant population of emerging New Women.

¿2

1

84

¿a* A. K. M.

C h a r l e s H o w a r d J o h n s o n , For the Benefit of the Girl about to Graduate,

1890. Illustration.

85 86

Frederick S. Church, Knowledge Is Power, 1889. Oil on canvas, 19% x 35% in. Briton Riviere, Daniel in the Lion's Den, c. 1 8 9 3 . Oil on canvas. From Art Treasures from the World's Fair, 1 8 9 5 .

THE

M U R A L S

exactly what the New Woman would do with her

placed a fruit orchard in the center of her mural

acquired knowledge, they never, as Church did,

with green fields to either side.

showed her radically destabilizing the relation-

Two other differences are evident between the

ships between men and women. Nor did they rid-

two large canvases, matters of style that hurt their

icule her.

critical reception. With the artists not having conferred with one another, Cassatt painted her con-

i

MARY CASSATT'S MODERN

WOMAN

|f

temporary figures less than life-size whereas Mac-

Mary Cassatt's large mural of modern life raises

Monnies made her figures eight to nine feet tall,

the most provocative questions of speech and

the same height men used in their ceiling paint-

speechlessness (fig. 87). Cassatt was the most

ings at the Fair. Furthermore, MacMonnies cre-

experienced painter to create a decoration for

ated a panoramic frieze that flowed across the

the Woman's Building, and her iconography

canvas; Cassatt divided her mural into three out-

reenforced the narrative of the other decorators.

door scenes, each a self-contained vignette of

Like the Emmet sisters, she focused on modern

three or more young women in a common pur-

women in education and the arts. But her real-

suit. The three spaces shared a horizon line with

ism was more radical than that of the others, as

one another, with the grass in each forming a con-

was her knowledge of the theories of modernism,

tinuous green band. The extra space that Cassatt

decoration, the new movement called symbolism,

gained by having smaller figures she dedicated

and the history of art. By 1893, she had a trans-

to a thick border that went around the entire

atlantic reputation as an impressionist painter of

canvas and divided the tympanum into three

mothers and children, though she had not yet

sections.

had a major one-person exhibition in her home

For her subjects, Cassatt depicted three clas-

country. Significantly, Cassatt did not choose to

sic plein-air subjects that she and her impression-

paint mothers and children for this public assign-

ist colleagues had popularized in the 1870s and

ment at the Fair; like her colleagues, she focused

1880s. On the left, she reworked one of Camille

on girls and young women. Only in three roun-

Pissarro's favorite subjects, young girls mind-

dels in the painted border at the bottom of her

ing ducks, geese, or turkeys (sometimes called

work did she put images of a squirmy baby, signal-

"goose girls"), into a depiction of country girls

ing that she was not forgetting woman's work as

running with ducks at their heels. On the right,

mother but was nonetheless emphatically sidelin-

she featured a theme favored by Claude Monet

ing it (fig. 88).

and Pierre-Auguste Renoir: three young women

Much as in the large tympanum by MacMon-

relaxing and interacting with one another in a

nies, Cassatt imagined a landscape peopled by

sunlit open field. And in the middle, she painted

physically active women. But Cassatt's women are

young women picking fruit in an orchard, an

emancipated from the burdens of the agrarian

immensely popular subject not only with Pissarro,

past; they are all young and single, white, and suf-

Berthe Morisot, Edgar Degas, and Cassatt but also

ficiently well-off to wear fashionable urban dress.

with Puvis de Chavannes and any number of aca-

Whereas MacMonnies's landscape is wild and

demic, symbolist, and Nabi painters. Fruit pick-

wooded, Cassatt's is groomed and sunny. Cassatt

ing was a stock image in late nineteenth-century

[133]

iiiccfx'ciu

87

Mary Cassatt, Modern Woman, 1892—93. T y m p a n u m , oil o n canvas, 14 x 58 ft.

Western culture, a trope popular on both sides

satt refused to use the technique adopted by

of the Atlantic that elided female sexuality with

Emmet and Sherwood—that is, to call upon tra-

nature's fecundity. Fine-arts photographers also

ditional attributes such as a diploma, a piece of

posed women plucking fruit in orchards, as did

sculpture, a vase, or needlework to invest her fig-

those who made images for postcards, illustra-

ures with significance. Nor did she want to allude

tions, and other widely distributed media.

to traditional female allegorical figures as Sher-

Cassatt's choice of these outdoor activities was

wood did in rendering the figure of the Repub-

anything but arbitrary. In each case, she picked

lic. "Nothing of St. Cecelia," she wrote Palmer,

a slice of country life that performed symboli-

explaining that her

cally as well as literally. Cassatt conceptualized

would treat the arts "in the most modern way"

figure

symbolizing

Music

her project as a realist allegory in the service of

and not call upon the traditional allegory of St.

grander themes. When she described the three

Cecelia playing the organ. 18 Nor would she incor-

scenes in a letter to Bertha Palmer, she did not

porate neoclassical trappings as the Emmet sis-

talk about them as girls running, women picking

ters did—columns, drapery, or antique dress—to

apples, and girls playing but essentially gave each

impress upon her viewers that her subjects were

an allegorical title. T h e girls running with fowl on

serious and high-minded.

the left were, she explained, "young girls pursu-

Instead, Cassatt resolved the problem of alle-

ing fame"; the fruit pickers in the middle were

gory by employing two strategies. First, she care-

"young women plucking the fruits of knowledge

fully chose three contemporary activities that any

or science"; and the three figures relaxing on

art-sawy viewer would recognize as a moderniza-

the right she called "Arts, Music, Dancing." 1 7 T h e

tion of long-standing traditional allegories. She

vignettes, in other words, represented the mod-

substituted a modern girl playing a banjo for the

ern girl's highest aspirations.

traditional St. Cecelia. A n d the scene of women

But how to give allegorical heft to figures in

picking apples reworked the Western tradition of

contemporary dress doing everyday things? Cas-

Eve plucking an apple from the Tree of Knowl-

[134]

THE

MURALS

edge in the Garden of Eden. 19 T h e little girls and ducks running after a figure in the sky recalibrates older iconography of men and women chasing after allegorical figures such as Fame, Fortune, or Love. Second, Cassatt adjusted her easel style of painting, in which she often depicted figures in familial and emotional interactions with one another, to turn what might otherwise have appeared as genre scenes into theater. She applied modern modes of abstraction to make the bodies of her three figures readable and their activity momentous. In contrast to Primitive Woman, a mural whose surface bustles with figures, Cassatt's three scenes are built of fewer figures, and they are selfconsciously posed in explicit actions and silhou88

etted against the flat green of the grass. Mem-

Mary Cassatt, Modern Woman, border medallion with baby. From Harper's New Monthly Magazine

bers of her female cast wear different patterned

(May 1893).

dresses but have gently abstracted faces and bodies that give them mass but little individuality. They read not as specific persons but as represen-

larity among young women at the

tatives of modern girls doing significant work.

to her right, a woman sings or listens (see side-

time—and

We can see Cassatt's two strategies at work in

bars pp. 137 and 140, as well as fig. 90). For an

the vignette to the far right, the one she called

upper-class woman living in the French country-

"Arts, Music, Drama," in which the actions of the

side, Cassatt was impressively attuned to the latest

three female bodies represent the arts (fig. 89).

musical and dance fashions a m o n g the young in

T h e Emmet sisters represented the arts by having

Paris. She dedicated one of her major pastels to

women wear smocks and hold a paintbrush, play

a young woman strumming a banjo as a younger

a violin, or engage in needlework. T h e women

girl looked on (fig. 9 1 ) .

were in typical artist dress, but their primary

Taking cues from the Japanese prints that she

means of signification was through their attri-

and many of her fellow artists collected, as well

butes, in keeping with the older tradition of St.

as from the ways Puvis de Chavannes rendered

Cecilia playing her organ or female muses hold-

figures

ing an actor's mask or a book of poetry. Each of

ized her three figures. She eliminated shadows

Cassatt's young women simply executes an art

and massed the figures so that the flowing con-

form in the outdoors. T o the left, a woman does

tours of their dresses, with their strong design

a skirt dance, a popular and lively dance of the

patterns, created pleasing abstractions against

day; in the center, a woman strums a b a n j o —

the flat green band of grass. T o make the green

an instrument also enjoying a wave of popu-

read as nature, Cassatt added a few splashes of

[135]

in stop-action poses, Cassatt subtly styl-

8g

Mary Cassatt, Modern Woman, detail right side.

90

Class in Aesthetics (six women in class of gymnastics floor dance in Alumnae Gymnasium, Smith College), 1904.

THE

SKIRT

DANCE

Intensely popular both o n stage and in the home, skirt dancing carried sway as an international fad during the 1890s and into the new century. T h e skirt dance was a late nineteenth-century hybrid o f classical ballet and popular step dancing in which a dancer used the long, flowing folds o f her skirt to enlarge and aestheticize the movements o f her feet. T o the left o f Mary Cassatt's banjo player in Modern Woman, a young woman dances to the melodies o f her accompanist, holding the edges o f her skirt at shoulder height (fig. 89). In depicting a skirt dancer for her modern allegory o f Dance, Cassatt underlined the contemporaneity o f her mural and its messages. In women's colleges, physical education programs in these years incorporated dancing to promote female health and grace. Young w o m e n did "aesthetic calisthenics" (later known as aesthetic dancing), learning m o d i f i e d — a n d easier—ballet movements set to music. In a 1904 photograph, six students at Smith College strike a typical skirt-dancing pose (fig. 90). Holding the edges o f their skirts, arms outstretched and heads tilted sofdy to their left, they place o n e foot forward, toes pointed. Skirt dancing could be a solo performance, as depicted in Cassatt's mural, or a group dance, as in the Smith photograph. T h e term skirt dancing was coined by an American reviewer shordy after the dance debuted in the United States in 1888. T h e art form had evolved out o f "Gaiety dancing" in British music halls, where in the 1870s dancer Kate Vaughan d o n n e d a long skirt instead o f a tutu and combined ballet and step dancing. Although born in the rowdy environment o f the burlesque, the skirt dance could b e a demure, ladylike form o f popular dance. T h e dancer's long, ankle-length skirt o f accordion pleats a n d her "divided skirt" undergarment (or petticoat) lent grace and propriety to the performance and enhanced her f r e e d o m o f movement. Unlike the suggestive, wild kicks o f the Parisian cancan, the kicks o f the skirt dance were fluid and controlled. D e e m e d both modern and genteel, the dance attracted society w o m e n and girls, w h o eagerly took lessons in the latest fad and, in turn, repositioned the skirt dance within the ballroom and the drawing room. D e p e n d i n g o n its setting, the skirt dance m o r p h e d into diverse performances—some genteel, others vulgar; some modest, others spectacular; some artful, others ungainly. T h e form signaled a mixed message o f propriety, femininity, sensuality, modernity, and freedom. A.K.M.

grass and flower blossoms along the lower edge

compact clamshell shape, whereas the clumped,

of the lunette and a tree in a boxy container.

lighter dresses o f the other two w o m e n make

These few props, so to speak, minimally set the

another pleasing

otherwise empty stage. With n o markers o f spa-

same high regard f o r flatness a n d f o r pattern

curvilinear form. With the

tial depth, her three figures perform against the

that one finds a m o n g the symbolists and postim-

grassy field rather than on it. T h e dancing fig-

pressionists during the 1880s and 1890s, Cassatt

ure is in profile, her skirt held high, forming a

sought an effect, as she described it to Palmer,

[137]

THE

MURALS

and lights against the flat green grass (fig. 92). The theme—that of girls tending animals in the countryside—was a common artistic choice at the time. What's unusual about this vignette, however, is that Cassatt has her girls running after a figure in the sky. As if she could not think of another way to convey her meaning, she put a kite-size figure of Fame, looking something like a kewpie doll with a horn in her hands, in flight above the horizon line. The girls, in other words, are not just running from ducks but are chasing after an ideal, made explicit in the wingless figure of Fame in the sky. Cassatt took the idea straight out of a standard allegorical practice in which men and women run after an ideal such as Fortune, Wealth, Pleasure, or Love (fig. 93). As Norma Broude has shown, Cassatt took her chase from a very respectable classical source, reworking a wall painting from 91

Pompeii where three women run after Cupid

Mary Cassatt, The Banjo Lesson, 1894. Pastel o n

or Love (fig. 94) .21 Cassatt updated the compo-

p a p e r , 28 x 22V2 in.

sition, depicting three much younger, barefoot girls and converting Fame from a winged cupid to a more corporeal version; Cassatt's Fame has soft."20

of "admirable old tapestries, brilliant yet

no wings and is a small girl, not a baby. She has a

Much like Seurat's bourgeois strolling Parisians

youthful body and long hair streaming down her

in Sunday on La Grande Jatte of a few years earlier,

back, much like the three young girls chasing her

Cassatt's women appear eternally rooted in their

below. In her raised hands is a horn, a traditional

bucolic activities, monumental and important.

attribute for Fame, a detail hard to see but men-

Cassatt's application of the symbolist vocabulary

tioned by contemporaries.

of pattern and flatness helped formalize and sta-

The use of a realist body to function allegori-

bilize the movement in her mural and gave her

cally was hardly unique to Cassatt; Gustave Cour-

figures stature.

bet had used a nude female model to allego-

In Cassatt's left-hand scene, the one she called

rize realism in The Painter's Studio, A Real Allegory

"young girls chasing after fame," three massed

a few decades earlier. Younger Parisian paint-

and silhouetted younger girls, unbound hair

ers were also making realist/allegorical confec-

flowing down their backs, similarly form a dec-

tions: Jean Beraud, for instance, in a fan-shaped

orative composition, as do the ducks chasing

painting, rendered Rain as a voluptuous con-

them, their feathers a pleasing pattern of darks

temporary woman pouring water from a bucket

[138]

92 93

Mary Cassatt, Modern Woman, detail left side. Rudolf Friedrich August Henneberg, Tyche (Fortuna) or Die Jagd nach dem Glück, 1868. Oil on canvas, 80 x i53'/4 in.

THE

FEMINIZATION

OF

THE

BANJO

Mary Cassatt's depiction of a genteel female banjoist in the right panel of her mural struck a modern chord in 1893 (fig. 89). By century's end, banjo playing had become a fashionable pastime for young middle- and upper-class women. In a mid-i8gos photograph by Frances Benjamin Johnston, another modern girl, Ann Apperson, plays her banjo in a comfortable, artistic interior (fig. 95). T h e young musician was the niece of Phoebe Apperson Hearst, a philanthropist and reformer as well as the wife of Senator George Hearst of California. Standing next to a large marble statue of Flora, the allegorical figure of Spring, Apperson places her right knee rather casually on a chair behind her and gazes down upon the instrument and her nimble fingers. Johnston frames her face in three-quarters view, emphasizing pictorially the links between head and hands, intellect and technical virtuosity. In fashionable contemporary dress (like Cassatt's banjoist), Apperson both echoes and updates the pose and flowing forms of the chaste maiden above her. She has put aside her own bouquet of flowers—at the base of Flora's pedestal—in favor of her modern American instrument. Apperson may well represent the College Girl of the 1890s, who enjoyed participating in her school's banjo club, an organization at the height of its popularity during the century's final decade.

94

Cupid, in Right, fresco from Pompeii, detail from copy by Antonio Canova.

95

Frances Benjamin Johnston, Miss Apperson Playing Banjo beside Statue of "Flora," c. 1895.

[140]

In the late nineteenth century, the banjo underwent a cultural retuning of sorts, as white genteel society aimed to "elevate" the instrument from its black musical origins to a position safely within the cultured middle-class parlor. The roots of the modern American banjo can be traced to the stringed instruments that West African slaves brought with them to the colonies of North America as early as the seventeenth century. By the 1840s and 1850s, white performers and musicians had appropriated the banjo for working- and middle-class urban audiences, staging minstrel performances with harsh, racist stereotypes while vocalizing a perverse version of black musical culture. Beginning in the 1860s and reaching a high point in the 1890s, genteel banjoists marketed the instrument to the leisured middle class, effectively repositioning the banjo and its popular music from rural black communities and white working-class barrooms to the domestic, feminine environs of the parlor. Although Johnston's photograph convincingly embeds gentility within its borders, the complex cultural meanings of the banjo remain. Apperson might, after all, be playing a plantation tune, filling the parlor with African American melodies. Moreover, the sentimental gloss of the young, female (and amateur) musician structures Apperson's performance in rather nonthreatening terms. Yet, as a New Woman, she is poised to step out of the parlor and into the learned spaces of professional and public life.

Jr^. A.K.M.

onto contemporary Parisians who hold umbrel-

talked of, and forget duty, conscience, and heart,

las to protect them from the downpour (fig.

in the love of notoriety."22

96). What is significant about Cassatt's creation

At the Fair, the figure of Fame blew her horn

is her choice of Fame as the allegorical virtue

and fluttered her wings to herald Columbus's (or

girls seek to acquire. Had Cassatt's chase been

Columbia's, as in the MacMonnies fountain) dis-

closely studied (it rarely was, the figure of Fame

covery of the New World, man's control of the ele-

being too small to see from the floor below), Cas-

ments, and his creation of new technologies. But

satt could have been considered uppity, advocat-

no one trumpeted a woman's achievements. Fame

ing that women voice their ambitious goals and

was represented as a female body but never as a

seek public notice. In the codes governing nine-

female virtue. There was some art-historical prec-

teenth-century conduct, especially during the

edent, however, in having Fame trumpet a par-

Victorian era, the desire for fame was condoned

ticular woman. In the seventeenth century, Fame

in gentlemen but not in genteel women. Louisa

trumpeted Marie de' Medici in Rubens's great

McCord, in writing of women's needs in 1852,

cycle of paintings dedicated to her reign. And in a

warned women not "to covet man's fame-grasp-

particularly charming picture attributed to Mich-

ing ambition," calling it a hunger "for the forbid-

iel van Musscher, a Dutch artist, Fame blows her

den fruit." Eliding fame with ambition and public

horn and Cupid descends with a heroine's wreath

notice, she found "grasping after notoriety" fine

to acclaim a woman painter of still lifes (fig.

in men but not in woman "because she would be

97).23 But there was no ready-made imagery or

[141]

THE

MURALS

96 Jean Beraud, An Allegory of Rain, c. 1880. Oil on canvas, 15'/a x 2% in. (fan-shaped).

iconography that spoke of Fame as an ambition

les of modesty and follow their dreams. In this

every woman had the right to claim. The imag-

reading, the snapping ducks represent polite soci-

ery had to be invented. Cassatt came up with the

ety—or men—harassing the New Girls on their

idea of a chase scene, endowing it with sufficient

way to becoming the New Women who yearned

ambiguity to head off the possibility that it would

after the same rewards as men.

be read as confrontational. By having little girls

Surely

Cassatt herself would

have

sympa-

chase after Fame, as if they were doing little more

thized with this latter interpretation. Hers was

than flying a kite, Cassatt, consciously or uncon-

an original image of Girls of Hope, their unre-

sciously, disguised the daringness of her subject.

strained bodies embodying the views of pro-

By making her protagonists children—innocents

gressive women at the time: that the opportuni-

rather than adults—she allowed the narrative to

ties open to the younger generations of women

be read as the folly of young girls running after a

promised personal rewards and satisfactions in

vain and unladylike ideal. One of the girls looks

adulthood that their mothers and grandmothers

behind at the ducks, perhaps doubting the worth

never experienced. Cassatt's pictorial invention

of her pursuit, while the others race forward with

began to articulate what many women in 1 8 9 3

outstretched arms. Or perhaps the scene radically

could not yet imagine: the desire to be as famous

encourages young women to throw off the shack-

and accomplished as men in the public sphere.

[142]

97

Michiel van Musscher (attributed), Allegorical Portrait of an Artist in Her Studio, 1 6 7 5 - 8 5 . Oil o n canvas, 4419/i6 x 3 5 % in.

T h e mural's awkwardness and inability to signify

sidebar p. 94). Cassatt, a woman of ambition, was

clearly underlines how hard it was for even the

also a post-Victorian lady seeking ways to be mod-

boldly independent Cassatt to advocate women's

ern without being rash and impolitic.

independence of thought and action. There

is something

endearing,

T h e allegory in the middle of Cassatt's tympapoi-

num, "young women plucking the fruits of knowl-

gnant, about Cassatt's effort to speak of Fame as

even

edge or science," was considerably clearer than

a female ideal. A woman of passionate ambition

that in the chase after Fame (fig. 98 and plate

herself, Cassatt sought the same notice, esteem,

6). Here Cassatt's formulation of young women

and sales enjoyed by the male impressionists in

picking apples modernized the story of Eve. Fruit

her circle. From personal experience she knew

picking was a popular theme a m o n g Cassatt's

her culture's double standards; the drive for pub-

fellow impressionists, but they rarely used it as

lic recognition was fine for men but unladylike

explicitly as Cassatt did as a reinvention for the

for women. Although it was unorthodox that Cas-

Garden of Eden. Pissarro had produced plein-air

satt would incorporate an idealist figure into her

canvases of fruit gatherers that spoke to the hard

plein-air mural, given how much her impression-

labor of picking and to the notion of work as live-

ist colleagues railed against allegory as a dead lan-

lihood, understandable given his Socialist lean-

guage, her use of this ploy is understandable (see

ings. His men and women wear work clothes and

[143]

98

Mary Cassatt, Modern Woman, detail center.

9g

Camille Pissarro, Apple Picking at Eragny-sur-Epte, 1888. Oil on canvas, 23 x 28V2 in.

100

En Provence—La Cueillette des Olives (L'Olivado). Photographic postcard, 3>/è x tfA in.

THE

M U R A L S

strain under the pressures of repetitive work (fig.

violation of God's injunction not to eat from the

99). Similarly, a postcard of women picking olives

tree, succumbs to temptation and eats a piece of

from trees in Provence testifies to women work-

the forbidden fruit, proffered by a snake, and

ing together in orchards, and wearing the aprons,

shares it with Adam. Because Adam and Eve dis-

homemade dresses, and head scarves of country

obeyed God, theirs was the "original" sin. God

laborers (fig. 100). (A bourgeois man in a suit is

banished them from Paradise, and the man and

visible at the right edge of the trees.)

woman went on to propagate the human race.

By comparison, Cassatt's orchard is pure fic-

In the late nineteenth century, artists secu-

tion. Her female pickers are young, not matronly,

larized the Adam and Eve story, stimulating a

and are not dressed for labor. Nor do they con-

revival of interest in the Eve figure in a number

tort their bodies in backbreaking work as Pissar-

of guises. Edvard Munch transformed her into a

ro's women do. Indeed, while Pissarro's workers

modern femme fatale, a seductive and destruc-

wear the peasant's uniform—homemade blouses,

tive temptress. Paul Gauguin painted Polynesian

skirts, aprons, kerchiefs, and wooden shoes—

Eves holding fruit in their hands and under their

Cassatt's women wear day dresses—uncorseted

breasts to symbolize their sexuality and fecundity.

with ample skirts—that would be at home in a

And Cassatt reclaimed the Garden of Eden and

middle-class parlor. Her apple pickers, in fact, are

the picking of fruit as a modern feminist story.

so stylish that one critic at the time quipped that

She stripped apples of their "sinfulness" while

their clothes came from the House of Worth, a

retaining their association with knowledge. Mak-

famous and expensive couturier in Paris.

24

Cassatt

ing her apple orchard into an exclusively wom-

also choreographed her figures climbing, bend-

an's space, Cassatt drew upon the popularity of

ing, and handing down their picked apples as if

feminist retellings of the Genesis story, most

they were performing a rite or ritual. None laugh

famously that by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who

or smile, and each figure holds her pose as if in a

constructed Eve as a modern heroine rather than

tableau vivant.

a sinful temptress or emotional weakling. Stanton

Cassatt used the women's incongruous attire

viewed Eve as a woman with an "intense thirst for

and overdetermined poses to signal that her

knowledge that the simple pleasures of picking

scene was of no casual rural activity but an event

flowers and talking with Adam did not satisfy."25

of great import. It was nothing less than a regen-

From this perspective, girls and young women

dered Garden of Eden, peopled not by a man and

reaching for fruit represented the new genera-

woman but exclusively by Eve's modern daugh-

tion's thirst for knowledge and their demands for

ters (along with a few turkeys and a dog) pursu-

equality in higher education. Maud Elliott, who

ing their new freedoms and opportunities while

edited and wrote portions of the Woman's Build-

acknowledging their God-given ability to gener-

ing handbook, spoke directly to this new Eve dis-

ate new life.

course. "We have eaten of the fruit of the tree of

In the story of Adam and Eve in the Book of

knowledge," she wrote, and "the Eden of idleness

Genesis, fruit represents knowledge and sex-

is hateful to us. We claim our inheritance and

ual awareness. Eating the fruit from the Tree of

[have] become workers, not cumberers of the

Knowledge of Good and Evil was sinful. Eve, in

earth." 26

[145]

THE

MURALS

Cassatt's orchard, with its sisterhood of fruit

T h i s association o f fruit with w o m a n ' s sexual

gatherers, visualized this w o m a n - c e n t e r e d Edenic

anatomy, subtle in Cassatt, c o u l d be explicit in

discourse.

p o p u l a r imagery. In o n e nineteenth-century pan-

Fruit f u n c t i o n e d

like

mortarboards education

orama, two w o m e n shake a tree, as o n e m i g h t a

w o m e n c o u l d now acquire. In Cassatt's o r c h a r d

fruit tree, b u t this o n e is filled with babies w h o

scene, the vignette of older girls h a n d i n g the fruit

fall into a w o m a n ' s skirt, which she holds out as

d o w n to y o u n g e r ones also r e f e r e n c e d w o m e n ' s

a basket (fig. 102). In a print d e s i g n e d by Freder-

talents as teachers a n d educators, as well as their

ick S. C h u r c h — t h e artist w h o painted the f e m a l e

in this image, signifying the h i g h e r

roles o f raising a n d e d u c a t i n g the y o u n g . (In h e r

student c a l m i n g the t i g e r s — a n d printed by the

well-known print o f a w o m a n h a n d i n g fruit to a

p o p u l a r lithographer Louis Prang, two w o m e n

baby in a n o t h e r y o u n g w o m a n ' s arms, the refer-

pluck baby cupids f r o m a tree, as if they were

ences to teaching a n d m o t h e r h o o d were m o r e

apples, a n d then bathe them in a circular foun-

explicit.) A n d by putting fruit in the hands o f the

tain o f water, a n o t h e r not-so-subtle surrogate f o r

babies isolated in the roundels, Cassatt o f f e r e d

the f e m a l e uterus (fig. 103).

c o m f o r t to those w h o might accuse h e r o f inad-

Cassatt's tympanum, then, like the mural by

equate attention to maternity a n d m o t h e r h o o d

MacMonnies, recast Puvis de Chavannes'

(see fig. 88). T h e pieces o f "training fruit" that

dian e n v i r o n m e n t as an exclusively f e m a l e space.

the babies are playing with ensure that these

M a c M o n n i e s t u r n e d hers into a sweatshop,

infants will grow u p b e n e f i t i n g f r o m the fruits o f

scene o f sisterly toil; Cassatt r e n d e r e d hers as an

k n o w l e d g e w o m e n have struggled to obtain.

elite f e m a l e paradise, an o u t d o o r w o m a n ' s acad-

Cassatt e n c o d e d other references to mater-

arca-

emy w h e r e sisters study, teach, a n d m a k e

a

art

nity in h e r mural o f fruit gatherers. W h i l e m o r e

while d r e a m i n g of fame. Cassatt's o u t d o o r cam-

o r less forgotten today, in the n i n e t e e n t h cen-

pus had an intellectual a n d spiritual kinship with

tury, fruit in a w o m a n ' s hands, lap, or basket held

the all-women's colleges springing u p in the late

below h e r waistline signified fertility. In Cassatt's

n i n e t e e n t h century to e d u c a t e w o m e n in segre-

mural, the m e t a p h o r is most clearly stated in the

gated communities, without the competition o f

p r o m i n e n t standing figure to the right o f c e n t e r

male students. Its j o i e de vivre also allied h e r work

whose basket o f f r u i t — s e e m i n g l y filled with cher-

with the modernist idylls painted by y o u n g e r art-

ries rather than a p p l e s — b l e n d s into the print o f

ists such as Paul Signac or the Nabis, and a lit-

h e r dress to outline, in effect, the w o m a n ' s w o m b .

tle later, by H e n r i Matisse a n d A n d r é

Like some o f the o t h e r figures, she stares into the

Inspired in part by Puvis' p o p u l a r success with the

distance w o n d e r i n g what h e r future as a m o d e r n

idyllic t h e m e — a n old subject in F r e n c h art—Cas-

Derain.

w o m a n will be. W h e n Cassatt was working o u t the

satt j o i n e d y o u n g e r Parisians in giving it new spins.

ideas for h e r mural, she tried out the c o d i n g o f

All these new paintings t e n d e d to replace Puvis'

fruit as f e m a l e sexuality in Young 'Women Picking

soft pastel palette with a m o r e expressionist o n e ,

Fruit, w h e r e a piece o f fruit rests prominently in

flatten pictorial space, a n d simplify the composi-

the curvature o f the seated girl's lap (fig. 1 0 1 ) .

tions. T h e bright colors a n d patterns Cassatt used

In the final mural, a single fruit b e c a m e a womb-

in h e r mural aligned h e r with this new F r e n c h

like basket.

interest

[146]

in

painted

Utopias.

Even

the j o y o u s

THE

MURALS

rhetoric that Cassatt used in describing her project to Palmer sounded much like the way a Nabi artist and eventually Matisse described their j o i e de vivre paintings at the turn of the century. Cassatt wanted "to make the general effect [of the mural] as bright, as gay, as amusing as possible," and she told Palmer that she viewed the occasion of having a Woman's Building as "one of rejoicing, a great national fete." 27 But in one significant respect Cassatt's mural diverged from the Arcadias and "joy of life" canvases of her male peers in France. She replaced the slow-moving, bathing, sunning, picnicking, and sleeping damsels that they favored with the vigorously active young bodies of the New Girl. In her figures' modern dress and energetic interactions with each other, they demonstrate their emancipation not only from the debilitating and onerous chores of the past but also from the languishing and sensuous nude poses that Puvis and his French followers imposed on their female subjects. T h o u g h Cassatt conceived and created her modern women

in France,

they

nevertheless

followed the consensual narrative of

modern

women that we have found in Rideout's sculpture and in the murals by Emmet and Sherwood. Like the other American decorators, Cassatt framed her contribution completely around female activities, working within the separatist discourse that prevailed at the Fair and in Ameri103

Frederick S. Church, Valentine of Women Bath-

can culture generally. She focused, as did the oth-

ing Cupids, L. Prang & Co. chromolithograph,

ers, on young w o m e n — t h e upcoming genera-

1884.

tions—and their unprecedented opportunities in the arts and higher education. In every way, however, she was more innovative in her iconography and in her style. Her many years of experience in the feisty art politics of Paris gave her the insight

[148]

THE

MURALS

and courage to experiment more radically than

rative women envisioned for themselves in 1 8 9 3

others with subject matter as well as with the lan-

attests to its wide currency in American culture at

guage of realist allegory and French end-of-the-

large.29

century theories of modern decoration. She was

In the Illinois State Building, for instance, a

attuned not only to impressionist aesthetics and

team of ten women painted a frieze that was well

the popularity of Puvis but also to the young sym-

reported upon but never fully photographed,

bolist movement spreading across Europe in the

making it difficult to reconstruct (fig. 104). Each

1890s and the up-and-coming Nabis in Paris. She

artist dedicated one or sometimes two panels to

was attracted to the symbolists' use of intense

different kinds of women's work, titling the pan-

color and expressive form to create "Ideas" in

els Industrial Arts (the spinning and weaving of

paintings of everyday life. She also responded

earlier times), Instruction, Learning, Music, Drama,

to younger artists' general interest in moderniz-

Poetry, The Dancers, and Joy. The artists put women

ing wall-size decorations, especially the work of

in classical dress but defined woman's activi-

the Nabis, who, inspired by Puvis de Chavannes

ties in much the same way that their colleagues

and Gauguin, had begun to champion large-scale

in the Woman's Building did. Indeed, two of the

murals painted in expressive colors, with flat-

scenes, The Dancers and Joy, have marked similar-

tened forms and modern design. 28 In keeping

ities to Cassatt's imagery. They are more conser-

with this new avant-garde interest in decorations,

vative artistically but, like Cassatt's mural, they

Cassatt used stronger colors and more abstracted

depict women dancing out of doors to signify

forms in her decoration than any other painter at

and celebrate their new freedoms. In The Danc-

the Fair. Indeed, her innovations in style, more

ers, a woman plays a mandolin (rather than Cas-

than her invention of iconography, were what

satt's banjo), and three girls dance in a circle (fig.

aroused controversy and irritated her critics, as

1 0 5 ) . In Joy, a single girl in a short tunic, her hair

we shall see in the next chapter.

flowing, dances barefoot, her hands holding a scarf, resembling a young Isadora Duncan. The Illinois frieze was commissioned for and

i

THE PENNSYLVANIA AND

installed in the Reception Room in the state

I L L I N O I S STATE B U I L D I N G S |r

building. Women also made wall decorations for

In addition to the artists who contributed deco-

the Ladies' Reception Room in the Pennsylvania

rations to the Woman's Building, a number of

State Building, one of the larger of the elaborate

female artists made public art for two of the state

buildings erected by individual states on the Chi-

buildings at the Fair. In both settings, as in the

cago fairgrounds. The Pennsylvania State Build-

Woman's Building, artists opted to picture wom-

ing was modeled on Independence Hall, and its

an's work throughout history and to construct

reception rooms were essentially lounges where

their story as a single-sex trajectory from past

fairgoers could rest from the strenuous walking

enslavement to present enlightenment. They may

and visual overload of the grounds. Typically,

have painted in different styles, but they told the

women's reception rooms were modeled after

same story. The consistency of the historical nar-

parlors, whereas men's reception rooms resem-

[149]

bled libraries or smoking rooms in Gilded Age

Ladies' Reception Room was its elaborate decora-

homes (fig. 106). In the Pennsylvania State Build-

tions: it had five large mural paintings and a fire-

ing, the Ladies' Reception Room had high, ele-

place with a sculpture set into a decorative relief

gantly dressed windows and revival-style curvi-

above it (fig. 108). Mary Slater, who designed

linear furniture. Ferns and palms screened the

the plaster of Paris fireplace decoration, commis-

light coming in from two-story-high windows (fig.

sioned a male sculptor, Charles Grafly, to pro-

107). The Gentleman's Reception Room was a

vide the figure for over the fireplace. Tided var-

darkened retreat, outfitted with sturdy Arts and

iously Young Girl in the Dawn of Womanhood and

Crafts Morris chairs, tables, and setdes.

the Genius of Art, the neoclassical figure reiter-

The most notable feature of the Pennsylvania

[150]

ates a type we have seen throughout the Woman's

105

Mary W. Means, The Dancers, Reception Room, Illinois State Building.

Building; she wears a laurel wreath on her head,

know very little about the commissions for the

holds a palm branch of fame in her left hand,

Pennsylvania murals, we can get an idea of how

and raises her hand as if hailing and blessing the

contemporaries—and perhaps the artists them-

room and the women visitors to the parlor. This

selves—viewed them from a publication

is a rare instance of a man at the Fair, alongside

reproduced the murals and described their con-

women, representing the New Girl.

tent in poetry and short narrative texts.30 (These

that

The correspondence between the progress

texts seem also to appear in cartouches under

cycle represented in the five mural paintings in

each painting [see fig. 108].) Though the cycle

the Pennsylvania State Building and those in the

was less coherent than the one in the Woman's

Woman's Building is considerable. Although we

Building, it also celebrated woman's progress.

[151]

106

Gentlemen's Reception Room, Pennsylvania State Building.

107

Ladies' Reception Room, Pennsylvania State Building.

i o8

Mary E. Slater and Charles Grafly, Art Sanctifies the Sorrows of the World, Ladies' Reception Room, Pennsylvania State Building.

One of the five murals unequivocally spoke to

and from "the early part of this century before

woman's labors during the age of agriculture, and

the robust type of our ancestors had yielded to

two others detailed woman's freedoms in mod-

the attenuating influences of our climate." The

ern times. Two smaller murals depicted woman at

women rest after a day of work, the scythe held by

work, both in the domestic realm and in the arts.

the figure to the far right signifying their labor.

Sarah P. B. Dodson's mural, Pax Patriae, func-

One worker, the second from the right, is a rare

tioned much like the MacMonnies mural in the

instance of an older woman. She raises one hand

Woman's Building, telling of woman's labor in

as if teaching. An allegorical figure of Peace hov-

the past (fig. 109). The catalogue described the

ers over the group of "weary girls," who, at the

six muscular female fieldworkers as amazonian,

end of a "day of toil," are "hearing from the lips

[153]

chose two of the same themes she did: girls dancing and women picking apples in an orchard. Bush-Brown's Spring depicted a circle of five girls, three with their hair down, and a young child freely dancing in a blossom-filled landscape (fig. n o ) . Like the dancing figures in the Illinois frieze, they are barefoot, wear loosely classicized dress, and laugh and dance with great j o y and pleasure. "Let us rejoice! Let Songs be on each tongue!" read the accompanying poem. "It is the beginning of a new day."32 T h e active bodies in this scene are not those of Cassatt's more audacious modern-day skirt dancer (or Matisse's wilder dancers fifteen years later), but they function similarly in signifying the New Girl's emancipation from corsets, domesticity, and decorum. Clements's

orchard

scene,

Harvest,

linked

women, fruit, and orchards in m u c h the same way that Cassatt did in the central panel of her tympanum (fig. 1 1 1 ) . Clements's story line is not as compressed and taut as Cassatt's, but her symbolism is the same. She presents her orchard as a deeply symbolic female space, where fruit symbolizes both education and fertility. Clements includes a man in her mural, the figure in the log

tree in the left foreground who has climbed u p

Sarah P. B. Dodson, Pax Patriae, Ladies' Recep-

from the ladder to do the strenuous work of shak-

tion Room, Pennsylvania State Building.

ing apples off the branches. He brings sexuality into this story, being wound into the "Tree o f Knowledge" much like the serpent in older renof their aged grandmothers, the battle stories of

ditions of the Garden of Eden. He drops the fruit

her youth, which are fast crystallizing into tra-

(his seed) into the rounded shallow basket that a

ditions." These

woman in white holds low on her body, the same

earthy women,

the

catalogue

womblike basket seen in the Cassatt mural.

reports, are the ancestors of modern women, "the future mothers of the race." 31

Some of the women wear rural dress, with ker-

Margaret Lesley Bush-Brown and Gabrielle D.

chiefs on their heads and aprons over their skirts,

Clements executed murals that spoke to the free-

appearing like the fruit pickers we looked at earlier

doms enjoyed by modern women. While stylisti-

(see figs. 99 and 1 oo). But the two women standing

cally more conservative than Cassatt, the painters

prominently in the center of Clements's mural,

[154]

II o

Margaret Lesley BushBrown, Spring, Ladies' Reception Room, Pennsylvania State Building.

III

Gabrielle D. Clements, Harvest, Ladies' Reception Room, Pennsylvania State Building.

THE

MURALS

holding the dark-toned fruit, wear white dresses

maiden who puts away poetry for Motherhood

and fuse the fashionable and classical, referenc-

in the other panel; she is also one more Girl of

ing both modernity and virginity. Reading left to

Hope (fig. 1 1 3 ) . "The young girl saunters down

right, from the peasants in kerchiefs to the con-

a wooded hillside path," the brochure informs

temporary young women in empire-waist white

readers, "her parted lips murmuring a verse from

laboring

the open volume she is reading, her inspired face

women,

reflecting the poetic sentiment which is coloring

using their new knowledge to elevate themselves

her dreams of the future." 34 Her open book sig-

dresses,

a

minidrama

unfolds.

agricultural workers become

The

modern

beyond fieldwork to worldly sophistication. T h e

nals education, literature, and poetry, the same

central placement of these emancipated women,

litany of modern woman's activities we have seen

signified by their fashionable virginal dress and

elsewhere.

fertile basket of fruit, gives symbolic import to an

O n e could read Rongier's panels as represent-

otherwise realist description. Like Cassatt, Clem-

ing two sides to woman's work: domestic labor

ents painted a realist allegory.

and poetry. Such a reading would have com-

T h e two vertical panels by Jeanne Rongier, a

forted Fair visitors who feared woman's emanci-

French artist, each of a young woman, are less

pation would dissipate her true calling as wife and

innovative and visually compelling. In Maternity,

mother. But Rongier's panels might just as easily

Rongier depicted two of woman's earliest occupa-

speak to the theme of emancipation, with Mater-

tions, caring for children and spinning thread to

nity representing the confinements of domestic-

provide clothing (fig. 1 1 2 ) . T h e mother stands in

ity—the distaff and cradle signifying an earlier

the doorway of her home, symbolizing her con-

a g e — a n d Reverie lauding the freedom of y o u n g

tainment within (or commitment to) the domes-

modern women to dream of a new life. Rongier's

tic sphere. Flowers abound in the space, signifying

message is oblique and imprecise, as if the sub-

her alignment with nature. A baby is in a cradle

j e c t of woman's work were difficult for her to con-

at her feet. T h e accompanying brochure suggests

ceptualize.

that the mural depicts the satisfaction that comes

Rongier's inability to communicate clearly is

with motherhood. "Redolent of domestic happi-

a reminder of the challenge these commissions

ness, the young mother spins at her cottage door.

posed for women artists. For the first time in their

T h e Pleasures of the intellect and the poetic fan-

lives, they had the unprecedented opportunity to

cies of the maiden have given place to the serious

make art on a grand scale for large public spaces.

duties and sweet realities of life." 33 Young women,

In their much smaller easel art, these women

in other words, may seek education and practice

were landscapists, still-life artists, and painters of

the arts but they will put these aside to b e c o m e

everyday life. But as public decorators, they had to

g o o d mothers and providers.

rise to the occasion and devise pictures of greater

In Rongier's Reverie, a young woman wan-

import. They all embraced the discursive themes

ders dreamily in the woods, far from hearth and

of progress and triumph at the Fair and pictured

home, an o p e n book in her hands, while her

a celebratory history of their sex that chronicled

mind is clearly elsewhere. Perhaps she is the

their difficult past and modern liberation. But

[156]

THE

MURALS

112

J e a n n e Rongier, Maternity, Ladies' Reception Room, Pennsylvania State Building.

113

J e a n n e Rongier, Reverie, Ladies' Reception Room, Pennsylvania State Building.

they did so alone in their individual studios with-

and anxieties, of middle- and upper-class women

out the benefit of working together as the male

in 1893. Both independently and together, these

decorators did at the Fair. Although women had

women artists were redefining what their sex

written histories of their sex, artists had never

could and might do. They were most comfortable

before visualized one on the walls and in the ped-

picturing girls and young women seeking new

iments of public buildings. Artists had to invent

kinds of education; they were relatively silent or

a pictorial history of women past and present.

ambivalent about what kind of women those girls

Some artists did so more sure-handedly and

would become. This was the dilemma confront-

clearly than others, but remarkably they by and

ing post-Victorian women: they fought fiercely for

large invented the same "herstory." Their collec-

changes in woman's opportunities but could not

tive efforts constitute a powerful synopsis of the

yet imagine women who did not look and act like

ambitions and dreams, as well as the confusions

them.

[157]

OTHER IN T H E

DECORATIONS WOMAN'S BUILDING

The public decorations of the Woman's Building included stained glass windows, a ceiling painting in the Library, and large painted murals in the entryways, the last contributed by the English and French women's committees. Though we have less archival and photographic documentation for these pieces, what we know of them reenforces—and internationalizes—the consensual historical story women told about themselves in 1893. Charlene Garfinkle, who has carefully searched for them (see her "Women at Work," chapter 5, and "Becoming Visible"), has found but two of the approximately fifteen stained glass windows installed in the building's large assembly room, offices, and parlors. One of them (fig. 114), seven feet tall, hung between two others in the auditorium. The three windows provided a backdrop to the stage, imbuing this secular space with the aura of a church. Designed by three Boston artists, Elisabeth Parsons, Edith Brown, and her sister Ethel Brown, the middle window depicts yet one more emancipation scene: an allegorical American girl being guided into the modern age by an older woman who, the title and cartouche at the bottom of the window tell us, represents Massachusetts. At the top of the window, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts seal with a Native American figure symbolizes the Bay State as well as early times. The girl wears a Liberty cap and holds aloft the flame of light (knowledge) and liberty (emancipation). An older figure leading a child transposes Christian iconography—Christ teaching the children, for instance—into an inspirational call to women. In the female-centric rhetoric of the day, the window was allegorically titled Massachusetts Mothering the Coming Woman of Liberty, Progress, and Light. Dora Wheeler Keith called her ceiling painting for the New York Library, a large parlor in the Woman's Building, Science, Literature, and Imagination (figs. 54 and 115). Her mural had two notable features: its purity of neoclassical allegorical vocabulary—no Puvis influence or realism here—and the way it expanded upon the natural alliance that middle- and upper-class women felt with the arts and literature and on their inability to envision themselves with any ease in science and history. Keith was an accomplished portraitist, illustrator, and interior designer, having studied with William Merritt Chase in New York and with William Bouguereau at the Académie Julian in Paris. Like Mary MacMonnies, she had close family ties to the Fair. Her mother, Candace Wheeler, one of New York's most famous home decorators, was in charge of all the interior decorations of the Woman's Building— the wall colors, trims, window dressings, stained glass, wall hangings, and furnishings. She also designed the elegant New York room as a library and filled it with some seven thousand books written by women between 1587 and 1893 and collected from all over the world (seefig.54). The sheer number of volumes suggests the extraordinary effort women made to represent their sex as learned and literary. Keith's Beaux-Arts ceiling mural and accompanying frieze decoration in plaster reenforced her mother's Italian Renaissance design of the Library (fig. 115). The three allegories in the center—a man for Science, a woman for Literature, and a winged female in the middle for Imagination—signify women's scholarly and literary accomplishments, and the four medallions in the corners represent the fields of History, Romance, Drama, and Poetry to which female writers had contributed. Given the all-women casts in the other murals in the Woman's Building, the three allegorical men in lead roles—Science as

[158]

a young beardless man, History as a white-haired and -bearded man, and Poetry as a young man in tunic and leggings—stand out as anomalies. Overall, Keith's painting had an academic tone and did not engage in woman's politics as direcdy as other works in the building. Keith fit the paradigm of a woman "painting like a man." T h e murals from L o n d o n and Paris, however, offered different national glosses on the subject of woman's work. Bertha Palmer invited women's committees from England and France to cover the walls of the building's two vestibules and left it to them to make all the arrangements. As a consequence, we have far less documentation about the British and French decorations. Because

the entryways were about forty feet

wide and the murals were some thirty feet wide and sixteen feet high, a photographer could not stand back far e n o u g h to take pictures. Furthermore, the vestibules had ceilings rather than skylights, so they were darker spaces. For the English murals, we have verbal descriptions and one published sketch of part of one mural (see Merritt, Love Locked Out, 1 7 6 - 8 3 ) . For the French murals, we have four photographs that appeared in the Woman's Building handbook. But the handbook also tells us that when the French woman's committee did not come up with money for the artists to finish the murals, the project was aborted. So these photographs must be of the preliminary studies that were never scaled up to be murals. T h e studies were displayed in the French women's fine-arts exhibition in the Woman's Building ("Projets de Panneaus décoratifs" by A b b é m a and Van Parys are listed in the Exposition Internationale de Chicago, 3, 35).

114

A n n a Lea Merritt and Annie L. Swynnerton, of

Elisabeth Parsons, Edith Blake Brown, and Ethel Isadore Brown, Massachusetts Mothering the Coming Woman of Liberty,

the same age and experience as Cassatt, painted

Progress, and Light. Stained and leaded

the English murals. Merritt lived in England as an

glass, 7 x 3 ft.

[159]

115

Dora Wheeler Keith, Science, Literature, and Imagination. Ceiling mural, New York Library, Woman's Building, l892-93. Oil on canvas, 37 x 57 ft.

116

Anna Lea Merritt, Needlework. Line drawing from Art Journal (London) , Fair Supplement, 1893.

American expatriate and was known for her portraiture, allegorical paintings, and prints. And Swynnerton, an English suffragist, had experience in creating allegorical paintings, landscapes, and portraits of children. Merritt took on the themes of female education and needlework, and Swynnerton highlighted female nursing and benevolence, each creating triptychs. These murals were distinctive in their inclusion of portraits of highly accomplished English women who were in the news, having won national reputations for their accomplishments. Americans focused on Girls of Hope, whereas the two entries from England incorporated living adult women who had achieved public notice for their professional lives. Descriptions of Merritt's triptych on the history of education mention a modern-day kindergarten class on the left including "three young girls dancing with a chain of little ones—six year olds" to illustrate instructive play. Kindergarten was a woman's cause in the late nineteenth century, as was the founding of women's colleges that Merritt celebrated in Presenting Students for Examination on the right side. In it, Merritt portrayed Dorothea Beale, then president of Cheltenham Ladies' College in London, dressed in full regalia, presenting young female graduates in caps and gowns to "the standing figure of the chancellor, in his golden robes." Beale, who was a suffragette and a well-known advocate of women's higher education in England, had founded St. Hilda's College, Oxford to train women teachers. In the center, between these very contemporary activities, Merritt went back to some generalized moment in the distant past to show women doing needlework with girls learning at their feet (fig. 116). The sketch of this middle section shows women in antique dress working together on a long embroidered scroll that looks something like the Bayeux tapestry. In the setting, described as "the loggia of an Italian house with a landscape background," women handworkers interact much like they do in Fairchild's Plymouth scene or in Cassatt's orchard. Members of the younger generation sit on the steps of the sewing room "assorting and winding silks." One of them peers up at an older female mentor in the same way a young girl receives an apple from an older sister in the Cassatt panel or an American girl looks up to an older woman for inspiration and education in other decorations (Garfinkle, "Women at Work," 233-26). Swynnerton's triptych, Three Phases of Nursing—the Young, the Sick, the Aged, also featured a celebrated (and living) English reformer. In the center scene, Miss Nightingale's Crimean Hospital at Scutari, Florence Nightingale nurses the wounded at the hospital she founded at the front. Nightingale was lionized in England for pioneering new standards for hygiene and medical care and for the Nightingale Training School for Nurses she established in i860 to train women in her methods. Nursing, like teaching the young, was gendered female in the late nineteenth century, the assumption being that women's nature was more benevolent and charitable than men's, making them natural caregivers. Swynnerton's side panels reiterated these cultural assumptions. The one to the left depicted a mother caring for a child, and the one on the right showed a woman helping an elderly woman. Moving from left to right, the triptych traced three stages in a woman's life: childhood, adulthood, and old age. Merritt's triptych similarly proceeded from kindergarten to middle-aged needleworkers and then to the mature Dorothea Beale. The English decorators, in contrast to their American counterparts, who never depicted specific contemporary women, put a face on female fame, the theme that Cassatt struggled with and rendered

[161]

117

Louise van Parys, The Arts of Woman: To Love, to Please, and Deuote Herself, preparatory study, mural design for west vestibule, 1892-93.

118

Louise van Parys, Influence of Woman in the Arts: She Weeps with the Poet, Consoles Him, and Glorifies Him. Preparatory study, mural design for west vestibule, 1892-93.

allegorically. By featuring Florence Nightingale and Dorothea Beale, two modern women reformers, they provided female counterpoints to the many male heroes like Christopher Columbus and Thomas Edison elsewhere at the Fair. Merritt and Swynnerton were more publicly active in woman's reform movements, including suffrage, than other decorators in the Woman's Building. Their radical politics come through in their decision, made in consultation with one another, to include inspirational examples of successful modern women who exemplified the equality of the sexes. The French muralists did something a bit different. One of them, Louise van Parys, took the subject of women in the historical past, whereas Louise Abbéma depicted modern women. In style and content, the French murals were light and airy and the women in them more sensuous and glamorous than either the robust American girls or the professional English women. Van Parys contributed two arcadian stories that, in dramatic contrast to MacMonnies's Primitive Woman, centered on woman's attractiveness to men. One panel, The Arts of Woman: To Love, to Please, and Devote Herself, revolved around a seminude female figure preening herself (fig. 117). With one hand fixing her hair, she looks into a mirror in her other hand as she prepares "to please." In the foreground, her future is enacted by two cupid figures accompanying a young man and woman in love and a mother with a baby. Another couple of babies play in the lower right. In the second mural, Influence of Woman in the Arts, woman is muse to a malnourished male poet with a book in the center of the composition. The poet is consoled by three women: one reclining, one seated and pointing to the sky as a source of inspiration, and one standing and awaiting the poet's output so that she can crown him with the laurel wreath she holds (fig. 118). At the left edge, a woman blows the pipes of music to console the poet while another "glorifies" him by making a picture of him. Like others, van Parys took Puvis' pastorals as her model. If she intended her murals to demonstrate the limitations, perhaps even the servitude of woman in the ancient past, she was too sentimental to get her point across. Her designs appear rather to present woman as man's object of desire and his muse. Abbéma's murals dedicated to modern women were more skilled; she composed large, populated canvases with bravado. A lover and portraitist of Sarah Bernhardt, with a reputation as a nouvelle femme, she had painted murals for the actress's homes and the Théâtre Sarah Bernhardt, as well as for a mural in the Hôtel de Ville. Like her mentor Rosa Bonheur, she wore trousers and smoked cigars. Abbéma depicted two "ships of state," one leaving Paris for Chicago and the other arriving in Chicago at the Fair. The ceremonial barge filled with allegorical figures, we recall, was a favorite subject in French public art, and Frederic MacMonnies had used the convention in his monumental fountain of Columbia arriving in the New World (see figs. 24 and 25). What is unusual about Abbéma's two boats is that she filled them with figures in realist dress, giving each person such distinctive features and clothing that they might all be portraits. The City of Paris Carrying to Chicago the Arts of Woman—Fluctuât Nec Mergitur shows a fanciful barge leaving Paris, with Notre Dame and the Panthéon (or the Institute of France) in the background to the left and the Eiffel Tower to the right (fig. 119). (The Latin phrase Fluctuât Nec Mergitur, meaning "she is tossed by waves but does not sink," is the motto for Paris and appears on the city seal.) The boat is ornamented with flowers, curlicues, and drapery, creating a rococo stage set for contemporary women, who

[163]

119

Louise Abbema, The City of Paris Carrying to Chicago the Arts of Woman—Fluctuat Nec Mergitur, preparatory study, mural design for west vestibule, 1892—93.

120

Louise Abbema, America Receiving the Nations at the World's Exposition —E Pluribus Untim, preparatory study, mural design for west vestibule, 1892-93.

all sport hourglass figures; most wear mutton-sleeved dresses, which were the rage among young progressive women in 1893. A figure representing the city of Paris, the woman in a white gown seated high on a throne, holds a palm branch out to six women representing the arts. The identification of some is hard to determine, but we can easily see the palette held by the woman with her back to us. She leans back over the fleur-de-lis drapery that sweeps into the river as she paints a seated woman with a dark fan. The woman seated high in the bow of the boat holds a mask for Drama and looks like Sarah Bernhardt. The standing woman with her hand in the air probably represents Music. She wears the sort of evening gown a contemporary chanteuse might wear in a Parisian cabaret or club. The woman seated at a table next to her may represent Literature. A relief of Fame and a herald trumpet decorates the bow of the boat, and another allegorical figure with wings and a banner handles the rudder. Abbéma's second mural, America Receiving the Nations at the World's Exposition—E Pluribus Unum, historicizes the boat, depicting it as a fifteenth-century caravel like Columbus's ship the Santa Maria; it carries a sail with a red cross, the insignia of the Royal Spanish Order of Santiago (fig. 120). An American flag flies from its mast, and the allegorical figure America the Republic holds a wreath aloft while an American eagle perches at her side. Another American flag drapes over the side of the boat and into the water. The buildings in the background signal that the ship has arrived at the Fair. Three men are in the boat: one, a gentleman in evening dress; another, a Mexican or South American cowboy; and the third, a Spanish sailor. (These last two perhaps represent Columbus's explorations and Spanish heritage.) The boat also carries a female North American Indian and an unclothed, dark-skinned African woman. The Gibson Girl with her back to us represents a Euro-American new woman. This boat of different nations and races illustrated America's motto, E Pluribus Unum, "one out of many." The figures from different parts of the globe are the "many" who come together to be "one." As if mocking the academic tradition of using idealized figures to represent the continents, Abbéma depicted her global group as adults dressed for a multicultural costume party. And she was loose with her world map and America's history of immigrants. Though the boat contains several white Europeans, an African, and a Native American, it has no figure representing the Far East (Garfinkle, 'Transatlantic Nature"). In contrast to the gravitas of Cassatt's modern women, Abbéma's figures appear relaxed and casual, as if they were out for a summer sail. Both Cassatt and Abbéma came out of Parisian art school traditions, and both commingled realism and allegory. But Abbéma exerted less effort than Cassatt to make her realist allegories speak to ideas and ideals and project a social vision. The chic dresses and portrait faces on Abbéma's figures, along with their informality, represent little more than themselves. On board Abbéma's sailing vessels, the real and the ideal rarely meet. The national differences at play here are fascinating: Abbéma's softer French feminism versus more assertive Anglo-American female activism; Abbéma's neo-rococo aesthetic versus the Anglo-American's classicizing one; Abbéma and her playful reworking of the ship of state, a beloved French trope, into pleasure boats versus the woman decorators who made older themes into parables about being female and modern.

J&. W. M. C.

[165]

4

|r

Among the features which distinguish the Columbian from all farmer international expositions are the scope and character of its Woman 's department. For the first time in World '5 Fair annals ...

a spe-

cial edifice has been devoted to the purposes of the department. . . . For the first time also [a building] has been designed by a woman . . . for such uses. H U B E R T H O W E B A N C R O F T , The Book of the Fair, 1 8 9 3

THE CRITICISM THE

AMERICAN

MENTALITÉ

m

1893

WAS

GROUNDED

IN

SEXUAL

ESSENTIALISM.

ALL

BUT

the most radical of men and women believed that one's sex determined one's options in the home, workplace, or public spaces. Sex, in effect, set boundaries on acceptable male and female behaviors. When the Lady Managers created and decorated a building dedicated to their "race," a word they used interchangeably with "sex," they sought to preserve what they took to be precious, God-given differences between them and men. They did not aspire to rid themselves of their femininity but rather to make the feminine a more elastic and inclusive category. Bertha Palmer and her decorators wanted to modernize outmoded Victorian definitions of womanhood that ideologically restricted woman to home and family. They sought to recalibrate the feminine, to enlarge woman's sphere so that future generations could aspire to a broader band of activities and happier lives.

[167]

THE

CRITICISM

It followed, then, that the reception of the

books, and keepsake volumes was considerable,

Woman's Building would be filtered through the

a reminder that woman's issues and female activ-

straitjacket of gender. Critics judged the build-

ism were newsworthy and good copy in the 1890s.

ing, its exhibitions, and its decorations accord-

Both men and women registered their criticisms

ing to whether they were sufficiently "feminine."

and impressions of the building, seeing it as rele-

Female or male, critics wrote about the Wom-

vant to current debates about woman's issues or,

an's Building from within separate-sphere ideol-

as one writer said, as a forum for resolving "the

ogy. Commentators took as their starting point

social problems" of women. 1

that architecture, decorations, and exhibitions

Two insiders to the project, Maud

Howe

made by women would (and should) differ from

Elliott, the editor of the substantial Woman's

works produced by men at the Fair and assumed

Building guidebook, and Candace Wheeler, the

that each sex had dissimilar talents. Whether or

well-known professional decorator who made all

not a critic liked what he or she saw at the Wom-

the decisions for the colors and furnishings of the

an's Building also had to do with the critic's per-

interior spaces, wrote extensively about the build-

sonal political views on women's issues; did he or

ing, considering its inherent femininity to be the

she resist or advocate expanding definitions of

ultimate mark of its success. Wheeler spoke of the

the feminine? Some critics were sympathetic and

building as if it were a gentle and modest lady,

encouraging, some condescending and patroniz-

never demanding, always self-effacing, offering,

ing. All applied the same contemporary vocabu-

in effect, everything men would want in a woman.

lary to describe ladylike or unladylike behaviors

The "most peaceably human of all the buildings"

that colored their aesthetic judgments. "Deli-

at the Fair, she wrote, is the Woman's Building.

cate," "refined," and "modest," for instance, were

It is "like a man's ideal of woman—delicate, dig-

words of praise; "brazen," "aggressive," "insis-

nified, pure, and fair to look upon." The build-

tent," and "crude" were words of derision.

ing makes "no bid for popular admiration. . . .

Let us look first at the critical reception of the

There is a feeling of indescribable rest and sat-

building's architecture and its exhibitions and

isfaction in coming to it day by day, and I have

then turn to the criticism of the decorations, par-

a fancy that if all these buildings should sing at

ticularly the lavish attention paid to the murals

night," the Woman's Building would "lift a pure

by Cassatt and MacMonnies. We will then reca-

soprano note like a flute" with the Palace of Fine

pitulate the central theses of this book by look-

Arts (gendered male) as "a thrilling tenor" and

ing closely at three paintings of modern women

the other male buildings providing the "mighty

by male artists. These paintings—a mural from

trumpets and beats of drums." Wheeler lauded

1892, a portrait from 1893, and a mural from

the "simple and plain surface" of Hayden's design

1937—reenforce the complexity we have uncov-

and thought the "essentially feminine" sculpture

ered in the engagement of the fine arts with pub-

by Rideout "appears consciously to avoid anything

lic debates about women's rights and bodies.

bold or even insistent in style." Every participant in the building's development, she said, made her

i G E N D E R E D RHETORIC |r

contributions in keeping with what one would

In its day, the public discourse about the Wom-

expect of ladies, wanting "to make the Woman's

an's Building in newspapers, journals, guide-

Building express an ideal of womanhood." 2

[168]

THE

C R I T I C I S M

M a u d H o w e Elliott, w h o wrote a l o n g intro-

w o r k was the criticism that it was so g o o d that it

d u c t i o n a b o u t t h e b u i l d i n g a n d its d e c o r a t i o n s

m i g h t b e easily mistaken f o r a m a n ' s . " T o d a y the

in its official g u i d e b o o k , also t o o k femininity to

criteria have c h a n g e d , she w r o t e , a n d "wc r e c o g -

b e the c o r e attraction. " O u r b u i l d i n g is essen-

nize that the m o r e w o m a n l y a w o m a n ' s w o r k is

tially f e m i n i n e in c h a r a c t e r , " she asserted. "It has

the s t r o n g e r it is. . . . If sweetness a n d light were

the qualities o f reserve, delicacy, a n d r e f i n e m e n t .

e v e r e x p r e s s e d in a r c h i t e c t u r e , w e find t h e m in

Its strength is v e i l e d in g r a c e ; its b e a u t y is gently

Miss H a y d e n ' s b u i l d i n g . Every line expresses ele-

impressive; it d o e s n o t take away t h e b r e a t h with

g a n c e , g r a c e , h a r m o n y . " 5 Elliott was p r o u d that

a s u d d e n passion o f a d m i r a t i o n like s o m e o f its

the b u i l d i n g ' s b e a u t y r e s i d e d in its f e m i n i n e char-

[masculine] n e i g h b o r s , b u t it g r o w s u p o n us day

acter b u t also that its design h a d c o m e f r o m a

after day like a b e l o v e d face." 3 W i t h h e r c r e d e n -

n e w k i n d o f f e m a l e , the y o u n g , m o d e r n , a n d well-

tials as a p r o f e s s i o n a l writer a n d as the d a u g h -

educated woman.

ter o f the abolitionist a n d suffragist Julia W a r d

A s a post-Victorian, Elliott c o m m e n d e d

H o w e , Elliott f o c u s e d entirely o n t h e b u i l d i n g ' s

her

m o t h e r ' s g e n e r a t i o n f o r m a k i n g a structure like

delicacy a n d r e f i n e m e n t , qualities she f o u n d n o t

the W o m a n ' s B u i l d i n g possible, f o r

only in the Italianate style o f the b u i l d i n g b u t also

a n d p r o c u r i n g essential rights f o r w o m e n . S h e

in its p o p u l a r t e a r o o m s a n d places to rest. " O n e

w r o t e that these w o m e n a n d their activist sisters

o f the pleasantest features o f this b u i l d i n g is t h e

w e r e "the veterans w h o have b e e n w o u n d e d a n d

hospitality s u g g e s t e d t h r o u g h o u t ; t h e c o o l a n d

scarred with that cruelest w e a p o n o f r i d i c u l e " a n d

q u i e t a r c a d e s w h e r e t h e visitor m a y sit a n d l o o k

n o w "smile to see how easily we assume the posi-

o u t u p o n the v a r i e d scenes h o u r l y e n a c t e d in that

tion w h i c h they gave the glory o f their y o u t h to

c o r n e r o f t h e W o r l d ' s Fair: the roof-gardens, f r o m

win f o r us." 6 T h e struggles o f H o w e ' s g e n e r a t i o n

w h i c h a fine view may b e h a d o f the distant build-

m a d e it possible f o r H a y d e n , P a l m e r , a n d the

ings, with t h e s h i m m e r i n g lake b e y o n d . H e r e o n e

Lady M a n a g e r s to b e " s t r o n g - m i n d e d " yet retain

fighting

for

may d i n e c o m f o r t a b l y a n d well, o r e n j o y 'a dish o f

their femininity. W o m e n

tea a n d talk,' at the e n d o f the l o n g day o f w o r k

asserted, were the " a c k n o w l e d g e d e q u a l to m e n , "

a n d pleasure. O u r b u i l d i n g ' s h i g h e s t mission per-

b u t lest such a s t a t e m e n t b e t o o f o r t h r i g h t , she

h a p s will b e to s o o t h e , to rest, to r e f r e s h the g r e a t

a d d e d , "his true h e l p m a t e . " 7

today,

Elliott

finally

army o f sight-seers w h o m a r c h daily t h r o u g h the

W h e e l e r ' s a n d Elliott's u l t r a f e m i n i n e r h e t o r i c

Fair." 4 S h e d e s c r i b e d the b u i l d i n g m u c h like a

may seem surprising, c o m i n g as it d o e s f r o m two

n e w s p a p e r ' s social p a g e s m i g h t d e s c r i b e a lady

progressive w o m e n w h o w e r e active a n d success-

k n o w n f o r h e r e l e g a n c e a n d hospitality.

f u l professionally. T h e i r insistence o n d e s c r i b i n g

Lest this e m p h a s i s o n the " f e m i n i n e " b e mis-

their b u i l d i n g ' s femininity c o m e s across as d e f e n -

u n d e r s t o o d , Elliott m a d e clear that h e r defini-

s i v e — a s if they anticipated those w h o m i g h t

tion o f f e m i n i n i t y was not the o l d - f a s h i o n e d Vic-

the b u i l d i n g t o o m a s c u l i n e or, conversely, w h o

torian o n e that p l a c e d w o m e n o n a pedestal a n d

w o u l d i n t e r p r e t its f e m i n i n i t y as weakness. T h e

m a d e t h e m b e h o l d e n to m e n . In the o l d days,

art historian a n d feminist N o r m a B r o u d e sees this

she e x p l a i n e d , an artist like Rosa B o n h e u r h a d

f e m i n i z e d writing as w a l k i n g "a fine line, o n e that

to h i d e h e r f e m i n i n i t y to b e taken seriously. " T h e

r e s p e c t a b l e w o m e n o f [their] class . . . still h a d

h i g h e s t praise that c o u l d be given any w o m a n ' s

to n e g o t i a t e . " It reveals "an i m p o r t a n t a n d wide-

[169]

find

THE

C R I T I C I S M

spread pattern or resistance on the one hand and

retain ladylike dress, manners, rhetoric, and life-

simultaneous complicity on the other, a pattern

styles while being publicly active and not appear-

typical of many Euro-American women artists and

ing to be making a radical break with their social

intellectuals who achieved fairly notable positions

class. Day to day they enacted the separatist ide-

during the nineteenth century." 8 When she wrote

ology that underpinned the Woman's Building

this, Broude had in mind Mary Cassatt, another

while being accomplished leaders, writers, artists,

woman at the Fair who insisted on her work's

and teachers in civic life. They sought a form of

femininity. Cassatt had written to Palmer that her

success compatible with their sex, not one in spite

mural conveyed "the sweetness of childhood, the

of it. In dealing with their new successes by walk-

charm of womanhood." As if catching a possible

ing Broude's "fine line," urging w o m e n to move

ambiguity or fearing she might have crossed the

into activities outside the h o m e without losing

fine line separating femininity from aggressive

their gentility, they made female professionalism

feminism, Cassatt then distilled her position to

and activism acceptable to many American men

its essence: "In one word if I have not been abso-

and women in the middle and upper classes.

lutely feminine, then I have failed," making clear

Men, too, applied a standard of femininity

her commitment to the era's prevailing ideology

to the architecture of the Woman's Building. A

of sexual difference but also her desire that her

critic writing for the American Architect and Build-

fame be credited to her femininity and not, like

ing News considered the Woman's Building "by

Rosa Bonheur, an ability to paint like a man. 9

Miss Hayden, rightly effeminate in its archi-

Cassatt,

Wheeler,

Elliott,

and

Palmer

tecture." 10 For many men, however, the words

all

wanted the same thing. They wanted to expand

effeminate and feminine

the meanings of "feminine" and to make

a November 1892 issue of the American Architect

it

connoted weakness. In

embrace the clubwoman, artist, and writer, not

and Building News, an anonymous critic j u d g e d

just the daughter, wife, and mother. They wanted

Sophie Hayden's feminine design (as yet unbuilt)

their sex to have more options without having to

to be naive. ' T h e Woman's Building is . . . just

give u p their feminine refinement and sophis-

the sort of result that would have been achieved

tication. T h e need these strong w o m e n felt to

by either boy or girl who had had two or three

promote their femininity at the same time that

years' training in an architectural school," he pro-

they pursued new freedoms was largely gener-

claimed, "and its thinness and poverty of con-

ational and class bound. It was neither fully Vic-

structive expression declares it to be the work of

torian nor Progressive but rather a transitional

one who had never seen his or her 'picture' trans-

stage for upper-class women who were trying to

lated into substance." But given that the build-

sort out how to be reformers and activists without

ing was by a woman, he seemed to say, what else

fundamentally changing their lifestyles. Theirs

could one expect? "As a woman's work it 'goes,'

was what we've been calling the post-Victorian

of course; fortunately it . . . does not make a dis-

stance. Talking about their femininity positively

cordant note; it is simply weak and common-

and being proud of it while also performing suc-

place." T h e n , slinging one last stone, he com-

cessfully in the public sphere was an enabling

pared the building to a chicken shed: "Upon the

position for women of means. It allowed them to

right hand lies the Woman's Building, crowned

[170]

THE

C R I T I C I S M

with its roof-garden, styled in the apt slang of

tunity to respond to one such critic. Given the

the hour the ' h e n - c o o p ' — f o r petticoated hens,

ardor of the unsigned piece, it may have been

old and young." 11 In his lexicon "woman's work"

written by a woman. Whoever wrote it was furious

meant amateurish, and he made no effort to wel-

with those "cynical e n o u g h to say that the Wom-

come women into the male profession of archi-

an's Building and all of its varied exhibits sim-

tecture.

ply serve to demonstrate the superiority of man."

T h e Woman's Building met with e n o u g h dis-

Had they actually visited the exhibition hall, the

missive criticism that men sympathetic to wom-

writer asked, or were their minds so made up

an's struggles rose up in defense. Hubert Howe

that they could not see the evidence in front of

the

them? T h e critic then complimented the exhibits

Fair gives a detailed account of every build-

for expanding woman's contributions to society

Bancroft, whose multivolume

account of

ing, responded forcefully to male critics who

beyond h o m e and hearth; they showed "marvel-

damned the building as an amateur "hen-coop."

ous evidences of woman's fitness for something

Publishing after the Fair had closed, Bancroft

more than administer[ing] to man's not always

described the architect of the Woman's Build-

unselfish wants." A n d then, much like Wheeler,

ing, Sophia Hayden, as "far above amateur rank"

Elliott, Cassatt, and Palmer, the writer turned to

and praised her femininity for giving the build-

ultrafeminine language to assure readers that this

ing strength. For him, as for Wheeler and Elliott,

building did not attack men but stayed within the

feminine meant delicacy and refinement. Bancroft

female sphere, expressing what it meant to be a

quoted a convoluted j u d g m e n t from an u n n a m e d

modern woman; this writer, too, walked Broude's

"brother architect" who maintained that a woman

fine line. "This temple of feminine intelligence

architect would properly endow her design with

and handicraft" is not suffused with the unpleas-

female characteristics: "It is eminently

proper

ant "atmosphere of equal suffrage and of wom-

that the exposition of woman's work should be

an's right to invade the domain of man, but the

housed in a building in which a certain delicacy

sublimely soft and soothing atmosphere of wom-

and elegance of general treatment, a smaller

anliness—of the efforts of woman directed with

limit of dimension, a finer scale of details, and a

unanimous particularity to the development in

certain quality of sentiment, which might be des-

woman's distinctive field." T h e critic then drew a

ignated in no derogatory sense as graceful timid-

vivid picture of the sexual differences in male and

ity or gentleness, combined, however, with evi-

female exhibition halls. "Where in the Manufac-

dent technical knowledge, at once differentiate

tures and Liberal Arts the achievements of men

it from its colossal neighbors, and reveal the sex

in iron, steel, wood, and the baser and cruder

of its author." 12 Feminine was delicate and gentle,

products are displayed, in the Woman's Build-

masculine was supersized and assertive.

ing one can note the distinct line of demarca-

Those who commented on the exhibitions of

tion in the feminine success in the more delicate

objects and handiwork in the Woman's Build-

and finer products of the loom, the needle, the

ing similarly j u d g e d them, often disparagingly,

brush, and all the more refined avenues of effort

through the lens of femininity. T h e New York

which culminate in the home, the hospital, the

Times gave an anonymous reviewer the oppor-

church, and in personal adornment and beau-

[171]

T H E

C R I T I C I S M

tification." In this litany of skills and spaces, the

manship were also important. Given that view-

writer expanded the female sphere to include the

ers had to look up at figures high on a wall or

art studio, the hospital, and the church. 1 3

a pediment, were the figures large e n o u g h to be

Criticism of the sculptural and mural decora-

read easily? Were they foreshortened convinc-

tions in the Woman's Building similarly focused

ingly? Were the figures in convincing perspec-

on gender differences. Most critics had pleasant

tive to the space they occupied? A n d very impor-

e n o u g h things to say about Rideout's allegorical

tant, did decorations by different artists in the

sculptures and did little more than describe their

same public space complement one another in

content: woman's work depicted in the pediment

scale, color, and other qualities? 14 After a host of

and woman's sacrifice and search for enlighten-

such aesthetic questions, the reviewer might also

ment in the cornice sculptures. But the criticism

c o m m e n t u p o n the appropriateness of the art-

of the murals in the interior of the building, espe-

ist's visual language: was it allegorical, historical,

cially the tympana by MacMonnies and Cassatt,

realist, or in the style of Puvis de Chavannes? In

became bitter and contentious. No other painted

the United States, realist styles, whether histori-

decorations at the Fair drew such fire. In style

cal or allegorical, had not yet made much head-

and scale, the two murals were d e e m e d aesthet-

way in the fledgling public art movement and

ically incompatible. T h e critics registered their

were especially suspect at the Fair, eliciting crit-

opinions using a yardstick of femininity. They

icism for being unrefined and lacking grand

thought MacMonnies's mural appropriately fe-

ideas. O n e account said that "idealists," mean-

male but castigated Cassatt's for not being femi-

ing allegorists, considered John Boyle's realism "prosaic," too descriptive and not lofty e n o u g h in

nine enough.

idea. 15 In 1893, Americans wanted their nation's i

A E S T H E T I C C R I T E R I A |f

artists to show off their academic learnedness,

T h e prevailing protocol for j u d g i n g public art

although within a few years that insecurity would

in the 1890s was how well (or conversely, how

fade as artists and critics made the case for his-

poorly) works related to the architecture and

torical realism in mural paintings, particularly in

other decorations, the ideal being that all the arts

new state capitol buildings. Indeed, within a few

be in unison. Art critics like Royal Cortissoz and

years, some artists and critics derided allegory as

artists like Frank D. Millet most often used words

an imported French visual language and called

like unity and harmony to describe this interde-

for the invention of an American one. 16

pendence, signifying that the art supported and

Ironically, given the considerable thought that

enhanced the architecture rather than compet-

artists put into choosing subjects and composing

ing with it. If decorations called undue attention

figures for their decorations that would tell sto-

to themselves, if they failed to blend in or harmo-

ries and spell out inspirational messages, critics

nize with the building's colors and forms, they

said less about the themes and narratives of these

were marked down. If the colors were too bright

murals than about the formal elements of style.

and poked a visual "hole" in the wall, thereby

So even a mural like Primitive 'Women that was crit-

breaking the unity of the building, that, too, was

ical of the harsh conditions women had suffered

held against the work. Issues of scale and drafts-

in the past appealed to critics because they liked

172

THE

C R I T I C I S M

its soft colors and stylized forms. Conversely, crit-

could they see their work from the ground. Some

ics who were offended by Cassatt's colors and

had the scaffolds put up again so that they could

sparse compositions rarely bothered to consider

make corrections. Overall, the effects pleased the

her original iconography to represent the joys of

critics. 19

modern girlhood. Indeed, it never occurred to

A similar consultation lent unity of scale and

some critics that the garden scene in the center

color to the four tympana—two each by Gari

represented a modern Garden of Eden, and they

Melchers and Walter MacEwen—in the Manufac-

ridiculed the idea of women in modern dress

tures and Liberal Arts Building. In this case, the

laboring as apple

pickers! 17

two artists worked side by side in a large atelier,

In general, critics thought that the male deco-

painting forty-foot-long canvases that were later

rators at the Fair successfully met the challenges

affixed to the walls of the pavilion. T h e two art-

of working in large scale and creating designs that

ists clearly conferred, using the same scale for

enhanced the structures their works adorned.

their figures and drawing u p o n Puvis de Cha-

Writers paid considerable attention to the eight

vannes for their figure types, colors, and composi-

men who painted the pendentives of the domes

tion. Melchers fashioned the Arts of War and Arts

in the Manufactures and Liberal Arts Building,

of Peace, and MacEwen dedicated his two tympana

twenty-five feet across and fifty-five feet above the

to the arts (see figs. 44 and 45)

20

ground. Most of these men, we remember, were

Critics also praised the unities within the frieze

greenhorns at working in such large scale, and

created by ten Chicago women for the Recep-

critics were interested in how the eight of them

tion Room in the Illinois State Building (see fig.

managed to make a set of domes that aestheti-

104). All of the women belonged to the Palette

cally worked well with one another. T h e director

Club of Chicago, and one of them, Ida J. Burgess,

of decorations, Frank D. Millet, let them choose

established the guidelines for the scale, color,

any style and subject they wished, yet through a

and classicizing style the artists would use. She

consultative process, the artists came u p with a

also assigned the artists their themes, which, like

general formula that unified their designs, each

the murals about modern women in the Wom-

choosing four allegorical figures, one for each

an's Building and the Pennsylvania State Build-

corner of his dome. Tacking up what in effect

ing, emphasized young women practicing the

were paper dolls of different sizes in a dome, the

arts.21 Although ten pairs of hands contributed

artists made a collective decision that their figures

to the frieze, the composition flowed seamlessly

should all be more or less ten feet tall so as to be

from panel to panel, creating the unity of form

easily read by visitors standing below. 18 In execut-

and harmony of color that critics found pleas-

ing their designs, they then worked alongside one

ing. "While there is an individuality about each of

another in temporary studios in the Horticulture

these panels," wrote one of them, "there is also a

Building, sharing models and assistants. For the

harmony of colors in them all, the artists working

next step, they moved into the Manufactures and

together in a most commendable manner to pro-

Liberal Arts Building, climbed onto high scaffold-

duce the desired effect." 22

ings and ladders, and painted the domes in true

T h e unity of the Illinois frieze highlighted

fresco. Only when the scaffolding came down

some of the failures of the murals in the Wom-

[ 1 7 3

J

THE

C R I T I C I S M

an's Building. W h e n one of Palmer's friends,

of which she has painted pictures which, from

Mary Logan, wanted to convey her

"humilia-

her previous work, must be j u d g e d to be of excel-

tion" and "disappointment" with the mural dec-

lent quality, but which, from the height at which

orations in the Woman's Building, she referred

they were seen and by reason of the small scale of

to the Illinois frieze as a model. Compared to its

the figures are virtually lost."24

gentle flow, the tympana in the Hall of H o n o r

The

two

muralists'

different palettes

also

by MacMonnies and Cassatt were "almost carica-

became a major issue for the critics. Everyone

ture," she claimed. 23 Like other commentators,

liked the colors in MacMonnies's mural because

Logan faulted the two artists for the lack of unity

they were aesthetically comfortable to the eye

in their designs, their failure to harmonize their

and did not call attention to themselves. Whee-

pieces with the building, and what she took to be

ler's color scheme for the Hall of H o n o r was ivory

the crudeness of the works.

with gold trim, and MacMonnies's colors, it was remarked, were akin to the ones Puvis used and

T h e central thrust of the critical commentary was the irreconcilable differences between Mac-

harmonized well with the off-white interior. From

Monnies's and Cassatt's murals and how the lat-

what we can see in the one surviving study for the

ter's was not symbiotic with the building (see

mural, MacMonnies created a continuous run of

figs. 73 and 74). T i m e and again, MacMonnies's

trees, water, and hills in deep blues and then in

mural was declared the superior work because it

the front plane of figures used softer pinks, reds,

fulfilled the aesthetic requirements critics used in

and blues (plate 5). T h e critic Lucy Monroe, in

making judgments. She had unified her composi-

her review of Primitive Woman, spoke of the influ-

tion over the full acreage of canvas allotted to her

ence of Puvis de Chavannes but observed sensi-

and executed her mural using a soft palette. Crit-

tively that there were differences: the MacMon-

ics also could read MacMonnies's eight- to nine-

nies canvas "is more crowded than his" and has

foot-tall figures high up on the wall, whereas Cas-

more "variety of color." Rather than seeing Mac-

satt's were hard to read because they were less

Monnies's critique of woman's past,

than life-size. They also j u d g e d the differences

described the subject matter as if it, too, were

in the ways the two muralists composed their fig-

Puvian, calling it "picturesque" with "graceful

Monroe

ures. Critics complimented MacMonnies for fill-

sowers," with women carrying jars in "a swinging,

ing her canvas with female bodies sweeping with-

graceful processional." 25 Primitive Woman was so

out break in a coherent frieze but faulted Cassatt

identified with Puvis de Chavannes' admired pas-

for breaking her composition into three discrete

torals that no one called attention to the differ-

scenes, surrounding each with a one-meter-high

ences between his relaxed and objectified w o m e n

decorative border while leaving spaces around

and her hardworking, more productive figures.

the figures and between the three vignettes. T h e

W h e n the critics looked at the Cassatt mural,

painter Will H. Low voiced the dominant critical

however, all they could see were the intense blues

j u d g m e n t simply and plainly. "Mrs. MacMonnies

and greens of the background and the pinks and

here leads the van with a composition sober in

purples of the dresses punching a gaping visual

line and excellent in color," he wrote. "Miss Cas-

hole in the ivory wall. T h e one color reproduc-

satt, having apparently defied the laws of decora-

tion we have of Cassatt's mural, a portion of the

tion, has divided the space in three parts, in each

orchard section, shows that she bled the greens

[174]

THE

C R I T I C I S M

of the grass into the greens of the trees to form a

attempt to defend it from its critics. Nor did Elliott,

continuous field of color (plate 6). She then laid

who had very good things to say in the guidebook

in the figures, giving them strong silhouettes and

about MacMonnies's mural but nothing much

making their dresses into boldly stated patterns

about Cassatt's. She found Primitive Woman to be

(see fig. 98). Cassatt's substantial borders were

o f "a high order; it shows a true decorative sense,

described as deeply colored, jewel-like, and ani-

a sure hand, and a fresh, joyous imagination."

mated by lively patterns but were also faulted for

T h e MacMonnies tympanum, she added, brought

taking u p too m u c h of the mural's acreage.

"honor" to the building. But when she got to Cassatt's mural, she said blandly that it presented

T h e r e was universal agreement that the murals by MacMonnies and Cassatt were not unified sty-

the artist's "conception of Modern W o m e n " and

listically. Even before the works were finished,

described its three scenes without c o m m e n t other

Palmer and Hallowell had concluded the works

than finding the border "very charming" and the

would not be as companionable as they had

children "quite beautifully painted." 28

hoped. Belatedly, Palmer urged the two artists to

Other commentators, many w o m e n

among

adjust their designs, but they were too far into the

them, did not hold back and attacked Cassatt

process to make changes. Such interventions may

directly. They fused aesthetic j u d g m e n t s with

have prompted Cassatt to tone down some of her

condemnation of Cassatt's perceived unladylike

heavily garlanded borders, making the division

character. Ellen Henrotin, for instance, while

between her three scenes a bit less pronounced.

considering the MacMonnies mural

O n e can see differences between the photograph

in tone and dignified in treatment," called the

published in the h a n d b o o k — t a k e n before the

mural by Cassatt "cynical," describing it as the

"reverent

mural left F r a n c e — a n d the photographs of the

"one note of discord in the harmony of color"

tympanum in place (figs. 87 and 1 2 1 ) . But what-

of the decorations. 29 An unnamed reporter told

ever changes Cassatt made did little to lessen crit-

readers that when they went to the Woman's

ics' complaints about the mural's "unduly con-

Building "to scoff at Mrs. [sic] Cassatt's libel on

spicuous" garishness. 26 Teresa Dean worded her

'Modern W o m a n , ' " they should stay to admire

criticism as gently as possible. "Miss Cassatte [sic]

the "satisfying" mural painting by A m a n d a Sewell

went into the country out of doors and built a

(see fig. 75). 30 Another critic, Florence Fenwick

glass studio. She posed her models on nature's

Miller, suggested that while the other female dec-

green grass and took skies of sunny France for

orators had volunteered their talents and were

her blues. She did not surround herself with del-

moved "by the great idea of doing something to

icate white and gold and discover the necessity of

raise their sex," Cassatt had filled her decoration

toning down nature a bit."27

with "sarcasm" and the subjects she chose proved

People had different ways of registering their

her "a joker." She had been paid for her "gar-

unhappiness with Cassatt's mural. Some, like Ber-

ish and primitive" mural and painted an insult-

tha Palmer and Maud Elliott, took the high road

ing picture, Miller charged, '"taking a rise' out

and gave n o critical opinion. After the mural was

of the enthusiastic ladies who have employed

commissioned but before it was installed, Palmer

her." 31 Others also found Cassatt's mural aggres-

praised it in letters and reports, but thereafter

sive and unladylike, especially when compared

she mentioned it without comment. She made no

to its mate. MacMonnies addressed "the eye in

[175]

THE

121

C R I T I C I S M

Mary Cassatt, Modern Woman, 1892-93. Tympanum, oil on canvas, 14 x 58 ft. Photograph of the mural before final changes.

a gentle and insinuating fashion," Henry B. Ful-

for recognition here if they do serious work." A n d

ler wrote in the Chicago Record, and had a tone

then, complimenting Bertha Palmer's devotion

that was "light and silvery." Cassatt "assaults" the

in fighting for women in America, she continued,

eye. Invoking the era's coded rhetoric for uppity

"I suppose it is Mrs. Palmer's French blood which

women, he continued, "The impudent greens and

gives her organizing powers and her determina-

brutal blues of Miss Cassatt seem to indicate an

tion that women should be someone and not some-

aggressive personality with which compromise and

thing."^ She resented the ways in which the Amer-

cooperation would be impossible" (italics mine).

ican press slandered not only her art but also her

As if to underline Cassatt's lack of femininity, he

femininity.

explained to his readership that she "has a repu-

Taking the long view of history, and putting

tation for being strong and daring." Finally, Ful-

ourselves back in 1893 America, we can agree

ler offered unassailable proof for the readers of

that Cassatt did not paint a successful decora-

the time that she had violated the era's rigid sex-

tion. T h e critics who faulted the small scale of

ual boundaries: "she works with the men in Paris

her figures were right; viewers could barely read

on their own ground." 32

what was going on in her mural from the floor

Not surprisingly, Cassatt, who had sympathy

of the Hall of Honor, especially the scenes to the

for the Woman's Building project and admiration

left and right of the garden of knowledge. H a d

for Bertha Palmer, was stung by such criticism

Cassatt and MacMonnies conferred, they surely

and, perhaps because of this, she never came to

could have come to some agreement about the

Chicago to see her mural in situ. U p o n hearing

scale of their figures and the size of their bor-

of her mural's negative reception, she lashed out,

ders. Here Cassatt may have paid a price for her

making some of the strongest statements she ever

well-known independence, because she made n o

made on behalf of women. "Give me France," she

effort as the more senior artist to seek out Mac-

told Sara Hallowell. "Women do not have to fight

Monnies, who was working in Paris, not very far

[176]

THE

C R I T I C I S M

n o t ready f o r a p u b l i c m u r a l that d e c l a r e d its

away. B e r t h a P a l m e r , too, d r o p p e d the ball by n o t assigning h e r s e l f o r s o m e o n e else to c o o r d i n a t e

a u t o n o m y f r o m its s u r r o u n d i n g s , the decorative

s o m e basic principles f o r t h e six murals in t h e

qualities o f Cassatt's m u r a l w e r e in line with o n e s

Hall o f H o n o r .

p a i n t e d by the Nabis in Paris, a n d in their intense

Even so, Cassatt p a i n t e d the m o s t d a r i n g a n d

colors, they a n t i c i p a t e d the m o d e r n wall paint-

i n t e l l i g e n t d e c o r a t i o n in the W o m a n ' s B u i l d i n g

ings s o o n to c o m e f r o m artists like H e n r i Matisse.

a n d o n e o f the best at the Fair. H e r i c o n o g r a -

Matisse w o u l d deliberately create brightly c o l o r e d

p h y p u s h e d t h e b o u n d a r i e s o f the possible. S h e

murals to call attention to themselves a n d enliven

a d d r e s s e d the same t h e m e s that o t h e r f e m a l e art-

p u b l i c spaces. Cassatt p i o n e e r e d in c r e a t i n g a

ists d i d — w o m e n in the arts a n d in h i g h e r edu-

m o d e r n d e c o r a t i o n that b r o k e decisively with the

c a t i o n — b u t c a m e u p with m o r e original ways to

Beaux-Arts aesthetic that a s s u m e d murals m u s t

narrate t h e m , m a k i n g h e r signature realist style

b e in q u i e t h a r m o n y with their

a n d plein-air scenes c o n v e y larger ideas.

surroundings.

Her

S h e u s e d intense c o l o r s a n d simplified c o m p o -

e f f o r t to invent a realist allegory o f w o m e n chas-

sitions to give pleasure to the eye, c o n c e p t u a l i z -

i n g after F a m e , t h o u g h it failed as c o m m u n i c a -

i n g h e r large w o r k n o t as a destructive h o l e in t h e

tion, was a t h o u g h t f u l e x p e r i m e n t . S h e tried to

wall b u t as a richly c o l o r e d tapestry a n i m a t i n g t h e

f i n d a pictorial m e t a p h o r f o r a h u m a n d e s i r e —

surface. 3 4 O n l y o n e reviewer w r o t e

a m b i t i o n — t h a t she k n e w firsthand. T h e f a c t that

a b o u t Cassatt's m o d e r n i s t turn. L u c y

a m b i t i o n was n o t an a c c e p t a b l e f e m a l e virtue in

writing f o r t h e

n i n e t e e n t h - c e n t u r y A m e r i c a m a d e h e r task all

tive qualities Cassatt a c h i e v e d by m a k i n g " b r i g h t

t h e m o r e d i f f i c u l t to c o n c e p t u a l i z e a n d d a r i n g to

grass g r e e n " the "prevailing t o n e " a n d by a d d i n g

Critic,

underlined

perceptively the

Monroe, decora-

"notes o f dull r e d " a n d "many gay a n d sunny col-

attempt. Cassatt's style was as a d v e n t u r e s o m e a n d pre-

ors" to the c o s t u m e s o f the w o m e n in h e r m u r a l .

scient as h e r subject. T h o u g h h e r a u d i e n c e was

Cassatt's canvas, she o b s e r v e d , "is c o n c e i v e d dec-

[177]

HIM

12 2

Mary MacMonnies, Primitive Woman, on display at the Art Institute of Chicago, 1 9 1 1 .

oratively and painted flatly without shadows. T h e

from the conventions of aesthetic harmony, she

space is admirably filled, simply and naturally;

raised her painterly voice, so to speak, pushing

but it is in the coloring after all that this impres-

herself and her mural into visitors' awareness

sionist has shown herself a true decorator." 35

and eliciting charges from the press that she was

In the forceful style of her mural, Cassatt acted

cynical, sarcastic, and aggressive. From today's

out her new w o m a n h o o d and profoundly chal-

perspective, we can see that Cassatt was not just

lenged the boundaries of acceptable behavior for

walking a "fine line" but was leaning toward the

women of her social class. What rankled the crit-

subversive and transgressive. With hindsight, we

ics was how she told her stories. Painting a deco-

can say that her style, in the context of the Wom-

ration in strong colors that did not melt into the

an's Building and its mission, celebrated female

fabric of the building, Cassatt was not only rewrit-

verve and independence of mind as part of wom-

ing the rules of decoration but performing new

an's progress story. Her ode to the joys of woman-

definitions of the feminine; she was breaking

h o o d expanded the norms for orthodox female

the rules. In personally declaring independence

behavior.

[178]

ART AND HANOICRAF IN THE

Madeleine Lemaire, frontispiece, Art and Handicraft in the Woman's Building, 1 8 9 3 . g'/2 x 6V2 in.

2

Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, Inter Artes et Naturam (small version of the mural), i 8 8 g . Oil on canvas, 1 5 % x 44 3 A in.

3

Lucia Fairchild, The Women of Plymouth (or Puritan Settlers), 1 8 9 3 . Oil on canvas, 12 x 1 1 ft.

4

Frederick S. Church, Knowledge Is Power, 1889. Oil on canvas, 1 9 % x 3 5 % in.

5

Mary MacMonnies, study for Primitive Woman, c. i8g2. Oil on canvas.

6

Mary Cassatt, Modem Woman, detail, 1 8 9 3 . Published in color in William Walton, World's Columbian Exposition 1893: Art and Architecture, 1 8 9 3 .

7

Anders Leonard Zorn, Mrs. Potter Palmer, 1 8 9 3 . Oil on canvas, 1 0 5 x 5 5 in.

8

Emil Bisttram, Contemporary Justice and "Woman, 1 9 3 7 . Mural, oil on canvas. Constitution Avenue lobby, Department of Justice, Washington, D.C.

T H E

F A T E

O F

T H E

M U R A L

D E C O R A T I O N S

The Woman's Building engendered so much enthusiasm that, by the Fair's end, Bertha Palmer and other female organizers spoke seriously of erecting a permanent woman's memorial building and museum in downtown Chicago. With these plans in mind, the Board of Lady Managers preserved many of the treasures within the Woman's Building, including its mural decorations. In the winter of 189394, the exhibits were dismanded and the structure and its ornamental sculpture were demolished. The six murals adorning the Hall of Honor came down from the walls and were rolled and stored for safekeeping. Not until the centennial of the exposition approached in 1993 did scholars begin to look diligently for them, uncovering concrete leads. Carolyn Kinder Carr and Sally Webster discovered a trail of correspondence about the two tympana by Cassatt and MacMonnies, including the murals' whereabouts, into the early twentieth century. Charlene Garfinkle successfully located one of the sidewall murals, Lucia Fairchild's Women of Plymouth—the only Woman's Building mural known to exist today. The following account of the fate of the murals after the Fair is wholly indebted to the efforts and findings of these modern scholars. Once the Fair had closed, Palmer wished to "make sure that [the murals] were saved from the wrecker," as she wrote to Harlow Higinbotham, president of the Board of the Exposition, in December 1893, about the Cassatt and MacMonnies decorations: 'They are very enormous in size, and it is doubtful that they can ever be used anywhere, but I think they are about worth the cost of salvage, and I am willing to take them down and store them just to preserve them" (Carr and Webster, "Mary Cassatt and Mary Fairchild MacMonnies," 60). Palmer's appeal proved effective, and the World's Columbian Commission, the official owner of the two tympana murals, donated them to the proposed memorial building. In addition, the Board of Lady Managers purchased Rosina Emmet Sherwood's The Republic's Welcome to Her Daughters and Lydia Field Emmet's Art, Science, and Literature direcdy from the artists for five hundred dollars each, the cost of expenses, in December 1893. These paintings, along with other donations for the new building, were first stored at the Palace of Fine Arts, the only large structure slated for preservation and later rebuilt with permanent materials (becoming the first home of the Columbian Museum, later the Field Museum, and today home to the Museum of Science and Industry). The Board of Lady Managers later transferred some of the donations to the Art Institute of Chicago, but most of them went to a nearby facility, the Sibley Storage Warehouse. Raising the necessary funds to secure a permanent woman's museum proved exceedingly difficult, particularly during the depression years of the mid-i 890s, and a tired and frustrated Palmer lost momentum for the project by the end of 1894. Sadly, the building was never erected. By 1895 MacMonnies's Primitive Woman was still in storage at the Art Institute of Chicago and Cassatt's Modern Woman had come into Palmer's personal possession. Subsequendy, MacMonnies exhibited her painting at two venues, first in Paris at the 1906 Salon of the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts and then in the spring of 1911 at the City Art Museum of Saint Louis (today the Saint Louis Art Museum). Recendy remarried, MacMonnies—now Mary Low—displayed works at the St. Louis exhibition alongside those of

[1791

muralists Will Low, her new husband, and Edwin Blashfield. At the request of William French, the director of the Art Institute of Chicago, Mary Low's mural returned to its native city, installed on a temporary basis in the north corridor of the museum's central stairway beginning in July 1911 (fig. 122). With renewed interest, Bertha Palmer contacted the Art Institute in 1911 about the possibility of also hanging Cassatt's mural in the museum. French dispatched a conservator to examine the canvas at Palmer's home. Suffering from water damage and in need of repair, Cassatt's mural did not go on view at the Art Institute in 1911 or 1912. French pursued an alternative solution in November 1912, asking representatives at the University of Illinois at Champaign and at the University of Notre Dame if either institution would accept both Modern Woman and Primitive Woman as gifts and permanently install them in a campus hall. This route had been pursued for eight murals saved from the Manufactures and Liberal Arts Building. (Four of those murals are known to survive. Two by Gari Melchers are on display in the reference room of the Harlan Hatcher Graduate Library at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. The other two murals, one by Walter MacEwen and one by Lawrence Earle, remain in storage at Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois.) Unfortunately, French's efforts to secure a permanent location did not succeed, and the whereabouts of the murals by Cassatt and MacMonnies after 1912 remain a mystery. Further, the Sibley Warehouse is the last known location of the Sherwood and Emmet murals; both canvases were included in a September 1895 inventory report. In the months following the Fair, Palmer also tried to secure the two remaining side murals for the memorial building: Amanda Brewster Sewell's Arcadia and Lucia Fairchild's Women of Plymouth. The mural by Sewell was likely returned to her sometime after the exposition closed; records of the canvas do not appear in the Board's storage inventories. Both Bertha Palmer and Candace Wheeler corresponded with Sewell in October 1894 about the possibility of purchasing her painting, yet the result of these efforts remains unknown. No evidence of such a purchase has been uncovered in the papers of the Board of Lady Managers, and the location of Sewell's mural is unknown. A more fortunate fate awaited Fairchild's Women of Plymouth (plate 3). Although efforts by Palmer and the Board to acquire the mural were unsuccessful, the canvas did find a permanent home. According to Wheeler, in June 1893, Fairchild seemed enthusiastic about donating her composition to the proposed building, indicating that her cost of materials had been a mere sixty dollars. Yet this transaction never occurred, and the mural was returned to Fairchild in New Hampshire after the Fair. In April 1900, her husband, Henry Fuller, loaned the mural to the local community center, the Blow-Me-Down Grange in Plainfield, New Hampshire. For more than one hundred years, Fairchild's composition has remained on display there, serving as the backdrop to the facility's stage. Thanks to Charlene Garfinkle and her research in the early 1990s, this "lost" mural has been recovered. Lowered from the heights of the Hall of Honor in the Woman's Building, Women of Plymouth hangs today at eye level, inviting its viewers to inspect its colors and forms, still bright and clear.

[180]

Jm- A. K. M.

THE

i

C R I T I C I S M

E P I L O G U E I'

tures, murals, and stained glass by women at the

T o bring this study to a close, let us look briefly

Fair elevated public awareness of the existence

at three images—each a public commission to

and competence of female decorators, this rec-

envision modern woman and each by a male art-

ognition was momentary, and only a few women

ist. O n e of t h e m — a portrait of Bertha Palmer

became accomplished muralists in the years after

by Anders Zorn—registers the complexity of the

the Fair. (Violet Oakley became the best-known

post-Victorian dilemma for middle- and upper-

female muralist in the United States.) 36 That each

class women who were moving into the pub-

of my final three images is by a man evidences the

lic arena as leaders and activists. T h e

frailty of woman's acclaimed emancipation and

second

image, Homage to Women, an 1892 ceiling paint-

liberation over a hundred years ago.

ing by Will Low, records his and other male art-

T h e first image is Anders Zorn's official por-

ists' resistance—or lack of initiative or imagina-

trait of Bertha Palmer as president of the Board

t i o n — t o formulating new pictorial identities for

of Lady Managers (fig. 123, also plate 7). Zorn

women at the time of the Fair. His painting rep-

(1860-1920)

resents the female consciousness at the turn of

ist and easel painter who was visiting Chicago at

the century but also the stranglehold of Victorian

the time of the Fair. He had come to know Amer-

definitions of femininity a m o n g those trained in

icans while living in Paris, including Sara Hallow-

the Beaux-Arts academic curriculum. T h e third, a

ell, who most likely led the Palmers to buy one of

mural painting by Emil Bisttram, is yet one more

his paintings, Little Brewery (1890), for their col-

progress narrative of woman's history, depicting

lection. Halsey Ives, who headed up the Fine Arts

women from primitive times to the modern era.

department at the Fair and wanted international

Although it was created in the 1930s, some forty

representation, had also come to know Zorn in

was a popular Swedish

portrait-

years after the Fair, the structure of its narrative is

Paris and appointed him to be Sweden's commis-

not all that different from those of 1893, except

sioner to the Palace of Fine Arts at the Exposi-

that it was painted by a man and depicts, along

tion. When in 1893 Zorn traveled to the United

with women in the arts and education, women

States for the first time and visited the Fair, Ber-

of the laboring and professional classes, includ-

tha Palmer engaged him to paint her official por-

ing the science fields that the decorators of 1893

trait. Her Board of Lady Managers had requested

could not articulate clearly. T h e 1930s revival of

the portrait, and some of them rightly objected

the progress theme signals that Americans con-

to Palmer's selection of a male painter. But her

tinued to perceive women as struggling to expand

choice won the day.37

their universe from the burdens of the past.

That Palmer engaged Zorn reveals her com-

What interests me about these three images

plex makeup and the post-Victorian dilemma. 38

is the ways they underscore the enduring artistic

She selected an artist she knew would, first and

conflicts about how to visualize women in the fine

foremost, produce a fashionable image. Zorn was

arts during an era of intense struggle over wom-

known for his brilliantly brushed portraits and

an's issues. Part of that struggle in 1893 was to

traveled comfortably in moneyed circles, first in

gain equal opportunity for female artists in the

New York City, where he visited for a few weeks

making of public decorations. T h o u g h the sculp-

before the Fair opened, and then in Chicago,

181]

disguising them so that Palmer w o u l d in n o way a p p e a r unladylike. Palmer, then forty-four, posed f o r the thirtythree-year-old Z o r n wearing what she had w o r n at the official o p e n i n g of the Exposition: a floorlength white g o w n with l o n g gloves and jewels. Z o r n painted h e r gown with his tour-de-force brushwork, s o f t e n i n g its e d g e s so that the dress seems to quiver. H e created gossamer

explo-

sions o f brushwork o n Palmer's right side, o n h e r shoulders, a n d at the lower right of the canvas. I n d e e d , the gown is so sketchily p r o d u c e d a l o n g the sitter's back that the viewer c a n n o t read its shape or character with any certainty. 40 T h e dress appears to have a rambling train, some o f it d r a p e d over Palmer's right arm and some o f it cascading down h e r back into a pile o f cloth in the lower right corner. In h e r u p t u r n e d silvery gray hair, Palmer wears a d i a d e m whose white highlights suggest pearls, like those in h e r necklace. Overall, Palmer c o m e s across as a soft vision in white, a regal or almost divine presence. H e r stance suggests that she has j u s t m a d e a g r a n d entrance, c o m i n g f r o m a l u m i n o u s space such as a courtyard or conservatory, into a dark p a n e l e d r o o m w h e r e works of art grace the back wall. 123

Anders Leonard Zorn, Mrs. Potter Palmer,

How, then, did Z o r n m a k e this q u e e n o f the

1893. Oil on canvas, 105 x 55 in.

ball into the administrative h e a d o f the W o m an's Building? H e h a d Palmer h o l d a pearly white gavel in h e r right h a n d , the instrument she h a d used to call the Lady Managers to o r d e r f o r sev-

w h e r e he spent time with local socialites includ-

eral years. Palmer holds the gavel casually, its tip

ing the Palmers. T h e r e was n o d o u b t b u t that

resting o n h e r shoulder as if it were a fan. It is

Z o r n w o u l d represent Palmer as a l e a d i n g

as weightless and glittering as a fairy's wand. T h e

figure

in C h i c a g o society. 39 But as the official portrait of

s e c o n d attribute

Palmer as president of the B o a r d of Lady Manag-

unidentifiable o b j e c t in h e r o t h e r h a n d — i s a

ers, the portrait also had to register h e r leader-

small gray-white orb. For centuries, portraits o f

ship at the Fair. Z o r n h a n d l e d this aspect o f his

powerful religious figures, e m p e r o r s , and royalty

assignment by including attributes o f power but

had shown t h e m h o l d i n g an o r b a n d a scepter as

[182]

Z o r n gave P a l m e r — a

round

T H E

C R I T I C I S M

symbols of their power, and Zorn adapted this

it will be better for women. She rang the evolu-

iconography to fit his commission, giving Palmer

tionary bell of progress but dared not prophesy:

a ladylike scepter (the gavel) and orb.

"We only feel impelled to follow inevitably the to late

highest law known to us—that of evolution and

nineteenth-century artistic definitions of wealthy

progress: that law by which every individual has

women as ethereal beauties who reigned over

the right to the fullest development and the exer-

their Gilded A g e mansions as hostesses. T h e n , as

cise of the highest power to which he or she can

if adding more jewelry to the portrait, he folded

attain." 41 Palmer left the door o p e n — t o suffrage,

in her attributes of power. T h a t her gavel and orb

to professionalism, to science, to working moth-

matched the color of her satin shoes and white

ers—taking a conciliatory posture that typified

ball gown emphasized her fashion-consciousness

her middle-of-the-road politics and her adminis-

Zorn's queenly portrait conformed

more than her public persona as a statesman.

tration of the Woman's Building. Zorn's portrait,

This remarkable image e n c o d e d the transitional

too, was middle-of-the-road and conciliatory. His

space that women like Palmer occupied. They

brilliantly brushed portrait spoke to Palmer's cos-

were still ladies in the h o m e and society, but they

mopolitan taste, her upper-class wealth, her rep-

were also forward-looking leaders in the pub-

utation as Chicago's finest hostess—but n o t to

lic sphere who spoke out for the betterment of

her roles as wife and m o t h e r — a n d it added the

their sex. O n one foot, so to speak, Palmer wore

orb and gavel to index her inspired leadership in

a shiny satin pump, while on the other, she wore

bringing the Woman's Building to completion.

a boot well worn from her volunteer work. She

T h e second painting I want to consider was

had discovered her entrepreneurial talents while

unveiled in 1893 at a major charity ball pre-

launching the Woman's Building, a full-time proj-

sided over by Alva Vanderbilt, one of New York's

ect for her, and she had learned how to use her

great Gilded A g e hostesses. Painted in 1892, the

platform as president as a bully pulpit to advocate

large painting graced the ceiling of the Ladies'

the betterment of working women's living and

Reception Room of the new Waldorf Hotel on

working conditions. Palmer was a prototype for

Fifth Avenue and 34th Street in Manhattan (fig.

the female reformers who would emerge in the

124). Titled Homage to Woman, it was painted by

Progressive era.

the well-known and respected artist Will H. Low

Palmer sensed that major changes were com-

( 1 8 5 3 - 1 9 3 2 ) as one of several murals commis-

ing. She used her closing address at the Wom-

sioned for the hotel. Low, sympathetic to the

an's Building to encourage women to keep mov-

advancement of women, in 1909 married Mary

ing forward, to get out of the home and into the

MacMonnies, whose first marriage, to Frederick

world. "Each woman shut up in her household is

MacMonnies, had ended in divorce.

out of touch, in practical matters, with the rest of

In choosing to paint an homage to the fairer

her race," she said, as if she were describing her

sex, Low expressed his own "female conscious-

own experience in being released from the insu-

ness" at the end of the century. But by allegoriz-

larity of domesticity. W o m e n "lose m u c h from

ing and idealizing women in his large piece, he,

their isolation" in the home, she stated, but with-

like the male decorators at the Fair, fell into the

out being sure what the future holds except that

g e n d e r stereotypes of his academic vocabulary.

[183]

124

Will H. Low, Homage to Woman, 1893. Ceiling mural, Ladies' Reception Room, Waldorf-Astoria, New York.

T H E

C R I T I C I S M

Male artists tenaciously clung to the female form

leges, woman's buildings, woman's clubs, wom-

as an allegorical machine. T h o u g h we have only

an's movements, and debates about woman's

one black-and-white photograph of Low's mural

emancipation and new freedoms, Low perpetu-

and preliminary sketches, along with a descrip-

ated fine-arts images of timeless and unchanging

tion in Pauline Ring's 1902 book on American

femininity. This painting puts forth the kind of

mural painting, these sources tell us that both the

abstract, n o n m o d e r n imagery that women artists

mural's style and its iconography were ultrafemi-

at the Fair tried so valiantly to reengineer.

nine by late nineteenth-century standards.

O u r third mural takes us into the early twenti-

From King we learn that Low's composition

eth century and to another male artist who took

was in neorococo blues, pinks, mauves, and vio-

the modern woman as his theme. In the late

let, all colors associated with traditional feminin-

1930s, as part of a government relief program,

ity.42

T h e composition wrapped around the inside

Emil Bisttram ( 1 8 9 5 - 1 9 7 6 ) won a commission

edge of a large oval canvas with soft rosy clouds

to paint a mural for the new Department of Jus-

at the center. Three childlike putti at the bot-

tice building in Washington, D.C. He was one of

tom play with banners, registering the scene as a

three muralists chosen through a national com-

festive event. A ring of goddesses to the left, an

petition. Bisttram's preliminary design was for a

Apollonian man, and two maidens to the right

mural he called Woman Emancipated thru Justice. It

raise their arms and lyres in praise of Woman,

later became Contemporary Justice and Woman (fig.

who appears at the top of the oval. She is ideal-

125 and plate 8). T h o u g h he was not yet born at

ized, being nude with long strands of golden

the time of the Woman's Building, and proba-

hair, no doubt alluding to Botticelli's Venus that

bly would not have known of its decorations long

was much admired at the time. Like Venus, she

since forgotten, he nevertheless came up with the

stands on a seashell, born of the sea, and she is

same emancipatory story line and depicted many

accompanied by a cupid who holds colored reins

of the same female occupations we have traced in

and drives a flock of white doves that pull her del-

this book. He, too, painted a progress narrative,

icate shell chariot. Stars sparkle above this ethe-

one running from prehistorical to modern times.

real creature, and a thin slice of a new m o o n

He began his story along the bottom of the mural

hangs in the upper right. She is not only Venus,

with a frieze of primitive and traditional domes-

goddess of love, beauty, and fertility, but also

tic w o m e n mothering, washing, working in the

Aurora, goddess of dawn. Indeed, Low may well

fields,

cooking, and weaving. Native American

have been signaling that his woman was at the

women, always a touchstone for the primitive in

dawn of a new day, the phrase invoked so often at

Anglo-American culture, are among them. In the

the time. But with our historical perspective, what

center stands Man the Early Oppressor dressed in

comes through much more clearly is Low's reit-

a Stone A g e animal pelt, wielding a big stick over

eration of the shopworn Victorian clichés about

Enslaved Woman, nude to her waist, her arms

woman's beauty, goodness, and purity. In rais-

bound behind her and her head lowered in servi-

ing Woman above all the gods and goddesses, he

tude. This is W o m a n in the Dark Ages, or accord-

puts her on the very pedestal that so many of the

ing to the bottom line of the preliminary study

Woman's Building artists wanted to topple. In

for the mural, the era when 'Tradition, Fear &

1892, despite the proliferation of woman's col-

Ignorance Bound Woman."

[185]

125

Emil Bisttram, Contemporary Justice and Woman, 1937. Mural, oil on canvas. Constitution Avenue lobby, Department of Justice, Washington, D.C.

CONTEMPORARY JUSTICE A N D WOMAN

Bisttram gave over the center of the mural to

her. A female Justice has broken the girl's shack-

the theme of emancipation. A young woman,

les with her sword, banishing Evil, represented

dressed in virginal whites, her youthful hair down

by the old woman in semidarkness at the bottom

her back, ascends a staircase into the light of a

of the doorway. T h e man, in j u d g e ' s gown with

new day, the orb of light around her head both

a heavy law book under his arm, allegorizes the

her beacon and Christian halo. She is the newly

masculine power of the Law to free women.

Emancipated Girl/Woman, staring out into space

Eight small vignettes around the parable in the

and dreaming but now going into a new world,

mural's center represent modern woman's work.

her ascendancy made possible by the male and

Four show women working at the same mod-

female figures who, like parents, stand behind

ern activities pursued by the New Girl in 1893:

[186]

THE

C R I T I C I S M

Painter and Sculptor; Dancer, Musician, and Actress; Girl Students in the library; and Graduating Scholars in mortarboard and gown. The four other vignettes show women participating in activities that women of 18g3 could not yet envision: Athlete, Office Worker, Voter, and Scientist. As Bisttram's construction of women's history suggests, progress stories were back in circulation in the 1930s. The revival of the genre is too large a topic to tackle here, but we can use Bisttram's 1930s example to shed a few last rays of light upon the decorations of 1893. 43 His mural signals, for instance, that by the 1930s the lithe and idealized Beaux-Arts women that dominated the Fair and the ceiling of the Waldorf Hotel had finally lost their stranglehold on the public arts, but vestiges remained. The young woman going out into the light in Bisttram's mural and the female figure ofJustice are neoclassical types, but their heftier bodies and long hair make them less ethereal and otherwordly. Bisttram, like the ladies of 1893, constructed a concrete history for women, giving them in the bottom frieze a long past. Such pictorial historicizing, no matter how sketchy or incomplete, boldly challenged male stereotypes of the female body as timeless and universal. By giving woman a visual "herstory," and emphasizing her changing conditions from one era to the next, an artist like Bisttram put women "into the world and history," as Hélène Cixous demanded. Women began painting this story in 1893, and Bisttram continued their effort in the 1930s. The presence of four men in the mural of 1937 reminds us of their significant absence in the decorations of 1893. In the frieze at the lower edge of Bisttram's mural a Tarzan type rules by brute force in the Stone Age; in the center of the mural, another represents the Lawgiver who has helped to free women; a man with a beard hands out

diplomas to women graduates; and a fourth sits behind a desk at the voting place and gives women their ballots. That a male artist conceived of the project may explain some of the prominence men have in this mural. But it also reflects the fact that men and women had made strides in working together since 1893, especially in the final push to grant women suffrage that came in 1919, when an all-male Congress gave women the vote. By making a place for men in his murals, Bisttram encoded the cultural shift away from the separatist ethos that governed the Fair of 1893 and toward integration of the sexes. In the late nineteenth century, women got things done by working with one another—in their communities, their all-women's clubs and charities, their all-women colleges, and their building and state reception rooms in Chicago. Bisttram's mural honors that tradition of collectivity and sisterhood by having the men stand alone in each of their four appearances, outside a cluster of women working together: fifteen of them in the frieze of early cultures and two to three in the artist's studio, on the stage, and in the library, office, and science laboratory. On one hand, this imagery marked progress—female teams in modern jobs—but on the other hand, the men are the ones who have the important desk jobs and give out the diplomas. Women do not interact with men in Bisttram's mural so much as receive their help and support. Men no longer retard woman's climb up the stairs into the start of a new day, but she—not he—is still the one who has to make the journey.

[187]

From our vantage point today, progress cycles like Bisttram's and those at the 1893 Fair seem to come from a different planet. We no longer conceptualize history as a grand narrative, sweeping from the harshness of the Stone Age to the bless-

THE

C R I T I C I S M

ings of the present, and few o f us have m u c h cer-

compared modern freedoms to the

tainty that a better tomorrow is coming. Nor do

ing expectations that shaped their mothers and

constrict-

we any longer embrace a public art that ignores

grandmothers.) They also registered a modern

issues of class, race, and ethnicity.

female subjectivity—articulated in all those "Girls of H o p e " — a n d recorded their dreams of living

But we should not resign the upbeat progress

more satisfying lives in the future

stories we have been studying to the dustbin. They have m u c h to teach us about the ways the visual

W h e n a rare male artist like Bisttram came

arts contributed to the larger discourse about

along forty years after the Fair and retold the

woman's rights at the end of the nineteenth cen-

woman's progress story, this too teaches us a his-

tury and into the twentieth. Progress narratives

tory lesson. Bisttram represented the liberal male

provided a disenfranchised group a way to write,

voice that made it possible, finally, for American

draw, paint, and sculpt themselves into history.

women to gain suffrage. That the progress story

T h e templates for these cycles required women

he told in the 1930s had changed so little from

to conceptualize a past for their sex, define tri-

the ones told by w o m e n artists in the 1890s is also

umphs in the present, and project an even better

a stunning historical fact. N o t only was the Amer-

future. Such epic storytelling constructed women

ican girl still dreaming of a better future in Bist-

as a social group, a "race" with a long collective

tram's mural of 1937, as she was in 1893, but

history different from that of men. In so doing,

because women had few opportunities to make

it raised women's consciousness in the late nine-

public art, a male artist was the one to give her

teenth century, creating the identity of W o m a n —

a prominent place on the walls of the new U.S.

one-half o f the human r a c e — a n identity that sub-

Justice Building. In the 1890s, when women were

sumed that of spouse and mother. Indeed, in

commissioned for the public art in the Woman's

creating their progress cycles, women historicized

Building, the curtain came down on centuries o f

the era o f domesticity and linked it to patriarchy.

prohibition. But that breakthrough was momen-

They located the birth of male domination and

tary

the family in the Dark Ages and tracked patriar-

women were invited to participate in the mural

chy's long reign into their own century and their

movement that flourished in the United States in

and

impermanent.

Very

few

American

own lives. T o the women of the 1890s, the word

the years after the Fair. Indeed, another seventy

emancipation meant a release from the once life-

years would pass before women artists raised their

consuming burdens of domesticity and signaled

voices with regularity to demand access to the

the freedom to be educated and productive in

same spaces as men, whether the walls of muse-

the public sphere as well as the private one.

ums and city buildings or sculpture sites in parks

Progress cycles helped women see

beyond

or urban plazas. T h e 1893 Fair helped launch

the biological body that was understood in the

woman's quest for artistic parity and equal oppor-

wider culture to script their destiny. In construct-

tunity, but three-quarters of a century had to pass

ing the "progress" of their sex, they articulated a

before a new movement of feminist artists and

modern girl and a future woman different from

critics spoke out once again. This book was born

their mothers, grandmothers, and w o m e n

and nurtured in the heat of this much later sec-

of

the past. (Woman writers at the time commonly

ond wave o f feminism.

[188]

BIOGRAPHIES Women Associated with Creating the Woman's Building

Charlene G. Garfinkle T h e first notation in each biography describes what the woman contributed to the Woman's Building. If n o present-day location is given for the work, then it is lost or its whereabouts unknown. For some artists, n o portrait can be found. For fuller biographies and sources, see Charlene G. Garfinkle's "Women at Work." T h e women are listed alphabetically by the names they went by in 1893. If they later married, and that name is known to us, it is in brackets.

••^i» 4.

- 4 Ji. '

ABBEMA,

LOUISE

French: b. 1858, Etampes, Seine-et-Oise, France; d. 1927, Paris Preparatory studies for mural designs, west vestibule: The City of Paris Carrying to Chicago the Arts of Woman—Fiuctuat

Nec Mergitur and

America Receiving the Nations at the World's Exposition—E

Pluribus

Unum, commissioned by the Committee for the French Section of the Woman's Building.

Born to a wealthy family. Inspired by the success of Rosa Bonheur. Studied with Charles Chaplin, Jean-Jacques Henner, and Charles-Auguste-Emile Carolus-Duran. Close friend, probable lover, and official portraitist of actress Sarah Bernhardt. In 1876 exhibited her first painted portrait of Bernhardt at Paris Salon. Worked in a variety of media, including oils, watercolors, pastels, engravings, and medal design, creating portraits, flower pieces, and salon paintings. Painted murals for Bernhardt's Rue Fortuny and

[189]

Louise Abbéma.

B I O G R A P H I E S

Avenue de Villiers homes and wall and ceiling murals for Théâtre Sarah Bernhardt, Hôtel de Ville, and Musée de l'Armée. 1906 awarded Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur. BROWN, EDITH

BLAKE

American: b. 1869, Boston; d. 1907, New York City With Ethel Isadore Brown (her sister) and Elisabeth Parsons, created stained glass window for the east wall of the Assembly Room: Massachusetts Mothering the Coming Woman of Liberty, Progress, and Light. Sponsored by the Women's Educational and Industrial Union of Boston and commissioned through Mrs. Jonas H. French, a Lady Manager from Massachusetts. Present location: Smith Museum of Stained Glass Windows, Navy Pier, Chicago.

One of three children of Edward P. Brown (a lawyer) and Emma Isadore (Clapp) Brown. 1887-90 studied at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. 1 8 9 1 - 9 2 taught decorative design and lectured in art history at the Cleveland School of Art in Ohio. 1894-97 studied and exhibited in Paris with her sister Ethel. 1897 interior decorator of the New York townhouse of Almeric and Pauline Paget renovated by the architectural firm of McKim, Mead and White. 1899 married John Lincoln Wilkie of New York, a lawyer with Gould and Wilkie and chairman of the board of the Central Hudson Gas and Electric Corporation. They had two children: John L. Jr. and Neil. 1907 died suddenly in New York City. BROWN, ETHEL

ISADORE

American: b. 1872, Boston; d. 1944, New Windsor, New York With Edith Blake Brown (her sister) and Elisabeth Parsons, created stained glass window for the east wall of the Assembly Room: Massachusetts Mothering the Coming Woman of Liberty, Progress, and Light. Sponsored by the Women's Educational and Industrial Union of Boston and commissioned through Mrs. Jonas H. French, a Lady Manager from Massachusetts. Present location: Smith Museum of Stained Glass Windows, Navy Pier, Chicago.

One of three children of Edward P. Brown (a lawyer) and Emma Isadore (Clapp) Brown. 1 8 9 1 - 9 2 accompanied her

[190]

B I O G R A P H I E S

sister Edith to Ohio, where Edith taught at Cleveland School of Art. Studied at Cowles Art School in Boston and with Luc-Olivier Merson in Paris. Painted religious subjects, portraits, and travel scenes. 1894-99 exhibited in Paris and at the National Academy of Design, with Society of American Artists, and at Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. 1902-6 taught painting, drawing, and the history of art at St. Agnes School, Albany, New York. Lived in the home of her brother-in-law, John L. Wilkie, after her sister Edith died suddenly in 1907, leaving two small children. Never married and stayed with Wilkie until he died in 1936. 1944 died at her residence, Forge Hill, after a brief illness. CASSATT, MARY

STEVENSON

American: b. 1844, Allegheny City, Pennsylvania; d. 1926, Oise, France Tympanum, Hall of Honor: Modern Woman. Commissioned by Bertha H. Palmer.

Fourth of five surviving children of Robert Simpson Cassait and Katherine Kelso (Johnston) Cassatt. Lived in the Pittsburgh area and Philadelphia before spending five years in Europe, living in Paris, Heidelberg, and Darmstadt. Settled in Chester County and in Philadelphia. 1861-65 studied art at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia. 1866 studied art briefly in Paris with Jean-Léon Gérôme, Charles Chaplin, and Thomas Couture, and in 1872, with Carlo Raimondi in Rome. Visited Spain (Madrid and Seville), Belgium, Holland (Antwerp and Haarlem), and Italy to study the Old Masters in major museums. Permanently settled in Paris in 1874, and in 1877 was joined by her parents and sister, Lydia Simpson Cassatt. 1867-77

Mary Cassatt, Self-Portrait, c. 1880.

submitted annually to the Paris Salon. 1879, 1880, 1881,

Watercolor o n paper, 13 x g % in.

1886 exhibited with the impressionists. 1890 viewed and was influenced by an exhibition at the École des BeauxArts, Paris, of over one thousand Japanese color woodblock prints. 1891 exhibited print series of drypoint, soft-ground etching, and aquatint. Remained an expatriate and advised prominent American collectors, notably Henry O. and Lou-

[191]

B I O G R A P H I E S

isine Havemeyer and Potter and Bertha Palmer, in their purchase of impressionist and other French artists. 1904 was made a Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur. Because of ill health, reduced her output after the turn of the century. CRAWFORD, EMILY

ALDRIDGE

English: b. ?, New London, Middlesex County, England; d. ? Ceiling painting, east vestibule: red trompe l'oeil canopy across a painted blue sky. Commissioned through Florence Roberts-Austen of the British Ladies Committee.

Daughter of Richard William Aldridge. Before 1869, married James Alexander Crawford. Lived and worked in London, painting portraits, genre and figure pieces, and landscapes in oils and watercolors. 1869 first exhibited at the Royal Academy. Sister of Florence Roberts-Austen, member of the British Ladies Committee. Served as a judge of Emily Crawford, c. 1893.

special handicraft for the Exposition, presented a paper on "Art" for The Congress of Women, and contributed an essay to Maud Howe Elliott's Art and Handicraft in the Woman's Building. 1892-95 lived in Surrey and was professionally active in London; Glanmire in County Cork, Ireland; and Sussex. ELLIOTT, MAUD

HOWE

American: b. 1854, Boston; d. 1948, Newport, Rhode Island Editor of the official guide. Art and Handicraft in the Woman's of the World's Columbian Exposition, Chicago,

Building

1893.

Fifth of six children of Dr. Samuel Gridley Howe, who ran the Perkins Institution for the Blind and taught Laura Bridgman, and Julia (Ward) Howe, who was a woman's club and suffrage leader and author of the "Battle Hymn of the Republic." Grew up among reformers, intellectuals, and abolitionists as well as Boston literary and philanthropic figures. Studied privately in the United States and Europe under her mother's guidance. Worked as a writer, correspondent, and lecturer. Wrote fiction, art criticism, Maud Howe Elliott, c. 1888. C o p y

newspaper columns, travel narratives, and biographies. Is

of a portrait in crayon, g'A x

best known for the Pulitzer Prize-winning Julia Ward Howe,

6V2 in.

1819—1910

[192]

(1915), which she wrote with her sisters Laura

B I O G R A P H I E S

E.H. Richards and Florence M.H. Hall, and for her autobiography Three Generations (1923). 1887 married English painter John Elliott, and had no children. Lived in Chicago 1888-89 while her husband installed his ceiling painting at the Potter Palmer mansion, and again in 1892-93, when she lectured for women's clubs. 1894-1900, 1906-10 lived in Rome and was a correspondent for U.S. newspapers. 1912 became a founding member of the Progressive Party. 1912-42 helped form the Newport Art Association and served as its secretary. Honored by foreign governments for her philanthropic work during war and natural disasters. 1940 awarded a Doctor of Letters by Brown University. EMMET, LYDIA

FIELD

American: b. 1866, New Rochelle, New York; d. 1952, New York City Wall painting, Hall of Honor: Art, Science, and Literature.

Commissioned

by Bertha H. Palmer (probably through Candace Wheeler).

One of ten children of William Jenkins Emmet and Julia Colt (Pierson) Emmet. Beginning in 1883, studied in Paris with William Bouguereau and Tony Robert-Fleury at the Académie Julian, and with Frederick MacMonnies. In New York, created wallpaper compositions for Associated Artists, worked as an illustrator for Harper's, and created stained glass designs for Tiffany Glass Company. 1889-95 studied at the New York Art Students' League with William Merritt Chase and muralists Robert Reid, H. Siddons Mowbray, and Kenyon Cox. Worked as an illustrator, landscape painter, portraitist in pastel and oil, and miniatures. Specialized in portraits of children. i 8 g i - g 3 ran preparatory classes at Chase's Shinnecock Hills summer school on Long Island. 1892 designed the official seal of the New York State Board of Women Managers for the Exposition. 1895 began studying with MacMonnies at Giverny (length of studies unknown). 1896-1904 worked as painter of miniatures. 1900 exhibited with the American Society of Miniature Painters. Maintained a New York studio and a summer residence, Strawberry Hill, in Stockbridge, Massachusetts.

[193]

Lydia Field Emmet, c. 1893.

B I O G R A P H I E S

Won numerous awards, including the 1906 Shaw prize of the Society of American Artists. 1909 won Clarke prize and was made an Associate of the National Academy of Design. 1912 was made an Academician of the National Academy of Design. FAIRCHILD

[FULLER],

LUCIA

American: b. 1870, Boston; d. 1924, Madison, Wisconsin Wall painting, Hall of Honor: Puritan Settlers, also called The Women of Plymouth. Commissioned by Bertha H. Palmer (probably through Can-

TOT

4k

—

'

1

fc*

dace Wheeler). Present location: Blow-Me-Down Grange, Plainfield, New Hampshire.

Second of seven children of Charles Fairchild and Elizabeth "Lily" (Nelson) Fairchild. Born to a prominent family, including her grandfather Jairus Cassius Fairchild, who was the first mayor of Madison, Wisconsin; her uncle Lucius Fairchild, who was governor of Wisconsin; and her father, who was secretary of the treasury for President Grover Cleveland. Grew up in Boston and spent summers in family home in Newport, Rhode Island. Attended Mrs. Shaw's private school in Boston. Studied painting in Boston at the Lucia Fairchild Fuller, SelfPortrait, c. 1894.

Watercolor

on ivory, 2!4 x i3/4 in.

Cowles Art School with Dennis Miller Bunker. 1889 studied with William Merritt Chase and H. Siddons Mowbray at the New York Art Students' League. 1893 married painter Henry "Harry" Brown Fuller and had two children, Clara Bertram and Charles Fairchild. Beginning 1897, summered with her husband in the Cornish area of New Hampshire, where the sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens had a home and studio; became part of the Cornish Art Colony. Wanted to be a professional muralist, but because of a lack of commissions and the onset of financial problems in the mid1890s turned to miniature painting. 1899 cofounded the American Society of Miniature Painters, serving as treasurer and president. 1904-5 taught at the New York Art Students' League as well as the American School of Miniature Painters. 1906 was made an Associate of the National Academy of Design. 1907 was stricken with multiple sclerosis and suf-

[194]

B I O G R A P H I E S

fered from failing eyesight. 1918 moved to Madison to live with her daughter, Clara (Mrs. Warren) Taylor. GERRISH, HELEN

ISABELLE

American: b. 1864, Chelsea, Massachusetts; d. ? Stained glass window for the east wall of the Assembly Room. Sponsored by the Women's Educational and Industrial Union of Chelsea and commissioned through Mrs. Rufus S. Frost, a Lady Manager from Massachusetts. Present location unknown.

One of four children of Hiram A. Gerrish and Charlotte E. (Toppan) Gerrish. 188a to at least 1903 listed in the Chelsea Business Directory as an artist. HALLÉ, ELINOR

English: b. ?, Manchester [?], England; d. ? Plaster bas-relief spandrels, east vestibule: Purity, Peace,

Sympathy,

Fortitude. Commissioned by the British Ladies Committee.

One of nine children of musician Sir Charles Hallé of Westphalia, Germany, and Desiree (Smith) Hallé of New Orleans, Louisiana. Sister to Charles Edward Hallé, who was a painter and director of the New Gallery in London (1888-1909). 1880 studied sculpture and modeling with Alphonse Legros at the Slade School in London. 1884 shared a studio with Ellen Mary Rope and began career in London as a sculptor, medalist, and enameler. 1886 exhibited at the Royal Academy. 1897 commissioned to create a bronze portrait medal of the artist George Frederic Watts, a family friend, which was presented to him at his eightieth birthday by the New Gallery. 1898-1905 exhibited at the Salon de la Société Nationale in Paris. 1914 exhibited at the Royal Academy for the last time.

[195]

B I O G R A P H I E S

HALLOWELL, SARA

TYSON

American: b. 1846, Philadelphia; d. 1924, Moret-sur-Loing, France Art advisor to Bertha H. Palmer, helping her commission murals for the Woman's Building from American artists in Paris. Also assistant to the chief of the Fine Arts Department in charge of organizing the department's Loan Collection of Foreign Paintings owned in the United States.

Fourth of six children of Caleb W. Hallowell and Mary Morris (Tyson) Hallowell. 1857 suffered a reversal in the financial standing of her prosperous family due to the death of Anders Zorn, Sara Tyson Hallowell. Pen and ink on paper.

her father. By 1870 moved to Chicago with her family. 1878 worked as an art agent. 1879 served as assistant clerk of the Art Committee of the Chicago Inter-State Industrial Exposition. i88o-go clerk of the Art Committee (except for an extended European stay in 1886) responsible for organizing the art exhibits. Forged successful liaisons between American and European artists and art collectors, dealers, and museums in Chicago, St. Louis, Philadelphia, and Boston. Maintained a residence in Paris, where she served as art consultant and agent to American collectors, including Potter and Bertha Palmer, whose collection brought the work of the French impressionists to the Midwest. 1890 sought the directorship of the Fine Arts Department of the World's Columbian Exposition but was made an assistant to Halsey Ives, who got the position. As his assistant, organized the Loan Collection (important foreign works in American collections) exhibited in the Palace of Fine Arts at the Fair. 1891 introduced Bertha Palmer to expatriates Mary MacMonnies and Mary Cassatt and negotiated commissions with the two artists for their contributions to the Woman's Building. 1892 served as Bertha Palmer's alternate Lady Manager from Chicago and as Palmer's agent in France. 1894 returned to France from Chicago and continued to work as art consultant to collectors. 1895-1914 served as agent in France for the Art Institute of Chicago, assembling an annual exhibition of contemporary Ameri-

[196]

BIOGRAPHIES

can art by expatriates. 1910 purchased a home in Moretsur-Loing, France, where she lived until her death. HAYDEN [BENNETT], SOPHIA

GREGORIA

American: b. 1868, Santiago, Chile; d. 1953, Winthrop, Massachusetts Architect of the Woman's Building.

One of five children of George Henry Hayden and a Spanish mother. 1872 sent to live with her paternal grandparents in the Jamaica Plain section of Boston. 1890 became the first woman to complete the four-year architecture course at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with a bachelor's degree in architecture. 1891 entered and won the architecture competition for the design of the Woman's Building for the World's Columbian Exposition. Traveled to Chicago to draft the working plans and supervise construction of the building. Suffered an emotional breakdown. 1892 was presented with the Artist's Medal by Daniel H. Burnham and a gold medal from the Board of Lady Managers for the design of the Woman's Building. Had only one other known architectural design after the Woman's Building, for the permanent memorial building in Chicago that the Board of Lady Managers aspired to build but never constructed. 1895 settled in Winthrop, Massachusetts; is listed as an architect and decorator in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology annual catalogues of 189597. 1900 married artist William Blackstone Bennett; had no children. 1913 widowed. Has eluded scholars' search for more information; they have found no further references to her work as an architect, no permanent physical example of her architecture, and no mention of her work as an architect in her obituaries. KEITH, DORA

WHEELER

American: b. 1856, Long Island, New York; d. 1940, New York City Ceiling painting and wall frieze for the New York Library in the Woman's Building: Science,

Literature, and Imagination. Commissioned by

[197]

Sophia Hayden, c. 1893.

BIOGRAPHIES

iÛPÛPÎi

the New York Board of Women Managers (probably through Candace Wheeler). T h i r d o f f o u r children of T h o m a s Watson W h e e l e r a n d C a n d a c e (Thurber) W h e e l e r . A t t e n d e d the Q u a k e r school in Stuyvesant Square, a G e r m a n school in Wiesbaden, a n d Miss Haynes's finishing school. Was o n e o f the first students o f William Merritt Chase in N e w York City. Also a t t e n d e d h e r m o t h e r ' s N e w York Society of Decorative Art. B e g i n n i n g 1879, created textile a n d wallpaper patterns for h e r mother's design firm, Associated Artists. W o r k e d as a portraitist, illustrator, a n d decorator. 1 8 8 0 - 8 6 w o n several prizes in Prang's annual Christmas card contest. 1882 d e s i g n e d a needle-woven tapestry series o f mythological subjects f o r the Fifth A v e n u e residence (New York) of Cornelius Vanderbilt II. B e g i n n i n g 1883, studied in Paris at the A c a d é m i e Julian and with William A d o l p h e B o u g u e r e a u . Spent summers with h e r family at O n t e o r a in the Catskill Mountains

Dora Wheeler Keith, c. 1893.

o f N e w York. 1883 h e l p e d run the school o f design o f the new Associated Artists run by h e r mother. 1880s painted a series of portraits of A m e r i c a n a n d British authors to illustrate their books published by Harper's.

1890

married

B o u d i n o t Keith and had two children, Elisha B o u d i n o t a n d Lois Pickering. C o n t r i b u t e d tapestries to the A p p l i e d Arts display in the W o m a n ' s Building organized by her m o t h e r , w h o was director o f the B u r e a u of A p p l i e d Arts. 1906 was m a d e an Associate of the National A c a d e m y of Design. LEMAIRE, MADELEINE JEANNE

COLLÉ

French: b. 1845, Fréjus, Sainte-Rosseline, France; d. 1928, Paris Watercolor used as the frontispiece of the official guide, Art and Handicraft in the Woman's Building (1893 edition). Studied miniature painting with h e r aunt, M a d a m e Herbelin, and with Charles C h a p l i n in Paris. B e c a m e best k n o w n for h e r flower paintings in pastel a n d watercolor and for h e r b o o k illustration. 1 8 6 4 - 7 8 exhibited at the Paris Salon. 1890 exhibited at Champ-de-Mars a n d was elected a m e m b e r o f the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts. 1896 illustrated Marcel Proust's Pleasures and Days. Was immortalized in Proust's

[198]

B I O G R A P H I E S

novels as the society hostess Madame Verdurin. Was o n e o f the three w o m e n m e m b e r s o f the Société d'Aquarellistes in the later nineteenth century. 1900 awarded a silver m e d a l at the Paris Exposition Universelle. 1906 b e c a m e an Officier d e la L é g i o n d ' h o n n e u r . B e c a m e p o p u l a r at literary salons a n d was s o u g h t after as an illustrator. Saw h e r daughter Suzanne Lemaire b e c o m e a flower painter. MACMONNIES

[LOW], MARY LOUISE

FAIRCHILD

A m e r i c a n : b. 1858, N e w Haven, C o n n e c t i c u t ; d. 1946, Bronxville, N e w York Tympanum, Hall of Honor, Primitive Woman. Commissioned by Bertha H. Palmer. Eldest o f three children of Sidney Brown Fairchild a n d Mary A u g u s t a

(Lines)

Fairchild.

Came

from

a

family

d e s c e n d e d f r o m G o v e r n o r William B r a d f o r d o f the Mayflower. Lived in N e w O r l e a n s d u r i n g the Civil War a n d then St. Louis. A t t e n d e d public school and g r a d u a t e d f r o m normal school. B e c a m e a schoolteacher at age seventeen a n d taught for seven years. H a d an interest in both music a n d art; considered b e c o m i n g a c o n c e r t pianist a n d h e l p e d h e r m o t h e r tint photographs. A t t e n d e d art classes at the St. Louis S c h o o l of Fine Arts. Received a three-year scholarship to study at the A c a d é m i e Julian in Paris with William B o u g u e r e a u , Jules Lefebvre, T o n y Robert-Fleury, CharlesAuguste-Emile

Carolus-Duran,

and

Luc-Olivier

Merson.

1886 exhibited first painting at the Paris Salon. 1888 married sculptor Frederick M a c M o n n i e s a n d had three child r e n , Berthe, Marjorie, a n d Ronald. 1880s b r o a d e n e d h e r academic studies to include mural painting. 1894 b e c a m e a regular s u m m e r visitor to Giverny a n d b e g a n living there year r o u n d b e g i n n i n g in i 8 g 8 . 1909 divorced M a c M o n n i e s a n d married muralist Will H i c k o k Low. 1 9 1 0 r e t u r n e d to the U n i t e d States with h e r daughters a n d lived in Bronxville, N e w York. W o r k e d as a miniaturist, taking lessons f r o m Raoul Salaunia. T u r n e d almost exclusively to portraiture. B e g i n n i n g 1 9 1 0 , s u m m e r e d in Massachusetts at a Gloucester art colony a n d kept a winter studio in New York. B e c a m e an invalid in later years a n d ceased painting.

[199]

Mary Fairchild MacMonnies,

c. 1893.

B I O G R A P H I E S

MERRITT, ANNA MASSEY

LEA

American: b. 1844, Philadelphia; d. 1930, L o n d o n Wall painting, east vestibule: Three Lines of Feminine

Employment-

Needlework, Benevolence, and Education. Commissioned by the British Ladies Committee.

O n e of six daughters of Joseph Lea Jr. and Susannah (Massey) Lea, a wealthy and socially prominent family. Was privately educated in the classics, languages, mathematics, and music and was mostly self-taught in art through the use of instruction books. 1851 studied drawing with William Henry Furness in Philadelphia and later attended anatomy class at W o m e n ' s Medical College, Philadelphia. 1858-60 attended the Mixed School of Eagleswood (college preparatory) in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania. 1861 studied at the Agassiz School in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Circa 1863 married and was widowed a year later. 1865 Anna

Lea Merritt,

1885.

toured with her sisters to Paris, Florence, and Rome for self-study and received art critiques from L e o n Cogniet in Paris and Stefano Ussi in Florence. 1870 took lessons from Heinrich H o f f m a n at the Academy in Dresden and setded in L o n d o n , taking private lessons from Alphonse Legros. Returned home to Philadelphia annually for family visits and to seek American commissions. Beginning 1 8 7 1 , exhibited at the Royal Academy and met the painter and art critic Henry Merritt, becoming his student. 1877 married Merritt, who died three months later. Became a leading etcher after taking u p the medium to illustrate her husband's writings, a two-volume memorial tided Henry Merritt: Art Criticism and, Romance that was published in L o n d o n in 1879. Beginning 1881, exhibited works at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. 1890 settled in Hurstbourne-Tarrant, Hampshire, England, which became a subject in her writing. 1893 received a diploma and medal for her mural and a medal for Eve Overcome by Remorse exhibited at the World's Columbian Exposition. Had to give up painting later in life because of failing eyesight and spent her retirement gardening and writing her autobiography.

[ 200 ]

B I O G R A P H I E S

PALMER, BERTHA MATHILDA

HONORÉ

American: b. 1849, Louisville, Kentucky; d. 1918, Sarasota, Florida President, Board of Lady Managers.

One of six children of Henry Hamilton Honoré and Eliza Jane (Carr) Honoré. 1855 moved with her family to Chicago. Was educated at St. Xavier's Academy and Dearborn Seminary, Chicago. 1867 graduated with honors from Visitation Convent School, Georgetown, District of Columbia. 1870 married developer and entrepreneur Potter Palmer, with whom she had two sons, Honoré and Potter Jr. After the Chicago fire of 1871, decided with her husband to rebuild the Palmer House Hotel and subsequently lived there with him until they built their Lake Shore Drive mansion in 1885. 1878-84 served on the board of the philanthropic Chicago Society of Decorative Arts, which changed its name in 1888 to the Antiquarian Society of the Art Institute of Chicago to reflect its focus on acquiring decorative art for the museum. Belonged to the Fortnightly Club and Chicago Woman's Club. Beginning 1887, held charity balls at Lake Shore Drive mansion. 1890 elected president of the Board of Lady Managers and was responsible for the administration of the Woman's Building. Made several European trips to persuade women from foreign nations to become involved in the building. Also served as president of the Woman's Branch of the World's Congress Auxiliary. Was a leader of Chicago society, a shrewd businesswoman and philanthropist, a supporter of Jane Addams's Hull House and the Women's Trade Union League, a member of the National Civic Federation, and a trustee of Northwestern University. Opposed militant suffrage but favored the vote for women. Was an early supporter of French impressionist art and, together with her husband, created an impressive collection, which she eventually left to the Art Institute of Chicago. 1900 became the only woman appointed by President McKinley as a U.S. Commissioner to the Paris Exposition. Was awarded the Legion of Honor for her Exposi-

[ 201 ]

Bertha Honoré Palmer, c. 1893.

BIOGRAPHIES

tion work. 1902 inherited her husband's fortune upon his death. Kept residences in Chicago, Newport, London, and Paris. 1910 purchased acreage in Sarasota, Florida, where she built a winter home at Osprey Point on Sarasota Bay. Maintained a six thousand-acre cattle ranch. By the time of her death, had doubled her husband's fortune through her financial management skills. PARSONS, ELISABETH

CORNELIA

American: b. 1864, Nicomedia, Turkey; d. 1956, Bellows Falls, Vermont With Edith Blake Brown and Ethel Isadore Brown, created stained glass window for the east wall of the Assembly Room: Mothering

Massachusetts

the Coming Woman of Liberty, Progress, and Light. Spon-

sored by the Women's Educational and Industrial Union of Boston and commissioned through Mrs. Jonas H. French, a Lady Manager from Massachusetts. Present location: Smith Museum of Stained Glass Windows, Navy Pier, Chicago.

Daughter of Justin Wright Parsons and Catherine (Jennings) Parsons. 1877 returned with family from Turkey to Boston. 1884-88 studied at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. 1890-92 instructor in design at Oberlin College, Ohio. 1894-c. 1915 lived in Cleveland but maintained a Boston studio. 1915 lived in Boston. Worked as a landscape painter, designer, and interior decorator. 1942 a f ,

n'

hiking accident left her physically and mentally impaired. RIDEOUT

[CANADY], ALICE

LOUISE

American: b. 1871, Marysville, California; d. 1953, Staten Island, New York Sculpture pediment: Woman's Place in History, or Woman's Work; and two cornice groups: Woman as the Spirit of Civilization and

Woman's

Virtues. Her sculptural design won the national competition run by Bertha H. Palmer.

One of three children of James Ransom Rideout. 1875 lived in San Francisco. 1889 studied with the German sculptor Rupert Schmid. Attended the San Francisco School of Alice Rideout, 1892

Design (later Art Institute). May have studied in Boston.

[ 202 ]

B I O G R A P H I E S

Modeled busts of President Benjamin Harrison and Sitting Bull. After 1893, married John Frederick Canady, with whom she had no surviving children. 1905 moved to Manhattan. 1 9 1 8 permanently settled in Staten Island. Became a charter member of the Oakwood Heights Community Church and served as its first Sunday school superintendent and first choir director. Gave painting lessons in her home. 1927 painted a portrait of Reverend Pearse Pinch of Oakwood Heights Community Church. ROPE, ELLEN

MARY

English: b. 1855, Blaxhall, Suffolk, England; d. 1934, Blaxhall Polychrome plaster bas-relief spandrels, east vestibule: Hope, present

,

,

,

location: dining room of the Chenies Street Ladies Residential Chambers in London; Chanty, present location: an alcove at the Chenies

w p

Street Ladies Residential Chambers; Faith and Heavenly Wisdom, pres-

!

ent location unknown, possibly destroyed. Commissioned by the British Ladies Committee (possibly through Octavia Hill).

Seventh of nine children of George and A n n Rope; sister of

/

artist George Thomas Rope. 1870 took drawing lessons with Octavia Hill at Nottingham Place School in London. 1 8 7 2 84 studied with William T. Griffiths at Ipswich School of Art; beginning 1880, studied sculpture and modeling with Alphonse Legros at the Slade School, L o n d o n . 1884 shared a studio with Elinor Hallé and began her career in L o n d o n as a painter and illustrator. 1885 exhibited three relief panels at the Royal Academy. From 1889 on, exhibited at the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society exhibitions and with the Royal Society of British Artists. 1894 received a commission from Octavia Hill to produce a series of bas-reliefs to decorate the drawing room of the Women's University Settlement, Nelson Square, Blackfriars. 1895 received the first of two important architectural commissions for municipal buildings: allegorical figures of Faith, Hope, and Charity for Morley Town Hall near Leeds and in 1897, the twentyfoot-long frieze Navigation on the Thames for the Council C h a m b e r of Rotherhithe Town Hall. 1897 had the plaster

[203]

S ' R o s a m o n d P r a e « e r ' FMen Mar> RofJe>

1929. Pencil on paper.

B I O G R A P H I E S

bas-relief spandrels from the Woman's Building installed at Chenies Street Ladies Residential Chambers.

1896-

1906 worked as a designer for the Delia Robbia Factory in Birkenhead. Worked for architects, such as Horace Field, creating decorative panels for house exteriors and memorial church decorations. Influenced other artists, including her nieces Dorothy Rope, who became a sculptor, and Margaret Agnes Rope and Margaret Aldrich Rope, who became stained glass designers. Also influenced Irish sculptor Rosamond Praeger. SEARS,

MARY

CREASE

American: b. 1859, Watertown, Massachusetts; d. 1938, Boston S t a i n e d glass w i n d o w f o r t h e east wall of t h e A s s e m b l y R o o m : The Seal of Boston.

S p o n s o r e d by t h e W o m e n ' s E d u c a t i o n a l a n d Indus-

trial U n i o n of B o s t o n and c o m m i s s i o n e d t h r o u g h Mrs. R u f u s S. Frost, a Lady M a n a g e r f r o m M a s s a c h u s e t t s . P r e s e n t location: W o m e n ' s U n i o n (formerly t h e W o m e n ' s E d u c a t i o n a l and Industrial U n i o n ) in Boston.

Daughter of Eben Sears and Jane Rebecca (Balch) Sears. Wanted to be an architect but studied instead at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (1882-86). Became interested in the art of the book. Studied traditional book making in Paris. Met Agnes St. John in France, who became her longtime friend and collaborator. Continued trainMary Crease Sears, c. 1 9 0 8 .

ing in London before returning to Boston, where she set up her own studio. Worked as a bookbinder and cover designer, specializing in hand-tooled bindings. Beginning in 1890, created bookplate designs as well. 1893 served as an Alternate Lady Manager from Massachusetts. Designed and funded the fabrication of one of the two stained glass windows sent by the Women's Educational and Industrial Union of Boston. Beginning in 1897, was an active member of the Society of Arts and Crafts in Boston; first exhibited there in 1899 and was awarded the organization's Medal of Excellence in 1914. Ran the Sears School of Bookbinding in Boston, bringing younger women to the art of book making.

[ 204]

B I O G R A P H I E S

SEWELL,

[LYDIA]

AMANDA

BREWSTER

American: b. 1859, North Elba, New York; d. 1926 Wall painting, Hall of Honor: Arcadia. Commissioned by Bertha H. Palmer (probably through Candace Wheeler).

Daughter of Benjamin T. Brewster and Julia A n n e (Washburn) Brewster. Studied with William Merritt Chase and William Sartain at the New York Art Students' League, at the C o o p e r Union, and in Paris at the Académie Julian. 1 8 8 1 - 9 0 exhibited at the National Academy of Design in New York and at the Paris Salon. 1888 married muralist Robert Van Vorst Sewell, with whom she had two sons. 1888-93 lived in Tangier, Morocco. 1903 became the first woman to win the Clarke prize and was made an Associate of the National Academy of Design. Painted landscape and Arcadian scenes and specialized in portraiture. Lived in New York City and maintained a residence at Fleetwood Amanda Brewster Sewell, c. 1893.

House, Oyster Bay, L o n g Island. SHERWOOD,

ROSINA H.

EMMET

American: b. 1854, New York City; d. 1948, New York City Wall painting, Hall of Honor: The Republic's

Welcome to Her

Daugh-

ters. Commissioned by Bertha H. Palmer (probably through Candace Wheeler).

O n e of ten children of William Jenkins Emmet and Julia Colt (Pierson) Emmet. 1877 painted children's portraits on china for Candace Wheeler's New York Society of Decorative Art. 1878-80 became one of the first students of William Merritt Chase, studying with him in New York City. 1881 o p e n e d a studio in New York and exhibited at the National Academy of Design. Worked as a portraitist, illustrator, and decorator. Created textile and wallpaper patterns for Associated Artists and helped run the school of design. Beginning in 1883, studied in Paris at the Académie Julian and spent summers studying with Chase in New York. 1887 married Arthur Murray Sherwood, with whom she

Ellen Emmet Rand, Rosina

had five children: Arthur Murray Jr., Cynthia Townsend,

Emmet Sherwood (and son Rob-

Robert Emmet, Philip Hyde, and Rosamond. 1895 studied

ert), c. 1897.

[205]

B I O G R A P H I E S

with Frederick MacMonnies at Giverny. 1906 was made an Associate of the National Academy of Design. SWYNNERTON, ANNIE LOUISA

ROBINSON

English: b. 1844, Kersal, near Manchester, England; d. 1933, Hayling Island, Hampshire, near Portsmouth, England Wall painting, east vestibule: Three Phases of Nursing—the

Young,

the Sick, the Aged. Commissioned by t h e British Ladies Committee (through A n n a Lea Merritt).

Third of seven daughters of Francis Robinson. Painted watercolors to illustrate the work of Charles Dickens. Mainly taught herself art at home but studied briefly at the Manchester School of Art, the Académie Julian in Paris, and with a private tutor in Rome. From 187g on, exhibited at the Royal Academy. 1879 cofounded (with her sister, Emily Robinson, and Isabel Dacre) the Manchester Society of Women Painters to advance the careers of women artists. About 1883, married the Manx sculptor Joseph William Swynnerton. 1889 signed the Declaration in Favour of Women's Suffrage. 1883-1910 lived in Rome and then spent half her time in Rome and half at Fulham Road, Chelsea. 1922 was made the first female Associate Member of the Royal Academy since the election of Angelica Kauffman and Mary Moser in 1768. Painted allegories, portraits, and landscapes that won the admiration of artists George Frederick Watts, John Singer Sargent, and Edward BurneJones. VAN PARYS, LOUISE

GABILLOT

French: b. 1852, Gennevilliers, Haute-de-Seine, France; d. c. 1910, Paris Preparatory studies for mural designs, west vestibule: Influence Woman in the Arts: She Weeps with the Poet, Consoles, Him and The Arts of Woman:

and

To Love, to Please, and to Devote

of Glorifies Herself.

Commissioned by t h e Committee for t h e French Section of the W o m an's Building.

Daughter of artist Francisque Gabillot. Studied with her father and also J-P Laurens, M. Milanolo (or de Milanobs), and Humbert. Established a studio in Paris. 1878 and 1879

[206]

B I O G R A P H I E S

exhibited at the Paris Salon. From 1886 on, exhibited at the Salon de la Société des Artistes Français. By 1893 had begun using married name. Saw her daughter Marie Fernande Parys-Driesten also b e c o m e a painter. WHEELER,

CANDACE

THURBER

American: b. 1827, Delhi, New York; d. 1923, New York City Art director of t h e interior of t h e W o m a n ' s B u i l d i n g .

Third of eight children of A b n e r Gilman T h u r b e r and Lucy (Dunham) Thurber. Was h o m e taught in art and domestic industries such as spinning and weaving, and later schooled at the Delaware Academy in Delhi, New York. 1844 married Thomas Watson Wheeler, with whom she had four children: Candace, James Cooper, Dora, and Dunham. 1 8 4 4 54 lived in Brooklyn. 1854 built a country home—Nestled o w n — n e a r Jamaica in L o n g Island and also lived in New York City. Maintained friendships with many artists from the T e n t h Street studio building. 1865 embarked on self-study in art through trips to Germany, Italy, and France. Became an amateur flower painter and was introduced to textile design through Samuel Colman's oriental collection. 1876 visited the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition. Inspired by London's new Kensington Royal School of Art Needlework, which was established to provide independent

financial

means for female artists, decided to help establish a similar female training institution in New York. 1877 helped open the Society of Decorative Art, which lasted for eleven years, freeing middle- and lower-income women from their economic d e p e n d e n c e on male relatives by teaching them wage-earning skills in painting, textile arts, sculpture, pottery, and woodworking. Persuaded by her fellow decorative artists John La Farge, Louis Comfort Tiffany, Samuel Colman, and Lockwood de Forest to teach design classes at the Society. 1878 cofounded the Woman's Exchange, which marketed woman-produced articles of all kinds, including foods. 1879-83 established (with Tiffany, Colman, and de Forest) the interior decoration firm of Associated Artists in New York City, where she directed the textile department,

[ 207]

Candace Thurber Wheeler, c. 1 8 9 3 .

BIOGRAPHIES

p r o d u c e d a variety o f textiles a n d textile furnishings, a n d d e v e l o p e d new stitches a n d patented new techniques. A f t e r dissolution o f the original Associated Artists in 1883, served until a b o u t 1900 as the director o f the new Associated Artists, which p r o d u c e d textiles m a d e by A m e r i c a n w o m e n f o r mass p r o d u c t i o n t h r o u g h c o m m e r c i a l fabric houses. Beginn i n g in 1883, spent summers at Pennyroyal, a cottage at the art a n d literary colony of O n t e o r a in the Catskill M o u n tains of N e w York. 1888 d e c o r a t e d the Hartford h o m e o f friend Samuel L. C l e m e n s (Mark Twain). B e c a m e involved with the W o m a n ' s Building while partially retired. 1892 was a p p o i n t e d director o f the B u r e a u o f A p p l i e d Arts exhibit in the W o m a n ' s Building t h r o u g h the Board o f Lady Managers f o r the Exhibit of the state of N e w York, took charge of decorating the N e w York Library in the W o m a n ' s Building, a n d b e c a m e the interior art director o f the W o m a n ' s Buildi n g itself. H e l p e d Palmer find muralists for the building. 1895 built a winter h o m e — W i n t e r g r e e n — i n Thomasville, Georgia. In retirement, wrote articles o n the decorative arts a n d b o o k s o n design a n d o n h o u s e h o l d arts. P e n n e d h e r m e m o i r s w h e n ninety years old. YANDELL, ENID

BLAND

A m e r i c a n : b. 1870, Louisville, Kentucky; d. 1934, Boston Sculpture decoration and support for the roof garden: Caryatides. Commissioned by the Board of Lady Managers. Eldest d a u g h t e r o f L u n s f o r d Pitts a n d Louise

(Elliston)

Yandell. C a m e f r o m a medical family, with h e r father b e i n g a doctor; h e r grandfather, a professor at the University o f Louisville S c h o o l o f Medicine; a n d h e r uncle, president o f the A m e r i c a n Medical Association. 1887 graduated f r o m H a m p t o n C o l l e g e in Louisville with a B a c h e l o r of Arts in chemistry a n d art. 1889 received h e r Master of Arts f r o m the Art A c a d e m y o f Cincinnati, finishing the four-year prog r a m in two years a n d w i n n i n g a first-prize medal. S p e n t six weeks touring E u r o p e with h e r m o t h e r a n d sisters, visiting France, England, G e r m a n y , Italy, a n d Austria. i 8 8 g e n t e r e d a n d w o n an a n o n y m o u s competition for a C o n f e d e r a t e Enid Bland, Yandell, c. 1 8 9 3 .

m o n u m e n t b u t was n o t awarded the commission

[208]

when

B I O G R A P H I E S

judges learned that the sculptor was a woman. 1 8 9 1 worked as a sculptor's assistant for the World's Columbian Exposition, helping Carl Rohl-Smith with his statue of Benjamin Franklin, Philip Martiny with pointing up various Exposition statuary, and Lorado Taft with his sculpture for the Horticulture Building. 1892 commissioned by the Filson Club of Louisville to create a statue of Daniel Boone to be placed in front of the Kentucky State Building at the Exposition. Along with Jean Loughborough and Laura Hayes, wrote Three Girls in a Flat ( 1 8 9 2 ) , a semiautobiographical novel of their experiences while working for the Exposition. 1 8 9 3 was awarded a Designer's Medal for her Caryatides. Assisted Karl Bitter with his work on the pediment (since destroyed) for the Broad Street Station of the Pennsylvania Railroad in Philadelphia, with the caryatides for the interior of the Music Gallery for the Astor House in New York, and figurai ornaments for the Cornelius Vanderbilts' summer home, the Breakers in Newport, Rhode Island. 1894 studied with Auguste Rodin and Frederick MacMonnies in Paris. Beginning in 1895, exhibited at the Paris Salon. 1897 received a commission to create the twenty-five-foot colossal statue of Pallas Athena (since destroyed) to stand in front of the Fine Arts Building at the Tennessee Centennial and International in Nashville. 1898 was admitted as the first woman member of the National Sculpture Society of New York. 1906 was elected to the French Academy. Lived in France but spent summers teaching sculpture at the Branstock School in Edgartown, Massachusetts, on Martha's Vineyard. During World War I, worked for the American Red Cross and La Société des Orphelins de la Guerre, to help war orphans, and the Appui aux Artists, to provide aid to unemployed artists and their families. 1 9 1 6 returned to America to continue her work for the Red Cross, taking charge of the Bureau of Personnel (its debarkation department) . Kept a studio in New York but reduced her artistic production upon the onset of the war.

[209]

NOTES

40. N o figures appear to exist for the n u m b e r o f peo-

INTRODUCTION

ple w h o attended the Fair more than once.

1. T h e bibliography on the World's Columbian Expo-

3. See, for instance, Daniel H. Burnham, The Final Offi-

sition is immense. G. L. Dybwad and Joy V. Bliss list twenty-seven h u n d r e d items in Annotated, Bibliogra-

cial Report of the Director of Works of the World's Colum-

phy, World's Columbian Exposition, Chicago 1893, with

bian Exposition (1894; repr. New York: Garland,

Illustrations and Price Guide (Albuquerque, NM: B o o k

1989). This report itemizes expenses and all aspects

Stops Here, 1992). O n e of the most useful histories

of construction, and includes more than twelve hun-

of recent years is Neil Harris, Wim de Wit, James Gil-

dred drawings, plans, and photographs. T h e original

bert, and Robert W. Rydell, Grand Illusions: Chica-

document, of which there is a m o d e r n reprint, is in

go's World's Fair of 1893 (Chicago: Chicago Historical

the Ryerson and Burnham Libraries at the Art Insti-

Society, 1993).

tute of Chicago. 4. For a vivid narration of the logistics of planning and

2. Historians give widely varying estimates o f attendance. Neil Harris speaks o f more than 12 million

constructing the m o n u m e n t a l fair, see Erik Larson's

visitors; see Harris et al., Grand Illusions, 10. A n o t h e r

best seller The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic,

authority on the Fair, Robert Rydell, says that

and Madness at the Fair That Changed America (New

27,529,400 tickets were sold to adults and children;

York: R a n d o m House, 2003).

see Robert W. Rydell, All the World's a Fair: Visions of Empire at American International Expositions,

5. T h e r e are two indispensable m o d e r n studies of the

i8j6—

W o m a n ' s Building: J e a n n e Madeline W e i m a n n , The

1 9 1 6 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984),

Fair Women: The Story of the Woman's Building, World's

[211]

NOTES

TO

PAGES

9 - 2 5

Columbian Exposition, Chicago 1893 (Chicago: Acad-

1 . THE FAIR

emy Chicago, 1 9 8 1 ) ; and Charlene G. Garfinkle,

1 . J . Alden Weir to Ella Baker, August 1 1 , 1892, quoted

"Women at Work: The Design and Decoration of the

in Derrick R. Cartwright, 'J. Alden Weir's Allegorical

Woman's Building at the 1893 World's Columbian

Figure of 'Goldsmith's Art,' for the Dome of the Manu-

Exposition; Architecture, Exterior Sculpture, Stained

factures and Liberal Arts Building, 1892," Bulletin of

Glass, and Interior Murals" (Ph.D. diss., University of

the Museums of Art and Archaeology, University of Michi-

California, Santa Barbara, 1996).

gan9 ( 1 9 8 9 - 9 1 ) : 60.

6. In the United States, the Pennsylvania painter Vio-

2. Hubert Howe Bancroft, The Book of the Fair: An His

let Oakley finally broke through the glass ceiling

torical and Descriptive Presentation of the World's Science,

that had kept women from becoming public deco-

Art, and Industry, as Viewed through the Columbian Expo-

rators. Beginning in 1902 with a commission to cre-

sition at Chicago in 1893, 2 vols. (1893; reprint vol. 1

ate a mural for the governor's reception room in the

New York: Bounty Books, 1972); see vol. 1, 5-28, for

Pennsylvania State Capitol, Oakley became a career

his history of "Fairs of the Past."

muralist and a stained glass designer and made deco-

3. Bancroft, The Book of the Fair, 1: 17.

rations for public buildings. I thank Bailey Van Hook

4. Mrs. J . C. Croly, "Beginnings of Organization," in The

for sharing her work on Oakley. See also Patricia

History of the Woman '5 Club Movement in America (New

Likos Ricci's very helpful essay "Violet Oakley: Amer-

York: Henry G. Allen & Co., 1904), 1 - 1 4 . See also a

ican Renaissance Woman," Pennsylvania Magazine of

much earlier example, Lydia Maria Child's The His-

History and Biography 126, no. 2 (April 2002): 2 1 7 -

tory of the Condition of Women in Various Nations (Bos-

48.

ton: J . Allen & Co., 1835), which began with biblical

7. See Gabriel P. Weisburg, Rosa Bonheur: All Nature's

(Jewish), Assyrian, and Lycian women and marched

Children (New York: Dahesh Museum, 1998).

through history and over the continents before

8. Harriet Hosmer was commissioned by a women's

finally getting to contemporary women in the Ameri-

group to create a sculpture of Queen Isabella that

cas.

was never cast or installed as hoped. See chapter 2

5. Will H. Low, A Painter's Progress (New York: Scrib-

for more detail.

ner's, 1 9 1 0 ) , 2 5 1 .

9. Maria Karras, ed., The Woman's Building Chicago

6. G. Brown Goode, assistant secretary of the Smithso-

1893; The Woman's Building Los Angeles 1973 (n.p.,

nian Institution, quoted in Robert W. Rydell, All the

1975). For good coverage of the Los Angeles proj-

World's a Fair: Visions of Empire at American Interna-

ect, see http://womansbuilding.org/history.htm

tional Expositions, 1876-1916

(accessed December 2009). 10. See, for example, the following studies: Kathleen

7. Quoted in Charlene G. Garfinkle, "Women at Work:

McCarthy, Women's Culture: American Philanthropy and Art, 1830-1930

(Chicago: University of

Chicago Press, 1984), 45. The Design and Decoration of the Woman's Build-

(Chicago: University of Chicago

Press, 1 9 9 1 ) ; Karen J . Blair, The Torchbearers: Women and Their Amateur Arts Associations in America, 1890—

ing at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition; Architecture, Exterior Sculpture, Stained Glass, and Interior Murals" (Ph.D. diss., University of Califor-

1930 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994);

nia, Santa Barbara, 1996), 475.

Kirsten Swinth, Painting Professionals: Women Artists

8. Rydell, All the World's a Fair, 3 8 - 7 1 ; Gail Bederman,

and the Development of Modern American Art, 1870—

Manliness and Civilization: A Cultural History of Gen-

1930 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001); and Dianne Sachko Macleod, Enchanted Lives, Enchanted Objects: American Women Collectors and the Making of Culture, 1800—1940 (Berkeley: Univer-

der and Race in the United States, 1880-1917

(Chicago:

University of Chicago Press, 1995), 3 1 . 9. For decorations made during this period in French city halls, see Le Triomphe des Mairies: Grands Décors

sity of California Press, 2008).

républicains à Paris, 1870—1914 Musées, 1986).

[ 2 1 2 ]

(Paris: Éditions Paris

NOTES

TO

PAGES

10. Clarence A. Buskirk, 'The Pageant of the Centuries

2 8 - 4 2

16. See "Decorations at the World's Fair, A Talk with Mr.

from the Dawn of the New Light to the Triumph of

Carroll Beckwith," Art Amateur (December 1892): 4;

the Full Day: A Vision of Strong Manhood and Per-

and E. H. Blashfield, "A Painter's Reminiscences of

fection of Society in Columbia's Future," Chicago

a World's Fair," New York Times Magazine (March 18,

Daily Inter Ocean (April 26, 1893), supplement, cited

1 9 2 3 ) : !3-

in Rydell, All the World's a Fair, 249, n. 19.

17. Marina Warner, Monuments and Maidens: The Allegory

1 1 . Some of the smaller and less prominent halls were

of the Female Form (New York: Atheneum, 1985), 36.

also given over to work in the natural world, includ-

18. Hollis Clayson, Paris in Despair: Art and Everyday Life

ing the Forestry, Fisheries, and Horticulture Build-

under Siege (i8yo—yi) (Chicago: University of Chi-

ings, and one building was devoted to anthropology.

cago Press, 2002), 1 1 7 . Clayson repeats others who

12. Robert Rydell has done the most work on primitiviza-

have said that the original gendering of allegori-

tion at American international exhibitions. See his

cal bodies was French. "In France allegory is largely

All the World's a Fair and his essay "A Cultural Fran-

female," she writes, because the abstract French

kenstein? The Chicago World's Columbian Exposi-

nouns represented are themselves feminine in gen-

tion of 1893," in Neil Harris, Wim de Wit, James Gil-

der: La République, La Liberté, La France, and so on

bert, and Robert H. Rydell, Grand Illusions: Chica-

(ibid., 1 1 8 ) . Although this is an attractive "origins"

go's World's Fair of 1893 (Chicago: Chicago Historical

story, it does not account for the different ways artists

Society, 1993), 142-70.

gendered allegorical figures over time or for the way gendering can change when the maker is a woman.

13. 'Through the Looking Glass," Chicago Tribune (November 1, 1893), quoted in Rydell, AU the World's

Clayson emphasizes, as I do here, that the operations

a Fair, 65.

of allegory in visual culture are deeply embedded in mainstream social codes and mores.

14. There is no single volume or catalogue raisonné that pieces together the decorative programs of

19. Lynn Hunt, quoted in Madelyn Gutwirth, The Twi-

each of the buildings at the Fair; every scholar of

light of the Goddesses: Women and Representation in the

this material has to pull together photographs from

French Revolutionary Era (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rut-

dozens of books. Royal Cortissoz reproduces the

gers University Press, 1982), 256; also quoted in

frescoes in the eight domes in "Color in the Court

Clayson, Paris in Despair, 121.

of Honor at the Fair," Century Magazine 46 (July

20. The entrance to the 1889 Parisian fair used the same

!893): 3 2 3 - 3 4 . There are also the extremely useful

iconography of a metaphoric ship of state but on a

files of Richard Murray, who spent a lifetime putting

smaller scale.

together an annotated catalogue of the decorative

2 1 . For a similar reading of representations of the

paintings in the United States from 1876 to 1920.

female body at the Fair, see Judy Sund, "Colum-

Murray died before bringing his manuscript, "Hope

bus and Columbia in Chicago, 1893: Man of Genius

and Memory: Mural Painting in the United States,

Meets Generic Woman," Art Bulletin 75 (September

1 8 7 6 - 1 9 2 0 , " to publication. His files are now in the Archives of American Art in the Smithsonian Institution.

!993):443-662 2. For the history and proliferation of the Liberty/ Republic/Marianne figure in French sculpture, see

15. Karl Bitter created one of the era's most impressive

Quand Paris Dansait avec Marianne, i8yç-i889

(Paris:

progress narratives in his Spirit of Transportation for

Musée du Petit Palais, 1989) and Entre Liberté, Répub-

the waiting room of the Broad Street railroad station

lique et France: Les Représentations de Marianne de 1792 à

in Philadelphia. The procession begins with Colum-

nos Jours (Vilzille: Musée de la Révolution française/

bus and American pioneers and ends with a child-

Paris: Réunion des Musées Nationaux, 2003).

putto holding the model of an airship. Today the

23. Edward Simmons used male bodies to allegorize raw

large bas-relief sculpture is on view at the Philadel-

Stone, Iron, Hemp, and Wood. No one has ever pub-

phia 30th Street station and is well worth a visit.

lished photographs of all of the murals in this huge

[213]

NOTES

TO

PAGES

exhibition hall, and it is n o t clear w h e t h e r p h o t o

4 2 - 5 4

neoclassicism. His aggressive realism is e m b o d i e d in

d o c u m e n t a t i o n exists for all o f them. I base my anal-

the p l u m p f e m a l e n u d e w h o stands at the painter's

ysis o n images I have f o u n d in the Richard Murray

side.

Papers at the Archives o f A m e r i c a n A r t at the Smith-

27. For a brief discussion o f the modernists w h o a r g u e d

sonian Institution and in Bancroft, The Book of the

f o r the a u t o n o m y o f the tableaux versus the n e e d

Fair. For the best close analysis o f o n e o f the murals,

for d é c o r to serve architecture, see A i m é e Brown

see Cartwright, 'J. A l d e n Weir's Allegorical Figure of

Price, "Puvis d e C h a v a n n e s ' s Critical Fortune," in

'Goldsmith's Art. ' "

Toward Modern Art: From Puvis de Chavannes to Matisse and Picasso, ed. Serge L e m o i n e (New York: Rizzoli,

24. Pauline King, American Mural Painting: A Study of

2002), 6 1 .

the Important Decorations by Distinguished Artists in the United States (Boston: Noyes, Piatt, 1 9 0 2 ) , 74.

28. See A n n e l i s e K. Madsen, " M o d e l Citizens: Mural Painting, Pageantry, and the A r t o f Civic Life in Pro-

25. Symptomatic o f the rise o f n e w styles f o r decora-

gressive A m e r i c a " (Ph.D. diss., Stanford University,

tions in Paris, the French commission de decoration in

2 0 1 0 ) , for a discussion o f these murals.

c h a r g e o f c o m m i s s i o n i n g murals for the rebuilt a n d d e c o r a t e d H ô t e l d e Ville in Paris allowed f o r a plu-

29. A l t h o u g h Saint-Gaudens typically received credit f o r

rality o f styles. It did n o t dictate that all decorations

the C o l u m b u s statue, h e only advised o n the proj-

be classical or allegorical. I have drawn o n a variety

ect. O n e o f his f e m a l e students, Mary L a w r e n c e , was

o f sources f o r this discussion, notably Le Triomphe des

the sculptor. Saint-Gaudens later said, ' T o h e r g o e s

Mairies; Nicholas Watkins, " T h e Genesis o f a D e c o -

all the credit o f the virility and breadth o f treatment

rative Aesthetic," in Beyond the Easel: Decorative Pain-

w h i c h it revealed." See A u g u s t u s Saint-Gaudens a n d

ting by Bonnard, Vuillard, Denis, and Roussel,

1890—

H o m e r Saint-Gaudens, The Reminiscences of Augustus

1930, ed. G l o r i a G r o o m (New Haven, C o n n . : Yale

Saint-Gaudens, 2 vols. (New York: C e n t u r y C o m p a n y ,

University Press, 2001), 1 - 2 8 ; Hollis Clayson, Paris

1 9 1 3 ) , 2:73.

in Despair, on the H ô t e l d e Ville, 3 4 9 - 5 8 ; and A i m é e

30. A i m é e Brown Price appears to be the first to use the

Brown Price's n u m e r o u s studies o n Puvis de Cha-

words l'allégorie réelle to describe work by Puvis d e

vannes, cited in the bibliography.

C h a v a n n e s that puts " m o d e r n t h e m e s in allegorical guise." A i m é e Brown Price, ' " L ' A l l é g o r i e Réelle'

26. T h e F r e n c h h a d a l o n g tradition o f c o m b i n i n g allegory and realism in works o f art. O n e o f the earli-

c h e z Pierre Puvis d e C h a v a n n e s , " Gazette des Beaux-

est was E u g è n e D e l a c r o i x ' s Liberty Leading the People

Arts (January 1 9 7 7 ) : 27. Hollis Clayson, in Paris in

( 1 8 3 0 ) , in w h i c h a robust, half-draped f e m a l e alle-

Despair, a c k n o w l e d g e s Price's p i o n e e r use of the

gory o f Liberty in a Phrygian cap, g u n in o n e h a n d

phrase, translating it as "real allegory," and attaches

a n d F r e n c h f l a g in the o t h e r , leads representative

it to works Puvis m a d e o f h o o d e d or classicized fig-

F r e n c h citizens in c o n t e m p o r a r y dress as they b r i n g

ures h o l d i n g or a p p e a r i n g with m o d e r n p h e n o m e n a

d o w n royalty in the 1830 revolution. N o t only was

such as a hot-air balloon; see especially 408, n. 103.

the c o m b i n a t i o n o f languages in this p a i n t i n g a star-

and 409, nn. 105 and 109.

tling innovation, b u t so was the creation o f a f e m a l e

3 1 . Puvis and Boyle build their allegories f r o m differ-

allegorical figure w h o is physically strong a n d in

ent starting points, Boyle f r o m realism and Puvis

full military action. H e r e the hybridity o f the paint-

f r o m neoclassicism. Boyle p u s h e d realism to speak o f

ing, j u x t a p o s i n g an allegorical figure with p e o p l e in

g r a n d e r ideals, whereas Puvis p u s h e d allegorical clas-

m o d e r n dress, works well because Liberty is in action

sicism to speak o f c o n t e m p o r a r y themes. I find Boyle

a n d l o o k i n g b a c k at a n d l e a d i n g h e r p e o p l e , rather

o n e o f the most interesting sculptors at the Fair, b u t

than standing mutely by. In a n o t h e r m a j o r painting,

his work has received little scholarly attention. For

The Painter's Studio, Real Allegory ( 1 8 5 4 - 5 5 ) , Gustave

a brief discussion o f it, see W a y n e Craven, Sculpture

C o u r b e t m e d i t a t e d on his d e d i c a t i o n to realism as

in America, rev. ed. (Newark: University o f Delaware

an authentic style o f m o d e r n i t y a n d his rejection o f

Press, 1984), 4 8 1 - 8 3 ; a n d C a r o l i n e V. G r e e n , "Fabri-

[ 214]

NOTES

TO

PAGES

5 5 - 6 6

eating the Dream: A m e r i c a n World's Fair Sculpture,

3 9 . See Shaw, Dream States, passim.

1 8 7 6 - 1 9 1 5 " (Ph.D. diss., Boston University, 1 9 9 2 ) ,

40. "Puvis de C h a v a n n e s , " Century Magazine 5 1 (before

1 1 5 - 1 6 . In that Boyle was a p p o i n t e d to contribute

I 8 9 5 ) : 569-

decorations f o r the building Louis Sullivan designed,

4 1 . L i n d a Nochlin, "Seurat's Grande Jatte, An Anti-Uto-

the o n e n o n c o n f o r m i n g structure at the Fair ( m o r e

pian Allegory," in Critical Readings in Impressionism

art nouveau than neoclassical), makes his realist bas-

Post-Impressionism, ed. Mary T o m p k i n s Lewis (Berke-

reliefs doubly interesting. Both architect and sculp-

ley: University of California Press, 2 0 0 7 ) , 2 5 7 .

tor d a r e d to move outside the neoclassical b o x .

4 2 . Walter MacEwen painted Music a n d Life, a n o t h e r

3 2 . Art Treasures from the World's Fair: Reproductions of the Famous Statuary That Adorned the Buildings

pair of murals f o r the M a n u f a c t u r e s and Liberal Arts

(Chicago:

Building, in the style of Puvis de Chavannes. Music

Werner, 1 8 9 5 ) , 1 2 1 .

went to Beloit C o l l e g e in Wisconsin (now lost) and

3 3 . Ibid., 1 1 9 .

L i f e r e n t to K n o x C o l l e g e in Galesburg, Illinois,

3 4 . F. D. Millet, " R e p o r t of the Director of Works, Direc-

along with L a w r e n c e Earle's Glassmaking, also f r o m

tor of Decoration & Functions," in B u r n h a m , The

the M a n u f a c t u r e s and Liberal Arts Building. S e e

Final Official Report of the Director of Works of the World's

Richard Murray, " H o p e and Memory," manuscript,

Columbian Exposition, 4:69.

at the Archives of A m e r i c a n Art in the Smithson-

3 5 . Art Treasures from the World's Fair,

&

ian Institution. T h e MacEwen and Melchers murals

119.

3 6 . Ibid., 1 0 5 - 6 .

are a m o n g the very few that survived the e n d of the

3 7 . S e e ch. 1 of Madsen, "Model Citizens," w h e r e she

Fair. T h e two by Melchers hang today in the Harlan

quotes f r o m a j o h n White A l e x a n d e r letter to Ber-

H a t c h e r Graduate Library at the University of Mich-

nard G r e e n , February 2 2 , 1 8 9 5 (box 87, B u i l d i n g

igan in A n n Arbor. See ibid, a n d J a n e t Cecelia Mar-

& G r o u n d s Series, Library of Congress Archives).

stine, "Working History: Images of L a b o r and Indus-

A l e x a n d e r wrote, " T h e Ideal would admit of some-

try in A m e r i c a n Mural Painting" (Ph.D. diss., Univer-

thing purely decorative; figures symbolic p e r h a p s —

sity of Pittsburgh, 1 9 9 3 ) , 2 1 .

History—Law—Astronomy, etc., all subjects to be f o u n d in the books of the library." While the realistic

2. T H E W O M A N ' S

BUILDING

would b e "the Making of the B o o k — w h i c h would be

1 . F o r a study of three early N e g r o Buildings, see J u d y

a series of strictly m o d e r n work, [to] show d i f f e r e n t

L. Larson, " T h r e e S o u t h e r n World's Fairs: Cotton

views of p a p e r m a k i n g — p r i n t i n g — b i n d i n g , etc.—

States and International Exposition, Atlanta, 1 8 9 5 ,

the machinery would be suppressed as m u c h as pos-

T e n n e s s e e C e n t e n n i a l , Nashville, 1 8 9 7 , South Caro-

sible as the pictures would be strictly figure subjects. "

lina Inter-State and West Indian Exposition, Charles-

Ultimately A l e x a n d e r chose the historical language

ton 1 9 0 1 / 0 2 " (Ph.D. diss., E m o r y University, 1 9 9 8 ) .

f o r his panels at the Library of Congress, painting

For a g o o d discussion of the "American N e g r o " exhi-

the evolution of the book f r o m prehistoric times to

bition at the Paris Exposition of 1 9 0 0 , see Shawn

G u t e n b e r g in the Renaissance.

Michelle Smith, American Archives, Gender, Race, and Class in Visual Culture (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton

3 8 . In my discussion of Puvis de Chavannes, I have relied

University Press, 1 9 9 9 ) , 1 5 7 - 8 6 .

heavily on the scholarship of A i m é e Brown Price and J e n n i f e r Shaw. Price's writings on Puvis are numer-

2. Mary Pepchinski has traced w o m e n ' s buildings in

ous a n d are cited in the bibliography. F o r J e n n i f e r L.

E u r o p e as well as America. She finds the first such

Shaw, see "Imagining the Motherland: Puvis d e Cha-

structure to be the Pavilion d e r Frauenarbeiten at

vannes, Modernism, and the Fantasy of F r a n c e , " Art

the V i e n n a World Exhibition of 1 8 7 3 , "a simple,

Bulletin 7 9 , no. 4 ( D e c e m b e r 1 9 9 7 ) : 5 8 6 - 6 1 0 , a n d

w o o d f r a m e b u i l d i n g " that shared space with "the

Dream States: Puvis de Chavannes, Modernism, and the

History of Invention." Mary Pepchinski, ' T h e Wom-

Fantasy of France (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University

an's Building a n d the World Exhibitions: Exhibi-

Press, 2 0 0 2 ) .

tion Architecture a n d Conflicting F e m i n i n e Ideals at

[ 2 1 5 ]

NOTES

TO

PAGES

6 6 - 7 4

8. For a helpful index to the wide variety of causes that

European and American World Exhibitions, 1 8 7 3 1 9 1 5 , " 6, www.tu-cottbus.de/theoriederarchitektur/

women took up, see the appendix 'The Broad Reach

wolke/eng/Subjects/001 /Pepchinski/pepchinski.

of Municipal Housekeeping" in Anne Firor Scott,

htm (accessedJanuary 1 1 , 2010).

Natural Allies, Women's Associations in American History (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1 9 9 1 ) , 185-89.

3. For the smaller World's Industrial and Cotton Centennial Exposition of 1884-85 in New Orleans, Julia

9. Francis Willard quoted in Judy Sund, "Columbus and

Ward Howe organized an exhibition area dedicated

Columbia in Chicago, 1893: Man of Genius Meets

to a display of women's work, but there was no sepa-

Generic Woman," Art Bulletin 75 (September 1993): 446.

rate building.

10. Nancy F. Cott, "What's in a Name? The Limits of

4. Flyers and bulletins of the Queen Isabella Association, 1 8 9 1 - 9 3 , F38MZ LiW, Chicago History

'Social Feminism'; or, Expanding the Vocabulary of

Museum; Jeanne Madeline Weimann, The Fair

Women's History, "Journal of American History 76, no.

Women: The Story of the Woman's Building, World's

3 (December 1989): 809-29, quote on 827. In the

Columbian Exposition 1893 (Chicago: Academy Chi-

footnotes of this clarifying essay, Cott cites the pro-

cago, 1 9 8 1 ) , 28-33; and Charlene G. Garfinkle,

lific late twentieth-century historical literature on the

"Women at Work: The Design and Decoration of the

emergence of American women in public activism

Woman's Building at the 1893 World's Columbian

from the Civil War to the granting of universal suf-

Exposition; Architecture, Exterior Sculpture, Stained

frage in 1 9 1 9 . See also Nancy F. Cott, The Grounding of Modern Feminism (New Haven, Conn.: Yale Univer-

Glass, and Interior Murals" (Ph.D. diss., University of

sity Press, 1987), 16-20.

California, Santa Barbara, 1996), 27-34.

1 1 . My first effort to define a "transitional or lim-

5. Joy S. Kasson, Marble Queens and Captives: Women in Nineteenth-Century American Sculpture (New Haven,

inal" space between the Victorian lady and the

Conn.: Yale University Press 1990), 164-65; Dolly

New Woman was in "Art Matronage in Post-Victo-

Sherwood, Harriet Hosmer, American Sculptor, 1830—

rian America," in Cultural Leadership in America: Art

1908 (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1991),

Matronage and Patronage (Boston: Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, 1997), 9-23.

325-27-

12. Lillian W. Betts, 'The New Woman," New Outlook

6. Weimann, The Fair Women, 40-43, has the best

(October 12, 1895): 587.

account of the making of this Board and the debates

13. Estelle B. Freedman, "Separatism as Strategy: Female

that raged over its constituency and its mission.

Institution Building and American Feminism, 1 8 7 0 -

7. Eventually the Board, led by Bertha Honoré Palmer, installed a small segregated exhibition of work by

1930," Feminist Studies 5, no. 3 (Fall 1979): 5 1 2 -

African American women. See Ida B. Wells, Freder-

29; and Estelle B. Freedman, "Separatism Revisited:

ick Douglass, Irvine Garland Penn, and Ferdinand L.

Women's Institutions, Social Reform, and the Career

Barnett, The Reason Why the Colored American Is Not in

of Miriam Van Waters," in U.S. History as Women's His-

the World's Columbian Exposition, ed. Robert W. Rydell

tory: New Feminist Essays, ed. Linda K. Kerber, Alice

(1893; reprint Urbana: University of Illinois Press,

Kessler Harris, and Kathryn Kish Sklar (Chapel Hill:

1999); Francis K. Pohl, "Historical Reality or Uto-

University of North Carolina Press, 1995), 170-88.

pian Ideal? The Woman's Building at the World's

Both essays are reprinted in Feminism, Sexuality, and

Columbian Exposition, Chicago, 1893," International

Politics: Essays by Estelle B. Freedman (Chapel Hill: Uni-

Journal of Women's Studies (Quebec) 5, no. 4 (September-October 1982): 2 8 9 - 3 1 1 ; Rydell, "A Cultural

versity of North Carolina Press, 2006). 14. For biographical accounts of Bertha Palmer, see Ish-

Frankenstein?" in Neil Harris, Wim de Wit, James

bel Ross, Silhouette in Diamonds: The Life of Mrs. Pot-

Gilbert, and Robert W. Rydell, Grand Illusions: Chica-

ter Palmer (New York: Harper, i960); and Aline B.

go's World Fair of 1893 (Chicago: Chicago Historical

Saarinen, "Provincial Princess: Mrs. Potter Palmer,"

Society, 1993), 143-70.

in The Proud Possessors: The Lives, Times, and Tastes of

[ 2 1 6 ]

N O T E S

TO

P A G E S

Some Adventurous American Art Collectors (New York:

7 4 - 8 9

27. Palmer, "Address on the Opening of the Woman's

Random House, 1974), 3-24. For Sara Hallowell, see

Building," 138.

John D. Kysela, "Sara Hallowell Brings 'Modern Art'

28. Palmer, "Address at the Dedicatory Ceremonies,"

to the Midwest," Art Quarterly 27, no. 2 (1964): 1 5 0 -

117—18. Women as keepers of the fine arts evolved

67; and National Museum of American Art, Revisit-

into a woman's issue after the Civil War. In addition

ing the White City: American Art at the 1893 World's Fair

to agitating for the right to go to college and univer-

(Washington, D.C.: National Museum of American

sity, women demanded professional training in art

Art and National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Insti-

schools and academies equal to that of men. Mid-

tution, 1993), 65-67, 7 0 - 7 1 .

dle- and upper-class women also formed the first art associations and unions. And very wealthy American

15. Kathleen D. McCarthy, Noblesse Oblige: Charity and Cultural Philanthropy in Chicago, 1849-1929

women—Jane Stanford in Palo Alto, California, and

(Chi-

Isabelle Stewart Gardner in Boston, for example—

cago: University of Chicago Press, 1982), 47.

collected art and established museums to instruct

16. See, for example, Scott, Natural Allies, 1 2 8 - 3 5 , 1 4 2 43; and Maureen Flanagan's study of Chicago club-

a wider public. Indeed, an important dimension of

women, Seeing with Their Hearts: Chicago Women and

female activism in the late nineteenth century was

the Vision of the Good City, 18 j 1—1933 (Princeton,

the drive to move the arts out from the parlor and

N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2002).

into the public sphere. See Kirsten Swinth's Painting Professionals: Women Artists and the Development of

17. Harriette Greenbaum Frank and Amalie Hofer

Modem American Art, 1870—1930 (Chapel Hill: Uni-

Jerome, Annals of the Chicago Woman's Club, 1876—

versity of North Carolina Press, 2001), on the strug-

1916 (Chicago: Chicago Woman's Club, 1 9 1 6 ) , 2 1 ,

gles of American women to become profession-

quoted in McCarthy, Noblesse Oblige, 47.

als in the fine arts at the end of the nineteenth cen-

18. Bertha Palmer, "Address Delivered at the Dedica-

tury. See also Karen J . Blair, The Torchbearers: Women

tory Ceremonies of the World's Columbian Exposi-

and Their Amateur Arts Associations in America, 1890—

tion, in Manufactures Building, October 2 1 , 1892," in Addresses and Reports of Mrs. Potter Palmer, President of the Board of Lady Managers, World's Columbian Exposition (Chicago: Rand, McNally, 1894), 1 1 6 .

1930 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994); my own "Art Matronage in Post-Victorian America," 9-24; and Dianne Sachko Macleod, Enchanted Lives, Enchanted Objects: American Women Collectors and the

19. Benjamin Cummings Truman, History of the World's

Making of Culture, 1800—1940 (Berkeley: University

Fair, Being a Complete and Authentic Description of the Columbian Exposition from Its Inception (Chicago: Mammoth Publishing, 1893; reprint New York: Arno

of California Press, 2008). 29. Palmer, "Report to the Board of Lady Managers,

Press, 1976), 166.

Third Session, October 18, 1892," in Addresses and

20. Palmer, "Address at the Dedicatory Ceremonies,"

Reports of Mrs. Potter Palmer, 101.

119.

30. Garfinkle, "Women at Work," 36-39, 80-84.

2 1 . Palmer, "Address Delivered on the Occasion of the

3 1 . Hayden quoted in Weimann, The Fair Women, 150.

Opening of the Woman's Building May 1, 1893," in

32. "Chicago—The Architect of the Woman's Building,"

Addresses and Reports of Mrs. Potter Palmer, 137.

American Architect and Building News 38 (November 26, 1892): 134.

22. Palmer, "Address at the Dedicatory Ceremonies," 116-17.

33. Palmer asked Enid Yandell, another young sculp-

23. Ibid., 1 1 7 .

tor, to sculpt the conventional eight-foot-high cary-

24. Ibid.

atids on the long façades of the building. Although

25. Palmer, "Address on the Opening of the Woman's

records show no official commission, Palmer most likely knew the sculptor because they were both from

Building," 138.

Louisville, Kentucky, and Yandell was conveniently

26. Palmer, "Address at the Dedicatory Ceremonies,"

working as a sculpture assistant on the fairgrounds.

119.

[ 2 1 7 ]

NOTES

TO

PAGES

34. Two male painters, Gari Melchers and Walter Mac-

8 9 - 9 4

suggested to Palmer that these two murals be dis-

Ewen, also painted tympana off-site that were then

played in the Woman's Building.

affixed to the walls of the Manufactures and Lib-

43. Judith A. Barter et al., Mary Cassatt: Modern Woman

eral Arts Building. Others did true frescoes, working

(New York: Abrams, 1 9 9 8 ) , 87.

directly on the walls of buildings at the Fair.

44. Cassatt to Palmer, September 10, [ 1 8 9 2 ] , reprinted in Nancy Mowll Mathews, ed., Cassatt and Her Circle:

35. Palmer to Hallowell, March 27, 1 8 9 2 , quoted in Wei-

Selected Letters (New York: Abbeville, 1 9 8 4 ) , 2 3 5 .

mann, The Fair Women, 193. 36. Because Hallowell knew her way around the inter-

45. There was a lot of grumbling and anger among the

national art world and had organized art exhibitions

artists about the way the commissions were paid. Cas-

for the Chicago Inter-State Industrial Expositions,

satt and MacMonnies were annoyed with Frank D.

she would have been the perfect person to direct

Millet, the painter in charge of all murals, who was

the Department of Fine Arts at the Fair. But with

very tardy in sending the contracts and firm dimen-

the exception of Bertha Palmer, as president of the

sions and who would not forward the checks until

Board of Lady Managers, no woman was appointed

the work had been received and installed. As a result,

to high office at the Fair. ' T h e general trend of opin-

both MacMonnies and Cassatt had to pay their

ion," reported New York's Commercial Advertiser on

expenses out of pocket during their work on the

October 2 3 , 1890, "seemed to be that, owing to the

murals. T h e muralists for the sidewalls continued to

fact that Miss Hallowell was a woman, such a position

ask Bertha Palmer for reimbursements for supplies

could not well be filled by her"; cited in National

even after the building was finished. At least two of

Museum of American Art, Revisiting the White City,

them finally received some assistance.

66. As a consequence, Hallowell became an assistant

46. T h e first artist Palmer approached for one of the

to Halsey Ives, who was appointed to the prestigious

side murals was Dora Wheeler Keith, whose creden-

position. For Hallowell's efforts to get this appoint-

tials included study with William Merritt Chase in

ment, see Carr, "Prejudice and Pride: Presenting

New York and classes at the Académie Julian with

American Art at the i 8 9 3 World's Columbian Expo-

William Bouguereau in Paris. Dora had close fam-

sition," in Revisiting the White City, 6 2 - 1 2 3 . See also

ily ties to the Fair because her mother, Candace

J o h n D. Kysela, "Mary Cassatt's Mystery Mural and

Wheeler, one of New York's most famous interior

the World's Fair of 1 8 9 3 , " Art Quarterly 29 ( 1 9 6 6 ) :

decorators, was choosing all the wall colors, trims,

128-45.

window dressings, stained glass, wall hangings, and furnishings for the Woman's Building. Wheeler had

3 7 . Thanks to the Chicago History Museum's collection of the extensive correspondence between Palmer

already commissioned her daughter to paint an alle-

and Hallowell and the artists, we have a lively record

gorical ceiling mural for the New York Library. For

of the headaches and ambitions these commissions

this work, Dora was paid. Keith declined Palmer's

elicited.

offer to create a side panel, saying her time was limited and she wanted reimbursement. But she intro-

38. Palmer to Hallowell, March 27, 1 8 9 2 , quoted in Wei-

duced Palmer to her circle of artist friends, four of

mann, The Fair Women, 1 9 3 .

whom eventually agreed to create one wall panel

39. Palmer to Hallowell, February 24, 1 8 9 2 , World's

each.

Columbian Exposition: Board of Lady Managers Collection, vol. 1 2 , 3 2 2 - 2 5 , Manuscripts Division, Chi-

47. The Catalogue Officiel for the Palais des Femmes, pub-

cago History Museum; letter quoted in full in Wei-

lished as an "Imprimerie Nationale" in Paris, 1 8 9 3 ,

mann, The Fair Women, 1 9 0 - 9 1 .

lists the "Projets de Panneaux décoratifs" by Van Parys and Abbéma as displayed in the painting sec-

40. Ibid.

tion of the French Beaux-Arts exhibition in the

4 1 . Elizabeth Gardner to Sara Hallowell, March 1 4 ,

Woman's Building.

1 8 9 2 , file PWA.gl, World's Columbian Exposition Collection, Art Institute of Chicago.

48. Palmer was aware that murals should be compatible but did not enforce her convictions. In writing

42. Garfinkle, "Women at Work," 1 3 5 - 3 6 . Hallowell had

[218]

NOTES

TO

PAGES

9 5 - 1 0 4

to Hallowell on February 24, 1 8 9 1 , about which art-

Early American Feminists (Summertown, Tenn.: Native

ists to commission for the tympana, she noted, "It

Voices, 2001).

is desirable that the panels be painted in the same

57. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, "The Matriarchate, or

country so that the artists can consult about the color

Mother-Age," in Transactions of the National Coun-

scheme, and the two decorations be made to har-

cil of Women of the United States, 1891, ed. Rachel Fos-

monize"; letter quoted in full in Weimann, The Fair

ter Avery (Philadelphia: J . B. Lippincott, 1 8 9 1 ) , 2 1 8 -

Women, 1 9 0 - 9 1 .

27. In this account, she opens with references to Bachofen and Morgan, two well-known scholars of

49. Cassatt's correspondence with Palmer and Hallowell has been reprinted in Mathews, Cassatt and Her Circle,

early society at the time. J . J . Bachofen, Mother Right

2 1 3 - 4 7 , quote on 235. The letters to Palmer from

[Das Mutterrecht, 1861 ], in Myth, Religion, and Mother

all the other artists are in the Ryerson and Burnham

Right: Selected Writings ofJ.J. Bachofen, trans. Ralph

Libraries of the Art Institute of Chicago. When the

Manheim ( 1 8 6 1 ; reprint Princeton, N.J.: Princeton

artists did write to Palmer, they often did so to com-

University Press, 1973). Lewis Morgan, Ancient Soci-

plain about something, money matters and the short

ety, or Researches in the Lines of Human Progress from

timetable being their two top concerns. Alice Ride-

Savagery through Barbarism to Civilization (London:

out, Cassatt, and MacMonnies had less than nine

Macmillan, 1877; reprint New York: Henry Holt,

months' lead time, and the painters of the side pan-

1907). For a study of nineteenth-century scholars of

els had less than six.

early civilization, see George W. Stocking Jr., Victorian Anthropology (New York: Free Press, 1987).

50. See "Document 3" in Garfinkle, "Women at Work,"

58. Elliott, Art and Handicraft in the Woman's Building,

460, for a reprint of the circular inviting women art-

165. See also the 1891 prospectus that the Board of

ists to enter the sculpture competition.

Lady Managers issued. The language of the prospec-

5 1 . Palmer to Hallowell, February 24, 1892. 52. Prospectus quoted in Weimann, The Fair Women, 393.

tus is so close to Elliott's that she may well have writ-

53. San Francisco Chronicle (December 6, 1891): 24,

ten it. Reprinted in Weimann, Fair Women, 393.

quoted in Garfinkle, "Women at Work," 104.

59. For an excellent discussion of the complicated ways in which women in 1893 thought about their "prim-

54. For nineteenth-century accounts of women in history, see Mrs. D.L. Child (Lydia Maria Francis

itive" foremothers, see Erik Trump, "Primitive

Child), The History of the Condition of Women in Vari-

Woman—Domestic (ated) Woman: The Image of the

ous Ages and Nations, 1835; and Sarah Josepha Hale,

Primitive Woman at the 1893 World's Columbian

Woman's Record or Sketches of all Distinguished Women

Exposition," Women's Studies 27, no. 3 (1998): 2 1 5 -

from "The Beginning" till A.D. 1850 Arranged in Four

58. For another discussion of the period's under-

Eras with Selections from Female Writers of Every Age

standing of "primitive women" and their household

(New York: Harper, 1853). Julia Ward Howe wrote

production, see Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, The Age of

the introduction and Lydia Hoyt Farmer edited the

Homespun, Objects and Stories in the Creation of an American Myth (New York: Knopf, 2001), 20-30.

monumental The National Exposition Souvenir: What America Owes to Women (Buffalo, N.Y.: Charles Wells

60. The sculpture entry offered by Carol Brooks, for

Moulton, 1893).

example, took as its theme 'The Spirit of Motherhood at the Center Flanked by Literature, Science,

55. Women activists across the political spectrum used emancipatory rhetoric. Bertha Palmer used it regu-

Religion, Queen Isabella, Joan of Arc, and Florence

larly in her speeches, as did Maud Howe Elliott in Art

Nightingale," mixing allegorical with historical fig-

and Handicraft in the Woman's Building of the World's

ures. This mixing of allegory with specific historical

Columbian Exposition, Chicago, 1893 (Paris: Goupil/

women may well have been the factor that doomed the entry. See Garfinkle, "Women at Work," 103.

Boussod, Valadon, 1893).

61. The three-figured cornice sculpture was used at the

56. For a study of the interest Stanton and others took in Native American culture, see Sally Roesch Wagner,

Paris Opéra and became a popular feature in late

Sisters in Spirit: Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Influence on

nineteenth-century public architecture.

[219]

NOTES

TO

PAGES

1 0 4 - 1 1 4

ham Lincoln (Emancipation Monument), 1 8 7 6 . See

62. I came up with the Girl of Hope term as a variation of Linda Nochlin's use of a similar term—"child-

Kirk Savage, "Imagining Emancipation," ch. 3 in

as-hope"—to describe the young boy sketching

Standing Soldiers, Kneeling Slaves: Race, War, and Mon-

and another young boy looking at the artist in Gus-

ument in Nineteenth-Century America (Princeton, N.J.:

tave Courbet's The Painter's Studio: An Allegory. She

Princeton University Press, 1 9 9 7 ) , 5 2 - 1 2 8 .

finds the same trope in Georges Seurat's image of a

70. The New Girl Student identified by the mortarboard

girl running with the hoop in Seurat's GrandeJatte.

on her head, and sometimes an academic robe,

See Linda Nochlin, "Seurat's Grande Jatte: An Anti-

needs further study. As best I know, her first appear-

Utopian Allegory," in Critical Readings in Impression-

ance in a fine-art decoration is at the Woman's Build-

ism and Post-Impressionism, ed. Mary Tompkins Lewis

ing. But she had already begun to appear regularly

(Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007),

in popular culture, often in caricature. See Alice

263. The big difference between the two is that the

Sheppard, Cartooning for Suffrage (Albuquerque: Uni-

children represent hope that their youth and inno-

versity of New Mexico Press, 1 9 9 4 ) , 1 7 1 , 1 7 6 . For

cence will help build a better society. They embody

easily accessible information about the first honor

the possibility of a better time to come. The Girl of

society for college women called the Mortar Board,

Hope has developed a subjective self and is no lon-

see www.Mortarboard.org/about/history (accessed

ger an innocent child; in her striding into or looking

January 11, 2 0 1 0 ) .

out at the future, she expresses her awareness of the

71. The photographs taken from ground level are hard

limitations society has imposed on her sex. T o pin-

to read. However, with the help of Charlene Garfin-

point the emergence of this iconographical type in

kle, who has deciphered the changes in iconogra-

visual culture needs more work. It is certainly antic-

phy that occurred between the initial model for the

ipated by the many paintings during the Victorian

project that Rideout created in San Francisco and

era of girls and women looking at the world outside

the final results in Chicago, I count eighteen kinds

through windows or doorways, or standing at thresh-

of works, nine on each side of the central figure. See

olds, the house representing their confinement.

Garfinkle, "Women at Work," 9 7 - 1 0 6 .

63. "California Models. Miss Rideout's Sculpture for Chi-

72. In Art Treasures from the World's Fair: Reproductions of

cago," SanFrancisco Chronicle (November 18, 1 8 9 1 ) :

the Famous Statuary That Adorned the Buildings (Chi-

12, reprinted in Garfinkle, "Women at Work,"

cago: Werner, 1 8 9 5 ) , the caption for the pediment

462-63.

describes the naked children as "little blacksmith

64. Ibid.

cupids who are emblematic of Nature in her pristine

65. Ibid.

force controlled by man" ( 1 0 9 ) .

66. Ibid. 3. THE M U R A L S

67. For a recent article on women in chains, see Melissa

1. Hubert Howe Bancroft, The Book of the Fair: An His-

Dabakis, '"Ain't I a Woman?' Anne Whitney, Edmonia Lewis, and the Iconography of Emancipation,"

torical and Descriptive Presentation of the World's Science,

in Seeing High and Low: Representing Social Conflict in

Art, and Industry, as Viewed through the Columbian Expo-

American Visual Culture, ed. Patricia Johnston (Berke-

sition at Chicago in 1893 ( 1 8 9 3 ; reprint vol. 1 New

ley: University of California Press, 2006), 8 4 - 1 0 2 .

York: Bounty Books, 1 9 7 2 ) , 2 6 1 , 263; Maud Howe

68. See Jean Fagan Yellin, Women and Sisters: The Antislav-

Elliott, ed., Art and Handicraft in the Woman's Build-

ery Feminists in American Culture (New Haven, Conn.:

ing of the World's Columbian Exposition, Chicago,

Yale University Press, 1 9 8 9 ) .

(Paris: Goupil/Boussod, Valadon, 1 8 9 3 ) , 3 0 - 3 1 ;

1893

Jeanne Madeline Weimann, The Fair Women: The Story

69. The best-known sculptural images of a slave in bro-

of the Woman's Building, World's Columbian Exposition,

ken chains looking up at President Lincoln are Randolph Rogers, Lincoln and the Emancipated Slave, c.

Chicago, 1893 (Chicago: Academy Chicago, 1 9 8 1 ) ,

1866, and Thomas Ball, Freedmen's Memorial to Abra-

264.

[ 220 ]

NOTES

TO

PAGES

1 1 6 - 1 3 5

mentary school girls to those we today would call

2. There is little different in Sewell's mural from her approach in some of her easel paintings. She exhib-

young women. Authors did not differentiate as we

ited two Arcadian paintings in the Palace of Fine Arts

would today between pre- and postpubescent, or pre-

at the Fair, Sylvan Festival and Pleasures of the Past.

and post-teen, girls. See Mrs. Lydia Maria Child, The

See Charlene G. Garkfinkle, "Women at Work: T h e

Girl's Own Book (Carter, Hendee and Babcock, 1834;

Design and Decoration of the Woman's Building at

reprint Bedford, Mass.: Applewood, 1992). See also

the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition; Architec-

Lina Beard and Adelia B. Beard, The American Girl's

ture, Exterior Sculpture, Stained Glass, and Interior

Handy Book (New York: Scribner's, 1887).

Murals" (Ph.D. diss., University of California, Santa

12. Julie Aronson, Bessie Potter Vonnoh, Sculptor of Woman

Barbara, 1996), 206. T o unify Sewell's and Fair-

(Athens: O h i o University Press, 2008), 42-53.

child's murals, they were installed similarly, with an

13. Many studies of the Gibson Girl exist; for a recent

arched frame over each canvas (see fig. 62).

one, with a useful bibliography, see Amanda Gles-

3. Eleanor E. Greatorex, "Mary Fairchild MacMonnies,"

mann's essay "Reforming the Lady, Charles Dana

Godey's Lady's Book, May 1893, 625.

Gibson and the 'New Girl,'" in Women on the Verge:

4. Ibid.

The Culture of Neurasthenia in Nineteenth-Century Amer-

5. Charlene Garfinkle located this mural hanging in

ica (Stanford, Calif.: Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Cen-

the Blow-Me-Down Grange in Plainfield, New Hamp-

ter for Visual Arts, Stanford University, 2004),

shire. It is the only extant mural from the Woman's

53-67-

Building. See her "Lucia Fairchild Fuller's 'Lost'

14. See Elliott, Art and Handicraft in the Woman's Building,

Woman's Building Mural," American Art 7, no. 1

87-95, f ° r "Women in Science," where the emphasis

(Winter 1993): 2-7.

is on women who do botanical drawings. The illustrations are on pottery, in lace, or in watercolor. Maria

6. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, ' T h e Matriarchate, or Mother-Age," in Transactions of the National Council

Mitchell, a Vassar College astronomer and professor

of Women of the United States, 1891, ed. Rachel Foster

who had discovered a comet in 1847, was featured in

Avery (Philadelphia:J.B. Lippincott, 1891), 227.

the Woman's Building. She died before the Fair, in 1889. She is the one woman scientist cited often in

7. Miss L.T. Guildford, "Puritan Womanhood: A Power

Fair literature.

in America," in The National Exposition Souvenir: What America Owes to Women, ed. Lydia Hoyt Farmer (Buf-

15. Elliott, Art and Handicraft in the Woman's Building, 29.

falo, N.Y.: Charles Wells Moulton, 1893), 44.

16. All of the figures in Sherwood's mural have the spec-

8. Garfinkle, "Women at Work," 209.

ificity of portraits. Charlene Garfinkle ("Women at

9. Lydia Hoyt Farmer, "The American Girl—Past and

Work," 195) plausibly suggests that Sherwood used

Present," in The National Exposition Souvenir, 160.

family members as models, posing her mother, Julia

10. See Jane H. Hunter, How Young Ladies Became Girls:

Colt Emmet, and her son, Arthur Jr., for the mater-

The Victorian Origins of American Girlhood (New Haven,

nal pair. Two sisters may have modeled for the fig-

Conn.: Yale University Press, 2002), for a help-

ures of Literature and Art.

ful historical analysis of how the New Girl emerged

17. Cassatt to Palmer, October 11, 1892, in Nancy Mowll

through interaction with peers in high school cul-

Mathews, ed., Cassatt and Her Circle: Selected letters

ture. Martha Banta's Imaging American Women: Idea

(New York: Abbeville, 1984), 238.

and Ideals in Cultural History (New York: Columbia

18. Ibid.

University Press, 1987), another important study,

1 g. Manet had done the same thirty years earlier, when

discusses the appearance of American Girl types in

he radically transformed a classical scene taken from

visual culture.

Raphael into a contemporary Parisian picnic, the

11. T h e illustrative vignettes that accompany nineteenth-

notorious Déjeuner sur l'Herbe, or when he reworked

century activity books for girls picture their female

one of Titian's reclining nudes into Olympia, a con-

subjects across the spectrum of girlhood, from ele-

temporary Parisian courtesan. Cassatt chose a con-

[ 221 ]

NOTES

TO

PAGES

1 3 8 - 1 6 9

temporary plein-air activity that had a p r o n o u n c e d

"Strategic Negotiations: Professional American and

familial relationship to traditional allegories, this

British W o m e n Muralists at the T u r n of the Twenti-

b e i n g o n e o f her strategies for making her realism

eth Century" (Ph.D. diss., Birkbeck College, Univer-

work metaphorically.

sity of L o n d o n , 2009), 2 5 0 - 5 5 . 30. Pennsylvania Art Contributions: State Building, Art Gal-

20. Cassatt to Palmer, O c t o b e r 1 1 , 1892, in Mathews, Cassatt and Her Circle, 238.

lery and Woman's Building, World's Columbian Exposition (Harrisburg, Penn.: Edwin K. Meyers, State

21. N o r m a Broude, "Mary Cassatt: Modern W o m a n or the Cult o f T r u e W o m a n h o o d ? " in Reclaiming Female

Printer, 1893); in the Pennsylvania and the World's

Agency: Feminist Art History after Postmodernism, ed.

Columbian Exposition archive, F38MZ 1893 F3P4,

N o r m a Broude and Mary D. Garrard (Berkeley: Uni-

Chicago History Museum.

versity of California Press, 2005), 2 5 9 - 7 5 .

3 1 . Ibid., unpaginated. 32. Ibid.

22. Louisa M c C o r d , "Woman and H e r Needs," DeBows' Review 13 (September 1852): 272.

33. Ibid.

23. Many scholars have tried to identify the sitter but

34. Ibid.

without success. For a while, she was thought to be Rachel Ruysch and then Maria van Ooservijk, but 4. T H E

her identity is still uncertain.

CRITICISM

1. T w o of the finest survey histories o f the fair, for

24. Cassatt reported the critic's c o m m e n t in a letter to Bertha Palmer, O c t o b e r 1 1 , 1892, in Mathews, Cas-

example, give ample coverage o f the W o m a n ' s Build-

satt and Her Circle, 237.

ing. Benjamin C u m m i n g s T r u m a n , History of the World's Fair, Being a Complete and Authentic Description

25. See Sally Webster, Eve's Daughter/Modem Woman: A Mural by Mary Cassatt (Urbana: University o f Illinois

of the Columbian Exposition from Its Inception (Chicago:

Press, 2004), 76—78, for this quote f r o m Stanton and

Mammoth Publishing, 1893; reprint New York: A r n o

for a very convincing analysis of the ways Cassatt's

Press, 1 9 7 6 ) , devoted six chapters to the building,

garden scene furthered a feminist theology articu-

giving other structures but one. Rossiter Johnson's

lated most prominently in Elizabeth Cady Stanton's

definitive four-volume work, A History of the World's

The Woman's Bible, published in two parts, 1895 and

Columbian Exposition (New York: Appleton, 1898),

1898: Elizabeth Cady Stanton and the Revising Com-

authorized by the Fair's directors, covers every aspect

mittee, The Woman's Bible (New York: European Pub-

of woman's presence at the Fair. V o l u m e 1 covers

lishing Company, 1898; reprint Seattle: Coalition

the history o f the W o m a n ' s Building and the consti-

Task Force o n W o m e n and Religion 1 9 7 4 ) .

tution of the Board o f Lady Managers in o n e chapter and devotes another to the organization and

26. Elliott, Art and Handicraft in the Woman's Building, 23.

f u n d i n g of the Children's Building. V o l u m e 3 con-

27. Mary Cassatt to Bertha Palmer, O c t o b e r 1 1 , 1892, in

tains a chapter itemizing the exhibitions of w o m a n ' s

Mathews, Cassatt and Her Circle, 238.

work not only at the W o m a n ' s Building but in all the

28. See Nicholas Watkins, ' T h e Genesis of a Decorative

other buildings. A n d volume 4 has complete cover-

Aesthetic," in Beyond the Easel: Decorative Painting by Bonnard, Vuillard, Denis, and Roussel, 1890—1930,

age o f the Congresses at the Fair, including those o n

ed.

w o m e n ' s issues. For his c o m m e n t u p o n the building

Gloria G r o o m (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University

as a forum for social problems, see 4:493.

Press, 2001), 1 - 2 8 . 29. Scholars have taken little notice o f the decorations

2. Candace Wheeler, "A Dream City," Harper's New

by w o m e n in state buildings at the Fair. Regina

Monthly Magazine86

Megan Palm has begun to d o this work. She has

(May 1893): 836, 838.

3. Maud Howe Elliott, "The Building and Its Decora-

pieced together the history o f the commissions for

tion," in Art and Handicraft in the Woman's Building of

the Ladies' Reception R o o m in the Pennsylvania

the World's Columbian Exposition, Chicago, 1893 (Paris:

State Building, showing that all the artists had con-

Goupil/Boussod, Valadon, 1893), 25-26.

nections to the state and to o n e another. See Palm,

4. Ibid., 30.

[ 222 ]

NOTES

TO

PAGES

169-173

eantry, and the Art of Civic Life in Progressive Amer-

5. Ibid., 28.

ica" (Ph.D. diss., Stanford University, 2 0 1 0 ) .

6. Ibid., 23. 7. Ibid., 23.

1 7 . For example, Florence Fenwick Miller wrote, "Now, we are all too sadly aware that Eve herself gathered

8. Norma Broude, "Mary Cassatt: Modern Woman or the Cult of True Womanhood?" in Reclaiming Female

apples, and there is nothing whatever modern about

Agency: Feminist Art History after Postmodernism, ed.

this group of young women, who are nearly all in

Norma Broude and Mary D. Garrard (Berkeley: Uni-

pink frocks, and standing upon the most vivid green

versity of California Press, 2005), 2 6 1 .

grass. The central panel, considerably the larger of the three, shows 'Modern Woman' engaged in no

9. Cassatt to Bertha Palmer, October 1 1 [ 1 8 9 2 ] , quoted in Nancy Mowll Mathews, ed., Cassatt and Her

more characteristic an occupation than gathering

Circle: Selected Letters (New York: Abbeville, 1984),

apples off trees" ("Art in the Woman's Section of

238.

the Chicago Exhibition," Art Journal 1 0 4 [London Fair Supplement, 1 8 9 3 ] : xiv). William Walton wrote,

0. American Architect and Building News (October 7,

"Miss Cassatt seems rather to have missed the point

1893): 8.

of her symbolism, as the occupation in which she

1. Ibid. (November 5, 1892): 86.

has represented her 'modern women'—gathering

2. Hubert Howe Bancroft, The Book of the Fair: An His-

fruit—is scarcely that which best corresponds to the

torical and Descriptive Presentation of the World's Science, Art, and Industry, as Viewed through the Columbian Exposition at Chicago in 1893 ( 1 8 9 3 ; reprint vol. 1 New

high claims put forth for their share in modern civilization. Mrs. Macmonnies' primitive women were more appropriate in their household and domestic

York: Bounty Books, 1 9 7 2 ) , 257. 3. "In the Woman's Building, Some of the Many Beautiful Things to Be Seen There," New York Times Review

labors" (World's Columbian Exposition 1893: Art and Architecture [Philadelphia: G. Barrie, 1 8 9 3 ] ) . 18. For one of several accounts about the paper dolls

(June 25, 1893). The review has many of Maud

and muralists' sharing of ideas, see the unsigned

Elliott's stylistic features and word choices, and I sus-

"Decorations at the World's Fair, A Talk with Mr.

pect she may have authored it.

Carroll Beckwith," Art Amateur (December 1892): 4.

4. For a classic piece of criticism using these criteria,

19. Ibid. Royal Cortissoz was the one critic who faulted

see Royal Cortissoz's review of murals painted by

some of the artists for their "feebleness of execu-

men at the Fair. "Color in the Court of Honor at the Fair," Century Magazine46, no. 3 (July 1893): 3 2 3 -

tion" and declared "that most of the much-talked-

34-

of domes are flat failures." But he concluded that

5. Art Treasures from the World's Fair: Reproductions of the

mural painting, being in its "infancy" in the United

Famous Statuary That Adorned the Buildings (Chicago:

States, would "gather a new impetus from the inspi-

Werner, 1895), 1 1 9 .

ration of the World's Fair." R. C. (Royal Cortissoz), "American Mural Painting," in "Art and Architecture

6. See Charles M. Shean, ' T h e Decoration of Public

at the World's Fair," special issue, Tribune Monthly 5

Buildings: A Plea for Americanism in Subject and

(September 1893): 5 4 - 5 8 .

Ornamental Detail," Municipal Affairs 5 (September 1 9 0 1 ) : 7 1 0 - 2 1 ; Shean, "Mural Painting from

20. For the painters' sharing of quarters and ideas, see

the American Point of View," Craftsman 7 (October

W. Lewis Fraser, "Decorative Painting at the World's

1904): 1 8 - 2 7 ; Will H. Low, "National Expression in

Fair: The Works of Gari Melchers and Walter Mac-

American Art," International Monthly 3 (March 1 9 0 1 ) :

Ewen," Century Magazine46

(May 1893): 1 4 - 2 1 .

2 3 1 - 5 1 . For more on the shift from allegory to histor-

2 1 . See "Women's Work in the Fine Arts, II. In the Illi-

ical realism in civic buildings, see Sarah J . Moore, "In

nois State Building," Art Amateur 29, no. 2 (July

Search of an American Iconography: Critical Reac-

1893): 35; and "By Illinois Women," Chicago Tribune

tion to the Murals at the Library of Congress," Winter-

(April 16, 1893): 25.

thurPortfolio 25 (Winter 1990): 2 3 1 - 3 9 ; andAnnelise

22. ' T h e Illinois State Building," Graphic 8, no. 22 (June

K. Madsen, "Model Citizens: Mural Painting, Pag-

3. l 8 93) : 3 S l -

[ 223 ]

NOTES

TO

PAGES

23. Mary Logan to Bertha Palmer, May 11, 1893, quoted

1 7 4 - 1 8 1

36. See Patricia Likos Ricci, "Violet Oakley: American Renaissance Woman," Pennsylvania Magazine of His-

in Jeanne Madeline Weimann, The Fair Women: The Story of the Woman's Building, World's Columbian Expo-

tory and Biography 126 (April 2002): 217-48, and

sition, Chicago, 1893 (Chicago: Chicago Academy,

Regina Megan Palm, "Strategic Negotiations: Profes-

1 9 8 1 ) , 313-

sional American and British Muralists at the Turn of the Twentieth Century" (Ph.D. diss., Birkbeck Col-

24. Will H. Low, ' T h e Art of the White City," Scribner's

lege, University of London, 2009), ch. 4, 292-367.

Magazine 14 (October 1893): 5 1 1 .

Mary Cassatt received a commission in 1901 to paint

25. Lucy Monroe, "Chicago Letter," Critic 19 (April 29,

four tondo murals for the Ladies Lounge of the

I893) : 279-

Pennsylvania State Capitol in Harrisburg. She never

26. "Dark blue and green predominate. This makes

completed them because someone tried to extort

her painting unduly conspicuous." From "Women's

fees from her for getting the commission. See "Mary

Work in the Fine Arts: T h e Woman's Building," Art

Cassatt Exhibits Paintings," [Philadelphia] Public Led-

Amateur29, no. 1 (June 1893): 10.

ger (6 March 1910): 1. One completed tondo is in

27. Teresa Dean, White City Chips (Chicago: War-

the Westmoreland Museum of Art in Greensburg,

ren, 1895), 21, quoted in Charlene G. Garfinkle,

Pennsylvania. At the 1915 Panama Pacific Interna-

"Women at Work: The Design and Decoration of the

tional Exposition in San Francisco, the Woman's

Woman's Building at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition; Architecture, Exterior Sculpture, Stained Glass, and Interior Murals" (Ph.D. diss., University of California, Santa Barbara, 1996), 153.

Board commissioned Florence Lundborg to make a mural decoration for the Auxiliary Tea Room in the California Host Building. In a style inspired by the Northern California painter Arthur Mathews and

28. Elliott, Art and Handicraft in the Woman's Building, 32.

Puvis de Chavannes, the mural depicted a procession

29. Ellen M. Henrotin, "An Outsider's View of the Wom-

of lightly clad women and children with garlands

an's Exhibit," Cosmopolitan 15, no. 5 (September

and baskets of flowers in a California landscape; it

1892): 561. 30. "About the Studios," Sunday Inter Ocean, April 30,

is more a hymn to sunshine and nature than a celebration of women. See Anna Pratt Simpson, Problems

I89331. Miller, "Art in the Woman's Section," xiv.

Women Solved (San Francisco: Blair-Murdock Com-

32. Henry B. Fuller, The Chicago Record's History of the

pany, 1916), 43. 37. Weimann, The Fair Women, 580. T h e cost of the por-

World Fair ( 1893), quoted in Weimann, The Fair Women, 316. Some of this virulent criticism was run-

trait was three thousand dollars, coincidentally the

of-the-mill anti-impressionist rhetoric, of the type

same amount paid to MacMonnies and Cassatt for

that Monet's broken strokes or Renoir's high-keyed

their large murals. There is a receipt for this amount

colors had been eliciting for twenty years. But in this

in the records for the painting at the Art Institute of

case, when Cassatt was being judged against other

Chicago, where the portrait hangs today. Whether

women, whose work had the requisite delicacy and

Palmer paid the bill herself is not clear: I would

reserve, the criticism became even more complexly

guess so because the portrait hung in her home as

gendered.

part of the Palmer collection, but it might also have been paid for by the Board of Lady Managers. For

33. Sara Tyson Hallowell quoted Cassatt's words verbatim in a letter to Bertha Palmer, February 6 [ 1894],

the speeches that women made at the unveiling of

quoted in Mathews, Cassatt and Her Circle, 254.

the portrait, see The Congress of Women Held in the Woman's Building, vol. 2 (Chicago: W. B. Conkley,

34. Cassatt wrote Palmer that her ideal was to get the

i894),8I6-19.

effect of "old tapestries brilliant yet soft." Cassatt to Palmer, October 11 [1892], quoted in Mathews, Cassatt and Her Circle, 238.

38. For all of Bertha Palmer's insistence on finding American women artists to decorate the Woman's Building, she and her husband paid minimal

35. Lucy Monroe, "Chicago Letter," Critic 19 (April 15,

attention to women artists in their avid collecting

1893): 241.

[ 224]

N O T E S

TO

P A G E S

of impressionist paintings. They seem to have used

1 8 2 - 1 8 7

cessing out from the home into the public sphere,

Mary Cassatt as an art advisor, but Erica Hirshler,

participating in activities that spanned the hundred

who has done the most recent scholarship on Cas-

years 1833-1933. The women of 1833 sew and tend

satt and her collectors, gives no evidence that the

children in the parlor and then walk into a school-

Palmers bought her paintings for their collection.

room where women teach and learn, and then into

Hirshler, "Helping 'Fine Things across the Atlan-

suffrage and abolitionist activities, nursing and the

tic': Mary Cassatt and Art Collecting in the United

founding of women's colleges. Portraits of those on

States," in Judith Barter et al., Mary Cassatt: Modem

parade include Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stan-

Woman (New York: Abrams, 1998), 200-1 (complete

ton, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Julia Ward Howe, Clara

essay, 1 7 7 - 2 1 1 ) . They did, however, buy a set of Cas-

Barton, Emily Dickinson, Mary Cassatt, Amelia Ear-

satt's color prints and a pastel. Barter, "Mary Cassatt:

hart, and Helen Keller. At the end of the proces-

Themes, Sources, and the Modern Woman," in ibid.,

sion contemporary women march for peace as Clio,

87 (complete essay, 4 5 - 1 0 7 ) .

the muse of History, writes on her tablet against a stone wall engraved with the words WOMEN MARCH

39. Later in her life, Bertha Palmer sat for Auguste Rodin, who made a plaster and then a marble bust

T H R O U G H E D U C A T I O N , SUFFRAGE, ECONOMIC FREE-

of her. For unknown reasons, the marble remained

DOM, T O W A R D S GREAT SOCIAL J U S T I C E . S e e M a r y

in Rodin's studio and estate. See Marian Hare, "The

Lackritz Gray, A Guide to Chicago's Murals (Chicago:

Portraiture of Auguste Rodin" (Ph.D. diss., Stanford

University of Chicago, 2001), 364—65; and for a color reproduction and biography of the artist,

University, 1984). 40. Ishbel Ross, Silhouette in Diamonds: The Life of Mrs. Potter Palmer (New York: Harper, i960), 96, reports that Zorn had broken his collarbone in a horseback-rid-

www.hildrethmeiere.com/CommissionsProgressof Women.html. In the 1930s there were also two important prog-

ing accident and had to paint the picture with his

ress cycles of African American history created by

left rather than his right hand. If this story is true, it

Aaron Douglas, the first in 1934 for the Schom-

might explain the murkiness in the lower right part

burg Library in Harlem (today the Schomburg Cen-

of the canvas. In 1896, Palmer sat again for Zorn,

ter for Research in Black Culture) and the second in

this time for an etching.

1936 for the Texas Centennial Exposition. Douglas's cycles begin in the African jungles, then proceed to

41. Bertha Palmer, "Address Delivered at the Closing of the Congresses in the Woman's Building," October

slavery in the American South, the Civil War and Jim

31, 1893, in Addresses and Reports of Mrs. Potter Palmer,

Crow laws, and finally the great migration of Afri-

President of the Board of Lady Managers, World's Colum-

can Americans from the South to the North. Like

bian Commission (Chicago: Rand, McNally, 1894),

the cycles invented for woman's history, the story is

149-58.

one of emancipation and liberation from enslavements of the past. The first progress narrative of Afri-

42. Pauline King, American Mural Painting, A Study of the Important Decorations by Distinguished Artists in the

can Americans that I know of is Thomas Nast's print

United Slates (Boston: Noyes, Piatt, 1902), 240-42.

Emancipation of the Negroes, fanuary, 1863 — The Past

Studies for Homage to Women are in the Will Hicok

and the Future. T h e image goes from brutal images

Low papers at the Albany Institute of History and Art.

of slavery to the members of a middle-class African American family seated in their "future" parlor. For

43. In 1933 Hildreth Meiere created a sixty-foot-long,

an excellent reading of the Nast image, one that

eight-foot-high mural, Progress of Women, that was

brought the print to my attention, see Susan Powell

commissioned by the National Council of Women to decorate its exhibition space in the Hall of Social Sciences at the Century of Progress Exposition in Chi-

Witt, "The Gendered Language of War: Picturing the Parlor in Civil War America" (Ph.D. diss., Stanford University, 2009).

cago. The artist put women in historical dress pro-

[225]

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-'J*

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[239]

ILLUSTRATIONS

Frontispiece: Elisabeth Parsons, Edith Blake Brown,

tlers), 1893. Oil on canvas, ig x 11 ft. Blow-Me-Down

and Ethel Isadore Brown, Massachusetts Mothering the

Grange, Plainfield, New Hampshire.

Coming Woman of Liberty, Progress, and Light, c. 1893.

4 Frederick S. Church, Knowledge Is Power, 1889. Oil

Stained and leaded glass, 7 x 3 ft. Fabricated by Ford

on canvas, 19'/» x 35% in. Grand Rapids History and

and Brooks of Boston. Smith Museum of Stained

Special Collections, Archives, Grand Rapids Public

Glass Windows, Chicago, Illinois.

Library, Grand Rapids, Michigan. 5 Mary MacMonnies, study for Primitive Woman, c.

PLATES (FOLLOWING PAGE

178)

1892. Oil on canvas. Private collection. 6 Mary Cassatt, Modern Woman, detail, 1893. Published

1 Madeleine Lemaire, frontispiece, Art and Handicraft in the Woman's Building, 1893. g'/4 x 6M> in. Based

in color in William Walton, World's Columbian Exposi-

on an original watercolor that hung in the French

tion 1893: Art and Architecture (Philadelphia: G. Bar-

Fine Arts exhibition in the Woman's Building. From

rie, 1893), facing page xxxvi.

Maud Howe Elliott, Art and Handicraft in the Woman's

7 Anders Leonard Zorn, Mrs. Potter Palmer, 1893. Oil

Building of the World's Columbian Exposition, Chicago,

on canvas, 105 x 55 in. Potter Palmer Collection 1922.450, The Art Institute of Chicago. Photography

1893 (Paris: Goupil/Boussod; Valadon, 1893).

© The Art Institute of Chicago.

2 Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, Inter Artes et Naturam

8 Emil Bisttram, Contemporary Justice and Woman, 1937.

(small version of the mural), 1889. Oil on canvas, 15% x 4454 in. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift

Mural, oil on canvas. Constitution Avenue lobby,

ofMrs. Harry Payne Bingham, 1958. (58.15.2.)

Department of Justice, Washington, D.C. Courtesy Department of Justice.

3 Lucia Fairchild, Women of Plymouth (or Puritan Set-

[ 241 ]

ILLUSTRATIONS

FIGURES

Department of Image Collections, National Gallery of Art Library, Washington, D.C.

1 Court of Honor, World's Columbian Exposition, 11

1893. Photographed by C. D. Arnold. From Official

21

Memorial Arch, Stanford University, Stanford, California, c. 1905. Destroyed in the 1906 earth-

Views of the World's Columbian Exposition (Chicago: Press Chicago Photo-Gravure, 1893). Department of

quake. Photograph courtesy of Stanford University

Image Collections, National Gallery of Art Library,

Archives.

Washington, D.C.

23

2

1 2 Memorial Arch frieze, Stanford University, Stanford,

2 World's Columbian Exposition at night. Photo-

California, c. 1905. Destroyed in the 1906 earth-

graphed by W. H.Jackson. From The White City (As It

quake. Photograph courtesy of Stanford University

Was) (Chicago: White City Art Co., 1894). Depart-

Archives.

ment of Image Collections, National Gallery of Art Library, Washington, D.C.

3

ilization, 1896. Mural, 10 ft. 1 in. diameter (144

3 Cover of a souvenir book, The World's Columbian Expo-

x 1 2 ft. collar). Main Reading Room, Library of Congress.

sition, Chicago, 1893, by Trumbull White and William

24

14 Ground Plan, World's Columbian Exposition. From

Igleheart (Philadelphia: International Publishing, 1893)-

23

1 3 Edwin Howland Blashfield, The Evolution of Civ-

Hubert Howe Bancroft, The Book of the Fair (Chicago:

4

Bancroft Co., 1893).

4 Sophia Hayden, Woman's Building, 1893. Staff over

Howe Bancroft, The Book of the Fair (Chicago: Ban-

by W. H.Jackson. From The White City (As It Was)

croft Co., 1893).

(Chicago: White City Art Co., 1894). Department of Image Collections, National Gallery of Art Library, Washington, D.C.

6

color by Charles Graham. From Hubert Howe Bancroft, The Book of the Fair (Chicago: Bancroft Co., 1893)-

Woman's Building, Los Angeles, 1973. Edited by Maria

2

9

1 7 West End, Midway Plaisance. Photographed by C. D.

Karras (1975). Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Insti-

Arnold. From Official Views of the World's Columbian

11

6 Illustration, Woman's Work. From History of the World's Columbian Exposition, Chicago, 1893, 170. Chicago History Museum, ICH-28044.

27

16 Bird's-Eye View of the Fair. Engraving after water-

5 Book cover, The Woman's Building, Chicago, 1893; The

tute, Harvard University.

26

1 5 View of Administration Building. From Hubert

wood construction, 199 x 388 x 60 ft. Photographed

Exposition (Chicago: Press Chicago Photo-Gravure, 1893)31 18 The Samoan Village, Midway Plaisance. Photo-

12

7 Madeleine Lemaire, frontispiece, Art and Handicraft

graphed by C. D. Arnold. From Official Views of the

in the Woman's Building, 1893. gV4 x 6V2 in. Based on

World's Columbian Exposition (Chicago: Press Chicago

original watercolor that hung in the French Fine Arts

Photo-Gravure, 1893).

exhibition in the Woman's Building. From Maud Howe Elliott, Art and Handicraft in the Woman's Build-

Bancroft, The Book of the Fair (Chicago: Bancroft Co.,

ing of the World's Columbian Exposition, Chicago, 1893 (Paris: Goupil/Boussod, Valadon, 1893).

31

19 Ferris Wheel, Midway Plaisance. From Hubert Howe 1893).

13

32

20 Karl Bitter, Fire Uncontrolled, group flanking the

8 Kenyon Cox, The Arts, 1896. Mural, oil on canvas, 9V2

south entrance to the Administration Building. From

x 34 ft. Southwest gallery, second floor, Library of

Art Treasures from the World's Fair (Chicago: Werner,

Congress.

14

'895)-

9 Kenyon Cox, The Sciences, 1896. Mural, oil on canvas,

33

21 Karl Bitter, Fire Controlled, group flanking the south

gi/2 x 34 ft. Southwest gallery, second floor, Library

entrance to the Administration Building. From Art

of Congress.

Treasures from the World's Fair (Chicago: Werner,

14

1 o Mary Lawrence and Augustus Saint-Gaudens, Colum-

1895).

bus Setting Foot on Land, Administration Building.

33

22 Asher B. Durand, Progress (The Advance of Civilization),

Photographed by W.H.Jackson. From The White

1853. Oil on canvas, 48 x 71 'Ms in. From the War-

City (As It Was) (Chicago: White City Art Co., 1894).

ner Collection. On display at the Westervelt Warner

[242]

I L L U S T R A T I O N S

35 a—b Fernand Cormon, L'Histoire de l'Écriture dans les

Museum of American Art. Property of the Westervelt Company.

temps anciens & modernes, c. 1882. Murais, Salon des

35

Lettres, Hôtel de Ville, Paris. Photograph courtesy of

23 Grand Basin, World's Columbian Exposition, 1893. Source unknown.

Richard Murray.

39

54_55

36 Louis Sullivan, Golden Portai, Transportation Build-

24 Frederick MacMonnies, Columbian Fountain (Barge

ing. Photographed by W.H.Jackson. From The White

of State), 1892-93. From The Dream City: A Portfolio of Photographic Views of the World's Columbian Exposition

City (As It Was) (Chicago: White City Art Co., 1894).

(St. Louis: N.D. Thompson, 1893).

Department of Image Collections, National Gallery

39

of Art Library, Washington, D.C.

25 Henri Meyer, Le Char du Triomphe de la République,

entrance, Transportation Building. Chicago History

Le Petit Journal, supplement illustré du 24 septembre 1892.

56

37 John J . Boyle, Ancient Transportation, large panel, east

i8g2. Colored wood engraving, 12Vi x 18 in. From

Museum, ICHi-2 2868.

40

57

38 John J . Boyle, Ancient Transportation, small panel, east

26 Daniel Chester French, The Republic (Columbia), 1892-93. From The Dream City: A Portfolio of Photo-

entrance, Transportation Building. From Hubert

graphic Views of the World, 's Columbian Exposition (St.

Howe Bancroft, The Book of the Fair (Chicago: Ban-

Louis: N.D. Thompson, 1893).

croft Co., 1893).

41

57

39 John J . Boyle, Modern Transportation, large panel,

27 J . Carroll Beckwith, Electricity, dome in the Manufactures and Liberal Arts Building. From Cen-

east entrance, Transportation Building. From Art

tury Magazine46, no. 3 (July 1893): 328. Photo-

Treasures from the World's Fair (Chicago: Werner,

graph courtesy of Department of Special Collections, Barbara.

1895)-

57

40 John J . Boyle, Modern Transportation, small panel, east

Davidson Library, University of California, Santa

entrance, Transportation Building. Chicago History

43

28 J . Carroll Beckwith, The Telephone and the Ticker, pen-

Museum, ICHi-i 3675.

57

41 John J . Boyle, Apotheosis of Transportation, east

dentive, dome in the Manufactures and Liberal Arts Building. From Scribner's Monthly 1 2 (1892):

entrance lunette, Transportation Building. From

699-

Art Treasures from the World's Fair (Chicago: Werner,

43

1895)-

29 Ernest Duez, La Physique, c. 1889. Mural, Salon des of Richard Murray.

44

Building. From Art Treasures from the World's Fair (Chi-

30 General Electric's Mazda Lamp advertisement, c.

cago: Werner, 1895).

1 9 1 0 . Photograph. Schenectady Museum and SuitsBueche Planetarium.

44

(smaller version), 1889. Oil on canvas, 15% x 44M in. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of Mrs. Harry

Columbian Exposition to the Americas. Color lithograph, image 28VÎ x 37 in. (plate 2314 x 32VS in.). Chicago

Payne Bingham, 1958. (58.15.2.)

61

44 Gari Melchers, The Arts of War, Manufactures and

45

Liberal Arts Building. 20 x 40 ft. Harlan Hatcher

32 Daniel Chester French, Columbus Quadriga, top of the triumphal arch of the Peristyle.

59

43 Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, Inter Artes et Naturam

31 Rodolfo Morgari, Columbia Presenting the World's

History Museum, ICHi-25233.

59

42 John J . Boyle, Land Transportation, Transportation

Sciences, Hôtel de Ville, Paris. Photograph courtesy

Graduate Library, University of Michigan, Ann

50

Arbor, Michigan. Fred Golden Photography.

33 Henri Gervex, La Musique à travers les Âges, c.

63

45 Gari Melchers, The Arts of Peace, Manufactures and

1882. Ceiling mural, Grande Salle des Fêtes, Hôtel

Liberal Arts Building. 20 x 40 ft. Harlan Hatcher

de Ville, Paris. Photograph courtesy of Richard

Graduate Library, University of Michigan, Ann

Murray.

Arbor, Michigan. Fred Golden Photography.

51

34 Aimé-Nicolas Morot, La Danse à travers les Ages, c.

63

46 Women's Pavilion, Philadelphia Centennial Exhibi-

1882. Ceiling mural, Grande Salle des Fêtes, Hôtel

tion, 1876. Wood engraving from Frank Leslie's His-

de Ville, Paris. Photograph courtesy of Richard

torical Register of the United States Centennial Exposition,

Murray.

1876 (New York, 1877).

53

[243]

67

I L L U S T R A T I O N S

lery, Smithsonian Institution, Gift of the Mor-

47 Interior, Women's Pavilion, Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition, 1876. Stereograph. The Historical Soci-

ris and Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation and the

ety of Pennsylvania, Centennial Collection (Box FF

Regents' Major Acquisitions Fund, Smithsonian

17.490).

Institution.

67

48 Harriet Hosmer, Queen Isabella of Castile, 1892.

69

624.

i 8 g i . Photograph from Halligan's Illustrated World's 71

From Hubert Howe Bancroft, The Book of the Fair

Photography, Chicago. From Art and Handicraft in the Woman's Building of the World's Columbian Exposition,

(Chicago: Bancroft Co., 1893).

93

63 Native American Women display, Woman's Building.

Chicago, 1893, edited by Maud Howe Elliott (Chi-

From Jeanne Madeline Weimann, The Fair Women

73

(Chicago: Academy Chicago, 1 9 8 1 ) .

5 1 President's Office, Woman's Building. From Hubert

103

64 Alice Rideout working on the pediment of the Wom-

Howe Bancroft, The Book of the Fair (Chicago: Bancroft Co., 1893).

93

62 Hall of Honor, looking west, Woman's Building.

50 Mrs. Potter Palmer, c. 1893. Photographed by Steffens

cago: Rand, McNally, 1894).

91

Mrs. MacMonnies at Work, 1893. Illustration in Eleanor Greatorex, Godey's Magazine 126 (May 1893):

49 Session of the Board of Lady Managers, September Fair. Chicago History Museum, ICHi-61400.

61

an's Building, 1892. Photograph courtesy of The Art

75

Institute of Chicago.

52 Floor Plan, Woman's Building. From Art and Hand-

105

65 Alice Rideout, Woman as the Spirit of Civilization and

icraft in the Woman's Building of the World's Colum-

Woman's Virtues, attic cornice groups, Woman's

bian Exposition, Chicago, 1893, edited by Maud Howe

Building, i o ft. Photograph courtesy of The Art Insti-

Elliott (Chicago: Rand, McNally, 1894).

77

tute of Chicago.

53 Inventions & Patents, Woman's Building. From Hubert Howe Bancroft, The Book of the Fair (Chicago: Bancroft Co., 1893).

105

66 Alice Rideout, Woman's Virtues, Woman's Build-

79

ing. Photograph courtesy of The Art Institute of Chicago.

54 Candace Wheeler, designer, New York Library

106

67 Alice Rideout, study for Woman as the Spirit of Civiliza-

(southeast corner), Woman's Building. From Shepp's

tion. From Art Treasures from the World's Fair (Chicago:

World's Fair Photographed (Chicago: Globe Bible,

Werner, 1895).

1893)-

79

106

68 Ami Not a Woman and a Sister? Cover vignette from Lydia Maria Child, Authentic Anecdotes of American

55 Gymnasium, Children's Building, 1893. From Rossiter Johnson, A History of the World's Columbian Expo-

Slavery, 1838. Photograph courtesy Columbia Uni-

sition (New York: Appleton, 1898).

versity Library.

7g

56 Ceylon Tea Room, Woman's Building. From The

108

69 Thomas Ball, Freedman's Memorial to Abraham Lincoln

Dream City: A Portfolio of Photographic Views of the

(Emancipation Monument), Park Square, Boston, 1879.

World's Columbian Exposition (St. Louis: N.D. Thomp-

Photograph courtesy of Library of Congress.

son, 1893).

79

Department of Special Collections, Davidson Library,

57 Aerial view, Woman's Building. Photograph courtesy of Carolyn Carr.

108

70 The liberator masthead, 1856. Photograph courtesy of University of California, Santa Barbara.

88

58 Elizabeth Gardner, Crossing the Brook, 1893. Oil on

109

71 Alice Rideout, Woman's Place in History (or Wom-

canvas, 72 x 42 in. Exeter Historical Society, Town of

an's Work), pediment, Woman's Building, 1892. 7 ft.

Exeter, New Hampshire.

high in center x 45 ft. Photographed by W.H.Jack-

91

son. From The White City (As It Was) (Chicago: White

59 Mary MacMonnies, Self-Portrait, 1889. From Ev'ry Month: An Illustrated Magazine of Literature and Popular

City Art Co., 1894). Department of Image Collec-

Music%, n o -

tions, National Gallery of Art Library, Washington,

2

(November 1896): 25. Courtesy of the

D.C.

Sibley Music Library, Eastman School of Music, University of Rochester.

91

109

72 M. A. Waagen, The Triumph of Invention, pediment,

60 Edgar Degas, Portrait of Mary Cassatt, c. 1880-84.

Mechanical Arts Building. From Art Treasures from the

Oil on canvas, 28H x 23'/8 in. National Portrait Gal-

World's Fair (Chicago: Werner, 1895).

[244]

111

I L L U S T R A T I O N S

about to Graduate, 1890. Illustration. Library of

73 Hall of Honor, looking north. Photographed by

Congress.

W.H.Jackson. The White City (AsIt Was) (Chicago: White City Art Co., 1894). Department of Image Col-

131

85 Frederick S. Church, Knowledge Is Power, 1889. Oil

lections, National Gallery of Art Library, Washing-

on canvas, 19% x 35% in. Grand Rapids History and

ton, D.C.

Special Collections, Archives, Grand Rapids Public

115

Library, Grand Rapids, Michigan.

74 Hall of Honor, looking south. From Hubert Howe

132

86 Briton Riviere, Daniel in the Lion's Den, c. 1893. Oil

Bancroft, The Book of the Fair (Chicago: Bancroft Co.,

on canvas. From Art Treasures from the World's Fair

1893)115 75 Amanda Brewster Sewell, Arcadia, 1893. Oil on can-

(Chicago: Werner, 1895).

132

87 Mary Cassatt, Modern Woman, 1892-93. Tympanum,

vas, 12 x 1 1 ft. From Art and Handicraft in the Woman 's Building of the World's Columbian Exposition, Chi-

oil on canvas, 14 x 58 ft. From Hubert Howe Ban-

cago, 1895, edited by Maud Howe Elliott (Chicago:

croft, The Book of the Fair (Chicago: Bancroft Co.,

Rand, McNally, 1894).

1893)-

117

76 Mary MacMonnies, Primitive Woman, 1892-93. Tympanum, oil on canvas, 14 x 58 ft. From Art and Handicraft in the Woman's Building of the World's Colum-

135

89 Mary Cassatt, Modern Woman, detail right side. From

118

Hubert Howe Bancroft, The Book of the Fair (Chicago: Bancroft Co., 1893).

77 Mary MacMonnies, Primitive Woman, detail left side. From Hubert Howe Bancroft, The Book of the Fair (Chicago: Bancroft Co., 1893).

baby. From Harper's New Monthly Magazine (May 1893): 836.

bian Exposition, Chicago, 1893, edited by Maud Howe Elliott (Chicago: Rand, McNally, 1894).

*34

88 Mary Cassatt, Modern Woman, border medallion with

136

go Class in Aesthetics (six women in class of gymnas-

118

tics floor dance in Alumnae Gymnasium, Smith College), 1904. Photographer/creator: Katherine

78 Mary MacMonnies, Primitive Woman, detail center. From Hubert Howe Bancroft, The Book of the Fair

McClellan. Copyright: Smith College, Smith College

(Chicago: Bancroft Co., 1893).

Archives.

119

79 Mary MacMonnies, Primitive Woman, detail right side.

136

91 Mary Cassatt, The Banjo Lesson, 1894. Pastel on

From Hubert Howe Bancroft, The Book of the Fair

paper, 28 x 22!4 in. Virginia Museum of Fine Arts,

(Chicago: Bancroft Co., 1893).

Richmond. The Adolph D. and Wilkins C. Williams

119

Fund. Photo: Katherine Wetzel © Virginia Museum

80 Lucia Fairchild, The Women of Plymouth (or Puritan

of Fine Arts.

Settlors), 1893. Oil on canvas, 12 x 1 1 ft. Blow-MeDown Grange, Plainfield, New Hampshire. Photograph courtesy of Charlene Garfinkle.

121

Hubert Howe Bancroft, The Book of the Fair (Chicago: Bancroft Co., 1893).

81 Charles Dana Gibson, "Scribner's for June" (girl riding bicycle), 1895. Illustration, Scribner's Magazine. Library of Congress.

139

93 Rudolf Friedrich August Henneberg, Tyche (Fortuna)

123

or Die Jagd nach dem Glück, 1868. Oil on canvas, 80 x

82 Lydia Field Emmet, Art, Science, and Literature, 1 8 9 2 93. Oil on canvas, 12 x 1 1 ft. From Art and Handicraft in the Woman's Building of the World's Columbian Exposition, Chicago, 1893, edited by Maud Howe Elliott (Chicago: Rand, McNally, 1894).

138

92 Mary Cassatt, Modern Woman, detail left side. From

153>/i in. Staatliche Museen zu Berlin. Photo: Klaus Göken.

139

94 Cupid in Flight, fresco from Pompeii, detail from copy by Antonio Canova. Photograph courtesy of Norma

125

Broude.

83 Rosina Emmet Sherwood, The Republic's Welcome to

140

95 Frances Benjamin Johnston, Miss Apperson Playing

Her Daughters, 1892-93. Oil on canvas, 12 x 1 1 ft.

Banjo beside Statue of "Flora," c. 1895. Photograph

From Art and Handicraft in the Woman's Building of the

courtesy of the Library of Congress.

World's Columbian Exposition, Chicago, 1893, edited

140

96 Jean Beraud, An Allegory of Rain, c. 1880. Oil

by Maud Howe Elliott (Chicago: Rand, McNally,

on canvas, 15M, x 2 i n . (fan-shaped). Private

1894).

collection.

127

84 Charles Howard Johnson, For the Benefit of the Girl

142

97 Michiel van Musscher (attributed), AllegoricalPor-

[245]

I L L U S T R A T I O N S

trait of an Artist in Her Studio, 1675-85. Oil on can-

Sorrows of the World, Ladies' Reception Room, Penn-

vas, 4 4 % x 35% in. North Carolina Museum

sylvania State Building. From Pennsylvania Art Contri-

of Art, Raleigh. Gift of Armand and Victor

butions, State Building, Art Gallery and Woman's Build-

Hammer.

143

ing, World's Columbian Exposition (Harrisburg, Penn.: Edwin K. Meyers, 1893). Photograph courtesy of

98 Mary Cassatt, Modern Woman, detail center. From

Richard Murray.

Harper's New Monthly Magazine (May 1893): 837.

144

Room, Pennsylvania State Building. From Pennsyl-

99 Camille Pissarro, Apple Picking at Eragny-sur-Epte,

vania Art Contributions, State Building Art Gallery and

1888. Oil on canvas, 23 x 281/- in. Dallas Museum of Art.

Woman's Building, World's Columbian Exposition (Har-

144

risburg, Penn.: Edwin K. Meyers, 1893). Photograph

100 En Provence—La Cueillette des Olives (L'Olivado). Pho-

courtesy of Richard Murray.

tographic postcard, 3V2 x 5% in. Collection of Wanda M. Corn.

153

109 Sarah P.B. Dodson, Pax Patriae, Ladies' Reception

144

154

110 Margaret Lesley Bush-Brown, Spring, Ladies' Reception Room, Pennsylvania State Building. From Penn-

101 Mary Cassatt, Young Women Picking Fruit, c. 1891-92. Oil on canvas, 52 x 36 in. Carnegie Museum of Art,

sylvania Art Contributions, State Building, Art Gallery

Pittsburgh, Patrons Art Fund. Photograph © 2009

and Woman's Building, World's Columbian Exposition

Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh.

(Harrisburg, Penn.: Edwin K. Meyers, 1893). Photo-

147

graph courtesy of Richard Murray.

102 John Stevens, "Human Fruitfulness," panel 36 of Minnesota Fruit panorama, 1870. Courtesy Gilcrease Museum, Tulsa, Oklahoma.

155

111 Gabrielle D. Clements, Harvest, Ladies' Reception

147

Room, Pennsylvania State Building. From Pennsylvania Art Contributions, State Building, Art Gallery and

103 Frederick S. Church, Valentine of Women Bathing Cupids, 1884. L. Prang & Co. chromolitho-

Woman's Building, World's Columbian Exposition (Har-

graph. Print Collection, Miriam and Ira D. Wal-

risburg, Penn.: Edwin K. Meyers, 1893). Photograph

lach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs, T h e

courtesy of Richard Murray.

New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations.

155

112 Jeanne Rongier, Maternity, Ladies' Reception Room,

148

Pennsylvania State Building. From Pennsylvania Art

104 Ida Burgess, designer, Reception Room, Illinois State

Contributions, State Building, Art Gallery and Woman's

Building, World's Columbian Exposition, 1893.

Building, World's Columbian Exposition (Harrisburg,

From Official Catalogue of the Illinois Women's Exposi-

Penn.: Edwin K. Meyers, 1893). Photograph courtesy of Richard Murray.

tion Board. Photograph courtesy of T h e Newberry Library, Chicago Ri832-43i.

150

157

1 1 3 Jeanne Rongier, Reverie, Ladies' Reception Room, Pennsylvania State Building. From Pennsylvania Art

105 Mary W. Means, The Dancers, Reception Room, Illinois State Building. From Official Catalogue of the Illi-

Contributions, State Building, Art Gallery and Woman's

nois Women's Exposition Board. Photograph courtesy of

Building, World's Columbian Exposition (Harrisburg,

The Newberry Library, Chicago Ri832.431.

Penn.: Edwin K. Meyers, 1893). Photograph courtesy

151

of Richard Murray.

106 Gendemen's Reception Room, Pennsylvania State Building. From Pennsylvania at the Columbian Exposi-

157

1 1 4 Elisabeth Parsons, Edith Blake Brown, and Ethel

tion: Rules, Regulations & Classifications (Harrisburg,

Isadore Brown, Massachusetts Mothering the Com-

Penn.: EdwinK. Meyers, 1893). Chicago History

ing Woman of Liberty, Progress, and Light. Stained and

Museum, ICHi-61245.

leaded glass, 7 x 3 ft. Fabricated by Ford and Brooks

152

of Boston. Smith Museum of Stained Glass Windows,

107 Ladies' Reception Room, Pennsylvania State Build-

Chicago, Illinois.

ing. From Pennsylvania at the Columbian Exposition: Rules, Regulations & Classifications (Harrisburg,

159

115 Dora Wheeler Keith, Science, Literature, and Imagina-

Penn.: Edwin K. Meyers, 1893). Chicago History

tion, ceiling mural, New York Library, Woman's Build-

Museum, ICHi-61246.

ing, 1892-93. Oil on canvas, 37 x 57 ft. From Art and

152

Handicraft in the Woman's Building of the World's Colum-

108 Mary E. Slater and Charles Grafly, Art Sanctifies the

[246]

I L L U S T R A T I O N S

bian Exposition, Chicago, 1893, edited by Maud Howe

York. Hotel d e m o l i s h e d in 1929. From Pauline

Elliott (Chicago: Rand, McNally, 1894).

King, American Mural Painting (Boston: Noyes, Piatt,

160

116 A n n a Lea Merritt, Needlework. Line drawing f r o m Art Journal ( L o n d o n ) , Fair S u p p l e m e n t , 1893.

1902).

184

125 Emil Bisttram, Contemporary Justice and Woman, 1937.

160

117 Louise van Parys, The Arts of Woman: To Love, to Please,

Mural, oil o n canvas. Constitution Avenue lobby,

and Devote Herself, preparatory study, m u r a l design

D e p a r t m e n t of Justice, Washington, D.C. Photo-

for west vestibule, W o m a n ' s Building, 1892-93.

g r a p h courtesy D e p a r t m e n t of Justice.

186

From Art and Handicraft in the Woman's Building of the World's Columbian Exposition, Chicago,

PORTRAITS OF W O M E N A S S O C I A T E D W I T H

edited

CREATING THE WOMAN'S B U I L D I N G

by Maud Howe Elliott (Chicago: Rand, McNally, 1894).

Louise Abbema. P h o t o g r a p h e d by F e r d i n a n d Muinier. Pri-

162

vate collection. From A r t h u r Gold a n d Robert Fiz-

118 Louise van Parys, Influence of Women in the Arts, preparatory study, mural design for west vestibule, Wom-

dale, The Divine Sarah: A Life of Sarah Bernhardt (New

a n ' s Building, 1 8 9 2 - 9 3 . F r o m Art and Handicraft in

York: Knopf, 1991).

189

Mary Cassatt, Self-Portrait, c. 1880. Watercolor o n paper,

the Woman's Building of the World's Columbian Exposition, Chicago, 1893, edited by Maud Howe Elliott

13 x g5/s in. National Portrait Gallery. F r o m Cassatt

(Chicago: Rand, McNally, 1894).

and Her Circle: Selected Letters, edited by Nancy Mowll

162

Mathews (New York: Abbeville, 1984).

119 Louise A b b e m a , The City of Paris Carrying to Chicago

191

Emily Crawford, c. 1893. P h o t o g r a p h . F r o m The Congress of

the Arts of Woman —Fluctuat Nec Mergitur, prepara-

Women, Held in the Woman's Building, Chicago, U.S.A.,

tory study, m u r a l design for west vestibule, W o m a n ' s Building, 1 8 9 2 - 9 3 . F r o m Art and Handicraft in the

1893, edited by Mary Kavanaugh O l d h a m Eagle

Woman's Building of the World's Columbian Exposition,

(Chicago: International Publishing, 1895).

Chicago, 1893, edited by Maud Howe Elliott (Chicago: Rand, McNally, 1894).

164

9'/j x 614 in. T h e Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University.

120 Louise A b b e m a , America Receiving the Nations at the

192

Lydia Field Emmet, c. 1893. P h o t o g r a p h . F r o m Rossiter

World's Exposition—E Pluribus Unum, preparatory

J o h n s o n , A History of the World's Columbian Exposition

study, mural design for west vestibule, W o m a n ' s Building, 1 8 9 2 - 9 3 . F r o m Art and Handicraft in the

(New York: Appleton, 1898).

Woman's Building of the World's Columbian Exposition,

193

Lucia Fairchild Fuller, Self-Portrait, c. 1894. Watercolor o n

Chicago, 1893, edited by Maud Howe Elliott (Chicago: Rand, McNally, 1894).

ivory, 21/» x l'/i in. Private collection.

164

paper. Illustration f r o m Art Amateur 29, no. 1 (June

oil o n canvas, 14 x 58 ft. From Art and Handicraft in

1893).

the Woman's Building of the World's Columbian Expo-

196

Sophia Hayden, c. 1893. P h o t o g r a p h . F r o m H u b e r t Howe

sition, Chicago, 1893, edited by Maud Howe Elliott

Bancroft, The Book of the Fair (Chicago:

(Chicago: Rand, McNally, 1894).

l8

176-77

122 Mary MacMonnies, Primitive Woman o n display at

93)-

Bancroft Co.,

197

Dora Wheeler Keith, c. 1893. P h o t o g r a p h . From Rossiter

t h e Art Institute of Chicago, 1911. T h e Art Insti-

J o h n s o n , A History of the World's Columbian Exposition

tute of Chicago. P h o t o g r a p h courtesy of Carolyn

(New York: Appleton, 1898).

178

198

Mary Fairchild MacMonnies, c. 1893. P h o t o g r a p h . F r o m

123 A n d e r s L e o n a r d Zorn, Mrs. Potter Palmer, 1893. Oil

Rossiter J o h n s o n , A History of the World's Columbian

o n canvas, 105 x 55 in. Potter Palmer Collection

Exposition (New York: Appleton, 1898).

1922.450, T h e Art Institute of Chicago. P h o t o g r a p h y © T h e Art Institute of Chicago.

194

A n d e r s Zorn, Sara Tyson Hallowell. P e n a n d ink on

121 Mary Cassatt, Modern Woman, 1892-93. T y m p a n u m ,

Carr.

192

Maud Howe Elliott, c. 1888. Copy of a portrait in crayon,

1 gg

Anna Lea Merritt, 1885. P h o t o g r a p h . F r o m Love Locked

182

Out: The Memoirs of Anna Lea Merritt, edited by

124 Will H. Low, Homage to Woman, 1893. Ceiling mural,

Galina G o r o k h o f f (Boston: M u s e u m of Fine Arts,

Ladies' Reception Room, Waldorf-Astoria, New

ig82).

[247]

200

I L L U S T R A T I O N S

Amanda Brewster Sewell, c. 1893. Photograph. From Ros-

Bertha Honoré Palmer, c. 1 8 9 3 . Photographed by Steffens

siter Johnson, A History of the World's Columbian Expo-

Photography, Chicago. From Art and Handicraft in the

sition (New York: Appleton, 1898).

Woman's Building of the World's Columbian Exposition, Chicago, 1893, edited by Maud Howe Elliott (Chicago: Rand, McNally, 1894).

ert), c. 1897. From Victoria7, no. 4 (April 1993):

201

61.

Alice Rideout, 1892. Photograph courtesy The Art Institute of Chicago.

siter Johnson, A History of the World's Columbian Exposition (New York: Appleton, 1898).

cil on paper. From Ellen Mary Rope: The Poet Sculptor (London: Joanna Barnes Fine Arts/H. Blairman,

207

Enid Bland Yandell, c. 1893. Photograph. From Rossiter Johnson, A History of the World's Columbian Exposition

203

(New York: Appleton, 1898).

Mary Crease Sears, c. 1908. Photograph. From The Outlook 90 (1908): 438.

205

Candace Thurber Wheeler, c. 1893. Photograph. From Ros-

202

S. Rosamond Praeger, Ellen Mary Rope, 1929. Pen-

1997)-

205

Ellen Emmet Rand, Rosina Emmet Sherwood (and son Rob-

204

[248]

208

INDEX

Italicized page n u m b e r s indicate

figures.

C o l o r plates are indicated by n u m b e r (e.g., pi. 3).

fi^

Abbéma, Louise: biography of, 189-90; commission for,

allegory: attempts to modernize, 43-45; as elitist, 47;

92, 94; illustration of, 189; modern women depicted

of Eve and Garden of Eden, 143, 144, 145-46, 147,

by, 163 (sidebar), 165 (sidebar) —WORKS:

148-49; gendered bodies in, 37—45, 2 1 3 m 8; of girls

America Receiving the Nations at the World's Exposi-

chasing Fame, 138, 139, 1 4 1 - 4 3 ; ideal bodies in,

tion, 164, 165 (sidebar) ; The City of Paris Carrying to Chi-

36-37; impressionists' disdain for, 95-96 (sidebar);

cago the Arts of Woman, 163 (sidebar), 164, 165 (side-

of liberty, progress, and light (stained glass), 158

bar)

(sidebar), 759; male artists' use of stereotypes in,

abolitionist imagery, 107, 108, 109, 2 2on6g, 2251143

183, 184, 185; Parisian debates about role of, 48-49

Adam and Eve, allegories of, 143, 144, 145-46, 147, 1 4 8 -

(sidebar); realism combined with, 13, 16—17, 2i4n26; reassignments of meaning in, 1 5 - 1 6 ; Rideout's

49

reformulation of, 103-4,

The Addresses and Reports of Mrs. Potter Palmer (compila-

painting), 158-59 (sidebar), 160; of women's work

48

and place, 1 1 - 1 5 . See

African Americans: depictions of, 45, 108, 109; excluded

An Allegory of Rain (Béraud), 138, 141, 142

141 (sidebar); progress cycles and narratives created for, 225n43; segregated exhibition space of, 21607. See also race

Allison, Emma, 68 (sidebar) American Architect and Building News, 88, 1 7 0 - 7 1 American Girl figure, 122, 123, 130, 158 (sidebar), 161

Allegorical Portrait of an Artist in Her Studio (attributed to Musscher), 141, 143

fruit and fruit picking; realist

allegory (l'allégorie réelle)

from Board of Lady Managers, 70; musical culture of,

Alexander, John White, 60, 2 i 5 n 3 7

107, 109, 108-

11; of science, literature, and imagination (ceiling

tion), 5 (sidebar) Administration Building, 21, 2 7,

i 0 5> 7 0 6 ,

(sidebar), 163 (sidebar), 2 2 i n 10 American Society of Miniature Painters, 193-94

[249]

INDEX

America Receiving the Nations at the World's Exposition

Building; sculpture in Woman's Building

(Abbema), 164, 165 (sidebar)

— VIEWS:

Am I Not a Woman and a Sister? (cover), 108

aerial, 88; exterior, 6, 105, 106, 109; floor

plan, 77; interior, 95, 115

Ancient Transportation (Boyle), 54-55, 5 7

archival sources, 3, 4-8 (sidebar). See also souvenir books

Annotated Bibliography, World's Columbian Exposition (Dyb-

Art, Science, and Literature (Emmet), 124, 125, 126, 179 (sidebar)

wad and Bliss), 8 (sidebar) Anthony, Susan B., 74, 83 (sidebar)

Art and Handicraft in the Woman's Building (Elliott) : con-

anthropology: building for, 2g, 2 1 3 m l ; women's use

text of, 5 (sidebar), 6 (sidebar); contributors to, 192;

of, 9 9 - 1 0 1 (sidebar). See also cultures; ethnographic

emancipatory rhetoric of, 2 1 9 ^ 5 ; frontispiece of

exhibits

(Lemaire), pi. 1, 13, 13, 1 6 - 1 7

Antiquarian Society, 201

Art Institute of Chicago: agent of, 196; Antiquarian Soci-

Apotheosis of Transportation (Boyle), 58, 59

ety of, 201; Exposition-related manuscript collections

Apperson (Miss), 140, 140-41 (sidebar)

of, 8 (sidebar); Fair decorations stored at, 179 (side-

Apple Picking at Eragny-sur-Epte (Pissarro), 144

bar); origins of building, 83 (sidebar); Primitive Woman

Arcadia: Cassatt's version of, 146, 148; MacMonnies's version of, pi. 5, 116, 118—19, 120; Puvis's version of, 62;

(M. MacMonnies) exhibited at, IJ8, 179-80 (sidebar) Art Journal, Fair supplement, / 60

rescripted as exclusively female space, 114, 146-49;

The Arts (Cox), 13, 14, 15

Sewell's landscape of, 80 (sidebar), 114, 116, 1 1 J, 180

Art Sanctifies the Sorrows of the World (Slater and Grafly),

(sidebar), 22in2; van Parys's version of, 163 (sidebar).

1 5 0 - 5 1 , 153

See also fruit and fruit picking

The Arts of Peace (Melchers), 62, 63, 173

Arcadia (Sewell), 114, 116, 1 1 J, 180 (sidebar), 2 2 i n 2

The Arts of War (Melchers), 62, 63, 173

architecture and buildings: for anthropology, 29, 213n 11; Court of Honor, 2, 48; cultural assumptions underly-

The Arts of Woman (van Parys), 162, 163 (sidebar) Art Treasures of the World's Fair (book, 1895), 54-55, 58,

ing, 27-29; director of construction, 3; public response to, 19 — SPECIFIC:

22on72 Assembly Room (Woman's Building): activities in, 5 (side-

Administration Building, 21, 27, 33, 48; Cal-

bar); addresses in, 66, 82-83 (sidebar); design of, 87

ifornia State Building, 68, 69; Children's Building, 78

Associated Artists, 193, 198, 205, 207-8

(sidebar), 79, 2 2 2 m ; Fisheries Building, 75, 80 (side-

Association of Collegiate Alumnae, 80 (sidebar)

bar) , 2 1 3 m l ; Forestry Building, 2 1 3 m l ; Horticulture

Aurier, Albert, 98 (sidebar)

Building, 35, 2 1 3 m 1; Mechanical Arts Building, 110,

Austen, Jane, 78 (sidebar)

111; Samoan Village, 31. See also Beaux-Arts neoclas-

Austria, applied arts from, 76 (sidebar)

sical style; Grand Basin sculptures; grounds and landscaping; Illinois State Building; Manufactures and Lib-

Bachofen, Johann J., 9 g - i o i (sidebar), 101, 2 i g n 5 7

eral Arts Building; Midway Plaisance; Palace of Fine

Ball, Thomas: Freedman's Memorial to Abraham Lincoln, 108,

Arts; Pennsylvania State Building; plans and architec-

22on69

tural drawings; Transportation Building; Woman's

Ballu, Albert, 48 (sidebar)

Building

Bancroft, Hubert Howe, 7 (sidebar), 20, 21, 167, 171

architecture and design of Woman's Building: demand

banjo and banjo playing: depiction of, 134, 135, 138,

for woman architect, 85-86; description of, 86-88;

140; feminization of, 140-41 (sidebar)

design competition for, 5, 86, 197; as exemplar of

The Banjo Lesson (Cassatt), 135, 138

women's buildings, 66; male writers on femininity of,

Ban ta, Martha, 2 2 i n i o

1 7 0 - 7 1 ; pediments and cornice sculptures for, 88-89,

Bartholdi, Frédéric-Auguste, 41

104, 705, 106, 107, /09, 1 0 8 - 1 1 . See also decorations

Baudry, Paul, 46-47 (sidebar), 50 (sidebar), 96-97 (side-

of Woman's Building; Hall of Honor (Woman's Building); Hayden, Sophia Gregoria; murals in Woman's

bar) Beale, Dorothea, 161 (sidebar), 163 (sidebar)

[250]

INDEX

Beaux-Arts neoclassical style: city ideal underlying, 25, 27;

Bouguereau, William Adolphe: marriage of, 90; students

cultural assumptions underlying, 27-29; Keith's ceiling

of, 89-90, 158 (sidebar), 193, ig8, 199, 2i8n46

painting as, 79, 158-59 (sidebar), 160; remnants of,

Boyle, John J.: criticism of, 172; progress narrative of, 34,

187; triangular composition in, 32

96; realism as starting point for, 214n31; realist alle-

Beckwith, J. Carroll: allegorical female bodies of, 42;

gory of, 36, 54-55, 58, 60; scholarship on, 2 i 4 - i 5 n 3 i —WORKS: Ancient Transportation, 54-55, 5 7 ; Apotheosis of

"arts" narrative of, 32, 34 —WORKS: Electricity, 43; The Telephone and the Ticker, 43

Transportation, 58, 59; Land Transportation, 58, 59; Mod-

Bederman, Gail, 22

ern Transportation, 54-55, 5 7

Bellamy, Blanche, 78 (sidebar)

Brooks, Diane, 2 i g n 6 o

Béraud, Jean: An Allegory of Rain, 138, 141, 142

Broude, Norma, 138, 169-70, 171

Bernhardt, Sarah, 163 (sidebar), 189-90

Brown, Edith Blake: biography of, 190; illustration of, /90

Besnard, Albert, 47 (sidebar)

—WORK: Massachusetts Mothering the Coming Woman of Lib-

Betts, Lillian W., 7 2 - 7 3

erty, Progress, and Light, 158 (sidebar), 159

bird's-eye view, 29

Brown, Ethel Isadore: biography of, 190-91

Bishop, Isabel, 16

—WORK: Massachusetts Mothering the Coming Woman of Liberty, Progress, and Light, 158 (sidebar), 159

Bisttram, Emil: significance of progress cycle of, 188 —WORK: Contemporary Justice and Woman, pi. 8, 181, 1 8 5 -

Bunker, Dennis Miller, 194

87, 186 Bitter, Karl: compositions of, 104; sculptor's assistant of, 209; status of, 35; technological progress theme of, 32 —WORKS: Fire Controlled, 32,

Bullock, Electa, 103 (sidebar) Bureau of Applied Arts exhibit (Woman's Building), 208 Burgess, Ida: frieze guidelines of, 173; furniture design of, 150

Fire Uncontrolled, 32, 35;

Spirit of Transportation, 213n 15

Burnham, Daniel H.: decorative program of, 28-29; final

Blanchon, Emile, 49 (sidebar)

report of, 7 (sidebar), 21 in3; responsibilities of, 3; on

Blashfield, Edwin Howland: exhibition of, 180 (sidebar);

Rideout as sculptor, 89; White City ideal of, 25; Woman's Building design and, 85-86, 88

on public decoration, 7 - 8 —WORK: The Evolution of Civilization, 22, 24

Burstall, Sara, 130 (sidebar)

Blow-Me-Down Grange (Plainfield, NH), 180 (sidebar),

Bush-Brown, Margaret Lesley: Spring, 154, 755

22in5 Board of Lady Managers: appeals to Congress, 80 (side-

California State Building, Isabella sculpture of, 68, 69

bar) ; applications to, 76 (sidebar) ; documents of, 7

Canady, Alice. See Rideout, Alice Louise (later Canady)

(sidebar) ; fate of murals and, 179-80 (sidebar) ; female

Canova, Antonio: copy of Pompeii fresco, Cupid in Flight,

consciousness of, 72; medals given by, 197; members

140

of, 69-70, y i ; precursors to, 66, 68; president of, 201;

Carolus-Duran, Charles-Auguste-Emile, 189, 199

on prospectus for murals, 96; publications overseen

Carr, Carolyn Kinder, 179 (sidebar)

by, 5 (sidebar); "race" used by, 167; role in Woman's

Cassatt, Mary Stevenson: attention to work of, 8; on

Building, 5. See also Art and Handicraft in the Woman's

Baudry, 96-97 (sidebar); biography of, 191-92; cir-

Building (Elliott); New York State Board of Women

cle of, 74, 90, ig6; College Girl figure referenced by,

Managers (for Exposition); Palmer, Bertha Mathilda

84 (sidebar), 134; commissions for, g, go, g2, g4 (side-

Honoré; Woman's Building

bar), 98 (sidebar), 2 2 4 ^ 6 ; consensual narrative of,

Bonheur, Rosa: artists influenced by, 163 (sidebar), 189;

148-49; contract issues and, 2i8n45; drypoints by, 78

historical context of, 169, 170; large canvases by, 9;

(sidebar); easel and mural painting compared, 135;

works in Woman's Building generally, 78 (sidebar)

on femininity of her work, 170; fruit picking allegory

Bonnard, Pierre, 98 (sidebar)

of, 143, 144, 145-46, 14 7, 148; girls chasing Fame alle-

The Book of the Fair (Bancroft), 7 (sidebar), 21, 167, 171

gory of, 138, J39, 141-43; impressionists' anger at,

Boston Public Library, Puvis's murals for, 60

94-95 (sidebar); innovations in style of, 96 (sidebar),

[251]

INDEX

Clarke, Edith, 78 (sidebar)

Cassatt, Mary Stevenson (continued) 149, 177-78; Japanese prints as influence on, 135,

Clarke, Edward, 86-87 (sidebar)

137; MacMonnies compared with, 133, 135, 1 7 6 -

Clayson, Hollis, 37, 2 i 3 n i 8 , 214030

77; modern women depicted by, 122-23, 129, 1 3 3 -

Clemens, Samuel L. (Mark Twain), 208

49; Palmer's correspondence with, 95, 134, 137, 148,

Clements, Gabrielle D.: Harvest, 154, 155, 156

170; portraits of, 91, 191; realist allegory of, 54, 1 3 3 -

Cleveland, Grover, 44, 45

4g; response to criticism of mural, 176; subjects and

Cleveland School of Art, 190-g 1

themes generally, 52, 99, 114; theoretical knowledge

Cogniet, Leon, 200

of, 133; working process for murals, 92, 96

College Girl: banjo playing of, 140, 140-41 (sidebar); Emmet's depiction of, 124, 125; in Fair context, 84-87

—WORKS: 115; The Banjo Lesson, 135, 138; Self-Portrait, 191; Young Women Picking Fruit, 146, 14J. See also Mod-

(sidebar); male artists' depiction of, 130, 131, 131

ern Woman

(sidebar), 133; in mural paintings, 84 (sidebar), 125,

Century Magazine (periodical),

727, 134; in Rideout's sculpture, 1 0 8 - 1 1 . See also Girl

129-30 (sidebar)

of Hope; New Girl; New Woman

Century of Progress Exposition (Chicago, 1933), 225n43 Ceylon Tea Room (Woman's Building), 79, 80 (sidebar)

colleges, women in, 84-87 (sidebar)

Chaplin, Charles, 189, 191, 198

Colman, Samuel, 207

Le Char du Triomphe de la République (Meyer), 40

Columbia (Columbus's female surrogate): depiction of,

charities, 67 (sidebar). See also women's organizations

38, 40-42, 41; male narratives about, 20; in Waagen's

Chase, William Merritt, 158 (sidebar), 193, 194, 198,

pediment, 110, 1 1 1

205, 2 i 8 n 4 6

Columbian Association of Housekeepers, 80 (sidebar)

Chicago, Judy, 10

Columbian Fountain (F. MacMonnies), 38, 59, 40, 163 (sidebar)

Chicago History Museum, 8 (sidebar) Chicago Tribune, 30

Columbia Presenting the World's Columbia Exposition to the Americas (Morgari), 43-44, 45

Chicago Woman's Club, 74 Chicago World's Fair, use of term, 1. See also World's

Columbus, Christopher: commemoration of discovery, 1; depiction of ship of, 164, 165 (sidebar); depictions of,

Columbian Exposition (1893) Child, Lydia Maria, 78 (sidebar), 108, 2 i 2 n 4

21, 44, 45, 48-49, 50; financial support for, 66; male

children, kindergarten for, 70, 7 1 , 73, 161 (sidebar)

narratives about, 20

Children's Building, 80 (sidebar), 79, 2 2 2 m

Columbus Quadriga (French), 50

Christianity: feminists' views of, 120, 145, 222n25; gen-

Columbus Setting Foot on Land (Lawrence and Saint-Gaudens), 21, 2 i 4 n 2 g

dering of allegorical bodies depicting, 44-45, 45. See also Adam and Eve, allegories of; Daniel (biblical) Church, Frederick S.: modern women depicted by, 130,

Commercial Advertiser (periodical), 218n36 commissions for Woman's Building: architectural design, 86-88; murals, especially tympana, 89-90, 92; murals

133

from other countries, 92, 94; payment process for,

—WORKS: Knowledge Is Power, pi. 3, 130, 132; Valentine of

2i8n45; pediments and cornice sculptures, 88-89;

Women Bathing Cupids, 146, 148

sources on, 2 i8n37- See also specific artists

Cincinnati Room (Woman's Building), 80 (sidebar) City Beautiful movement, 27-29. See also Beaux-Arts neoclassical style; White City City Hall (Paris). See Hôtel de Ville

Committee on Auxiliary Work, 82 (sidebar) Congress of Representative Women, 83 (sidebar) Congress of Women (Woman's Building): description of, 82-83 (sidebar); publications of, 5 (sidebar); women's

The City of Paris Carrying to Chicago the Arts of Woman (Abbéma), 163 (sidebar), 164, 165 (sidebar) civic maternalism, use of term, 7 1 - 7 2 . See also motherhood

history told at, 103 (sidebar) Constant, Benjamin, 47 (sidebar) Contemporary Justice and Woman (Bisttram), pi 8, 181, 185-87, 186

Cixous, Hélène, 113, 187

[252]

INDEX

Cormon, Fernand: L'Histoire de I'Ecriture dans les temps

172,173-75, 176-77; by women in state buildings, 11,

anciens et modernes, 52, 54; temps anciens, 54; temps mod-

149-57, 222n2g. See also architecture and buildings;

ernes, 55

decorations of Woman's Building; male artists; male

Corson, Juliet, 103 (sidebar)

themes and narratives; murals; sculpture

Cortissoz, Royal, 172, 2131114, 2231119

decorations of Woman's Building: absence of consistency

Cott, Nancy F., 71-72, 73, 2 i 6 n i o

among, 94-96; consensual story of women's history

Cotton States and International Exposition (Atlanta,

and progress in, 11, 82, 98, 104, 108-10, 148-49, 158 (sidebar); gendered rhetoric in criticism of, 168-72;

1895), 69 (sidebar)

modern woman's work highlighted in, 110—11 ; over-

Courbet, Gustave: child-as-hope trope of, 22on62; realist

view of, 158-65 (sidebar) ; progress cycle and women's

allegory of, 47, 48 (sidebar), 54, 138, 2 1 4 ^ 6

story told in, 96, 97-103, 99-102 (sidebar); stained

—WORK: The Painter's Studio, Real Allegory, 138, 2I4N26,

and leaded glass, 158 (sidebar), 759. See also archi-

22on62 Court o f H o n o r (World's Columbian Exposition), 2, 48

tecture and design of Woman's Building; exhibits in

Couture, Thomas, 191

Woman's Building; female decorators; murals in Woman's Building; sculpture in Woman's Building

Cox, Kenyon: on Puvis, 61; student of, 193 —WORKS: The Arts, 13, 14, 15; The Sciences, 13, 14, 15, 17

Degas, Edgar: angered by Cassatt's mural commission, 92, 94 (sidebar); decorative experiments of, 96 (sidebar),

Crawford, Emily Aldridge, i g 2 , 192

98 (sidebar); subjects and themes of, 52, 133

Critic (periodical), 177-78

—WORK: Portrait of Mary Cassati, 91

criticism: aesthetic criteria in, 172-78; approach to, 11,

Delacroix, Eugène, 2 i 4 n 2 6

167-68; gendered rhetoric in, 168-72. See also media

democracy and democratic values, 40, 41-42

and public discourse

Denis, Maurice, g8 (sidebar)

Croly, Mrs. J. C., 21

Denmark, applied arts from, 76 (sidebar)

Crossing the Brook (Gardner), 91

Department o f Decoration and Functions, 3, 7 (sidebar).

cultures: matriarchal stage in, 99-101 (sidebar); racial hierarchy of, 20; stereotypes in depictions of, 55, 58;

See also Millet, Frank D.

women's status and power in "primitive," tribal, and

Department of Fine Arts: directorship of, 80 (sidebar),

modern-day, 99-103 (sidebar), 100-3. See also anthro-

196, 2i8n36; goals of, 28-29, 34; women judges of, 80

pology; ethnographic exhibits; Gilded Age; Victorian

(sidebar). See also Palace o f Fine Arts; Woman's Build-

culture

ing

Cupid in Flight (Pompeii fresco), 140

Department of Publicity and Promotion, 6 (sidebar)

dance, skirt, 135, 136, 137 (sidebar)

Dickens, Charles, 206

Derain, André, 146 The Dancers (Means), 149, 751

Director of Works. See Burnham, Daniel H.

Daniel (biblical), depictions of, pi. 3, 130, 132

Dodson, Sarah P. B.: Pax Patriae, 153-54,

Daniel in the Lion's Den (Riviere), 132

domesticity: in civic realm, 71-72; landscapes of, pi. 2, 61-62,70, 114, 116, 120-22, 121, 154, 156; Midway as

La Danse a travers les Ages ( M o r o t ) , 52, Dark Ages, 100, 103-4,

10 7> 1 2 ° > 1 85,

T54

evoking, 30; moving beyond, 81-83, 1 3 0 - 3 1 (sidebar),

188

183; patriarchy linked to, 120, 188; Rideout's nod to,

Dean, Teresa, 175

110; Woman's Building as evoking, 80 (sidebar); wom-

decorations: differences among (male), 60; disdain for

en's responsibilities in, 13, 62, 70, 87 (sidebar), 99

and debates over, 47, 95-98 (sidebar); gendering of

(sidebar), 100, 120. See also Arcadia

allegorical bodies in, 36-45, 2 i 3 n i 8 ; guidelines for, 22; historic dress used few times in, 48-49; male vs. female

Douglas, Aaron, 225n43

figures in, 36; plurality of styles in, 2i4n25; resources

The Dream City ( T h o m p s o n ) , 7—8 (sidebar)

on, 213m 4; rhetoric on, 11; sculpture exalted among,

Duez, Ernest: La Physique, 42, 44

88; summary of, 32-36; unity and harmony ideal for,

Duncan, Isadora, 149

[253]

INDEX

evolutionary paradigm: cultural enactment of, 30; of male

Durand, Asher B.: Progress, 34, 35, 96

narratives, 20—22; of transportation development, 36, Eagle, Mary, 82 (sidebar)

54-55, 57, 58, 59, 60; women's co-opting language

Eakins, Thomas, 47

of, 99 (sidebar); women's story in context of, 97-98;

Earle, Lawrence, 180 (sidebar), 2151142

of writing's development, 52, 54-55- See also ethno-

Edison, Thomas, 34, 44, 45

graphic exhibits; progress and progress cycle; social

Eiffel Tower (Paris), 30

Darwinism

Electricity (Beckwith), 43

The Evolution of Civilization (Blashfield), 22, 24

Eliot, George, 78 (sidebar)

exhibits and exhibition halls: catalogue of, 6 (sidebar);

Ellen Mary Rope (Praeger), 203

cultural assumptions underlying, 28-29; differences in

Elliott, Maud Howe: biography of, 192-93; emancipatory

male vs. female, 1 7 1 - 7 2 ; ethnographic type, 22, 29-30, 3 1 ; for single gender or race vs. artifact (transporta-

rhetoric of, 2 1 9 ^ 5 ; on Eve, 145; illustration of, 192;

tion) , 65-66. See also ethnographic exhibits; exhibits in

on Woman's Building, 168, 169—70, 175, 2 2 3 n i 3 —WORKS:

Julia Ward Howe, 1819—1910,

Woman's Building; specific buildings

192-93; Three

Generations, 193. See also Art and Handicraft in the Wom-

exhibits in Woman's Building: Bureau of Applied Arts and, 208; encyclopedic approach to, 76-80 (sidebar);

an's Building

gendered rhetoric on, 1 7 1 - 7 2 ; guidelines for, 22;

emancipatory rhetoric: activists' use of, 107, 219055; in historical discourse about women, 100-3, 1 88; visual

inventions and patents, 76-78 (sidebar), 79; Native

metaphor for female, 126, 127

American women display, 102-3,

I0 3>

statistics on

women workers, 75, 78 (sidebar); Wheeler's designs,

Emmet, Lydia Field: biography of, 193-94; Cassatt's work compared with, 135; College Girl figure used by, 84

79; women artists exhibiting in, 66; women's organiza-

(sidebar), 125; commission for, 92; fate of murals of,

tions, 80 (sidebar) Exposition Universelle (Paris, 1889): Eiffel Tower of, 30;

179 (sidebar), 180 (sidebar); illustration of, 193; mod-

ship of state metaphor depicted at, 2 i 3 n 2 o ; World's

ern women depicted by, 122-23, 124, 126, 129; sub-

Columbian Exposition compared with, 19, 20

ject of, 114; techniques of, 134 —WORK:

Art, Science, and Literature, 124,

125,

Exposition Universelle (Paris, 1900), Woman's Pavilion

126, 179

of, 69 (sidebar)

(sidebar) England: "Gaiety dancing" in, 137 (sidebar); murals for Woman's Building from, 159 (sidebar), 161 (sidebar),

Fairchild, Lucia (later Fuller): biography of, 194-95;

163 (sidebar); request for murals from, 92; suffragists

commission for, 92; early women depicted by, 114,

in, 161 (sidebar), 163 (sidebar)

120-22; fate of mural of, 180 (sidebar), 22in5; illus-

En Provence—La Cueillette des Olives (L'Olivado) (postcard),

tration of, 194

144

—WORKS:

ephemera: Church's Valentine, 146, 148; fruit picking and

Self-Portrait, 194; The Women of Plymouth (or

Puritan Settlers, Fairchild), pi. 2, 120-22, 121, 179 (side-

female sexuality elided in, 134; guidebooks, albums,

bar), 180 (sidebar), 2 2 i n 5

and such, 5 - 7 (sidebar); postcard of Provence, 144

fame: Cassatt's girls chasing, 138, 139, 141-43; of specific

equality: debates about gender equality, 65, 66, 73, 101,

women, 161 (sidebar), 163 (sidebar)

102 (sidebar); depiction of, 42; educational, 145;

Farmer, Lydia Hoyt, 99

female consciousness and, 71; industrial, 75; New

Farragut, David G., 44, 45

Woman's demand for, 129 (sidebar). See also suffragists

Father Time figure, 39, 40

Ericson, Leif, 58

Female Artist figure, 108, 124, 725, 141, 143. See also Col-

essentialism: cultural belief in, 167-68; "naturalness" of

lege Girl; New Woman

separate spheres and, 73; women's education and over-

female artists: call to action of, 113; Emmet's depiction

coming, 86-87 (sidebar). See also gender roles ethnographic exhibits, 22, 29-30,

of, 124, /25; legacy of, 9 - 1 1 ; status and wages of, 35;

See also anthropol-

as stretching boundaries of possibility, 17; themes and

ogy; cultures

narratives of, 19-20, 52, 9g, 114; work processes of, 36,

[254]

INDEX

American competition with, 20, 34; American fascina-

92, 95, 95, 96. See also commissions for Woman's Build-

tion with, 25; American kinship with, 41-42; applied

ing; female decorators; specific artists

arts from, 76 (sidebar); artists' training in, 35, 36;

female body: agency and activity assigned to, 1 1 1 ; allegor-

beliefs about origins of, 61; decoration (term) in, 95-97

ical depictions of, 37-45, 2 1 3 m 8; debates on strength of, 85; depicted as youthful, 116, 121-24, 133, 138;

(sidebar); gendering of allegorical bodies in, 36, 37,

fruit picking associated with fecundity and sexual-

2 i 3 n i 8 ; historical themes of murals in, 47-48, 49, 52;

ity of, 133-35, 146, 14 j , 154, 755, 156; idealization

plurality of mural styles in, 46, 214n25; public build-

of, 36—37; male hegemonic representations of, 10,

ings in, 96-97 (sidebar); request for murals from, 92,

36; moral guardianship embodied in, 7 1 - 7 2 ; separate

94; ship of state metaphor in, 38, 2 i3n2o; statistics on

spheres of, 6 1 - 6 2 , 65, 64; Victorian representations of,

women in, 78 (sidebar); Utopias depicted in, 146, 1 4 8 -

37-38; women artists' ways of depicting, 45-46; wom-

49. See also Exposition Universelle (Paris, 1889); Expo-

en's education linked to health of, 86-87 (sidebar)

sition Universelle (Paris, 1900); Paris

female consciousness, 70—71, 72, 73-74. See also New

Franco-Prussian war (1870—71), 37, 61 Franklin, Benjamin, 34

Woman

Freedman, Estelle B., 73

female decorators: absence of coordination among, 94-95; challenge facing, 156-57; governance and pro-

Freedman's Memorial to Abraham Lincoln (Ball), 108,

cesses in selection of, 1 0 - 1 1 ; historical context of,

2 2on6g

99-102 (sidebar), 99-103; male figures rarely included

French, Daniel Chester: status of, 35

by, 98; maternity sidelined by, 98-99, 129; modern

—WORKS: Columbus Quadriga, 50; The Republic, 38, 40—42,

classicism reformulated by, 62, 64; overview of, 7-9; physical stamina of, 85, 89—90; rhetoric on, 11; works

French, William, 180 (sidebar)

in state buildings, 11, 149-57, 222n2Q. See also decora-

French Revolution, allegory in, 37—38

tions of Woman's Building; female artists; specific artists

fruit and fruit picking: aesthetic criteria and, 173; Cas-

femininity: banjo playing and, 140-41 (sidebar); Cassatt's

satt's allegory of, 143, 145-46, 148; chasing fame as,

alleged lack of, 170, 1 7 4 - 7 7 ; criticism in context of

141; depictions of, 144, 14J; female sexuality and,

beliefs about, 167-68; dominant paradigms for, 1 1 - 1 7 ;

134-35; " n woman's mural of Pennsylvania State Build-

exhibits in Woman's Building viewed through, 171—72;

ing, 154, 755, 156

Woman's Building as expression of, 168-71 feminism: influence on this book, ix-x, 188; use of term, 71 Ferris, George Washington Gale, 30

Fuller, Henry B., 176, 180 (sidebar) Fuller, Lucia. See Fairchild, Lucia Furness, William Henry, 200 furniture design by women, 78 (sidebar), 79, 150

Ferris wheel, 30, 3 2 , 5 2 The Final Official Report of the Director of the Works of the

Gardner, Elizabeth Jane: commission refused by, 89-go

World's Columbian Exposition (Burnham), 7 (sidebar),

—WORK: Crossing the Brook, 91

2iin3

Gardner, Isabelle Stewart, 2 i 7 n 2 8

Fine Arts Department. See Department of Fine Arts; Pal-

Garfinkle, Charlene: on Fairchild's mural, 120; on Ride-

ace of Fine Arts

out's sculpture, 2 2on71; search for extant decorations,

Fire Controlled (Bitter), 32, 55

158 (sidebar), 179 (sidebar), 180 (sidebar), 2 2 i n 5 ; o n

Fire Uncontrolled (Bitter), 32,

Sherwood's models, 2 2 i m 6

Fisheries Building, 75

Gamier, Charles, 46 (sidebar)

Foote, Mary Hallock, 80 (sidebar)

Garrett, George William Littler, 58

foreign language guidebooks, 6 (sidebar)

Garrison, William Lloyd, 107

Forest, Lockwood de, 207

Gauguin, Paul, 98 (sidebar), 145, 149

Fortnightly Club (Chicago), 74

gender roles: access to higher education and, 84-87

France: allegories depicting technological develop-

(sidebar); allegorical depictions of, 37, 2 1 3 m 8 ;

ments in, 42; allegory and realism in art of, 214n26;

criticism in context of beliefs about, 167-72;

[255]

INDEX

Greatorex, Eliza, 67 (sidebar)

gender roles (continued) in depictions of technological developments, 42-45,

Green, Anna S., 103 (sidebar)

45, 44, 45; modern woman's work and, 1 1 0 - 1 1 ; "natu-

Griffiths, William T., 203

ralness" of separate spheres and, 73; separate spheres

grounds and landscaping: bird's-eye view of, 29; design

maintained in modern classicism, 6 1 - 6 2 , 63, 64; Vic-

of, 3, 25; night view of,

torian assignments of, 37-38. See also essentialism; New

layout, 22, 25, 27, 29-30; White City ideal in plan for,

Girl; New Woman; separate spheres

primitive/civilized themes in

25, 26. See also Grand Basin sculptures; Midway Plai-

General Electric advertisements, 44

sance; plans and architectural drawings

Germany: Gesamtkunstwerk of, 8; guidebooks and, 6 (side-

guidebooks, 5 - 6 (sidebar)

bar) Gérôme, Jean-Léon, 1 9 1

Hale, Ellen Day, 78 (sidebar)

Gerrish, Helen Isabelle, 195

Hallé, Elinor, 195

Gervex, Henri: La Musique à travers les Âges, 48 (sidebar),

Hall of Honor (Woman's Building): color scheme for, 174; description of, 76 (sidebar), 1 1 3 - 1 4 ; design of,

4 9 . 5 * . 52

87; goals for, 29; viewing murals in, 1 7 6 - 7 7 ; views of,

Gesamtkunstwerk, 8

93, 115. See also murals in Woman's Building

Ghisi, Diana, 78 (sidebar)

Hall of Transportation. See Transportation Building

Gibson, Charles Dana, 123

Hallowell, Sara Tyson: art consulting of, 74; biography

Gibson Girl, 1 2 3 , 164, 165 (sidebar)

of, 196—97; on Cassatt's and MacMonnies's murals,

Gilded Age: architectural and decorative style of, 7; atti-

175; circle of, 1 8 1 ; on fine art, 5 (sidebar); illustration

tudes toward arts in, 28-29; post-Victorian ethos and

of, 196; mural commissions and, 89—90, 92; role in

do-goodism in, 75; reception rooms typical of, 150,

Department of Fine Arts, 80 (sidebar), 2 i 8 n 3 6

150, 152, 184; separate spheres in, 17, 6 1 - 6 2 , 65, 64;

Handbook of the World's Columbian Exposition: description

wealthy hostesses of, 182-83, 185. See also post-Victo-

of, 6 (sidebar)

rian sensibility; Victorian culture

handiwork and applied arts: achievements highlighted,

Gillespie, Elizabeth Duane, 67 (sidebar) Girl of Hope, 1 1 6 ; as chasing Fame, 142-43; concept

76 (sidebar); live demonstrations of, 78 (sidebar)

of, 22on62; Emmet's depiction of, 124, 725; in Eng-

Harper's: illustrators of, 193

lish murals for Woman's Building, 1 6 1 (sidebar) ; Fair-

Harris, Neil: on hidden record of "contest," 1, g; on num-

child's depiction of, 120; legacy of, 188; Rideout's

ber of visitors, 21 in2

depiction of, 104, 107, 1 0 8 - 1 0 ; Rongier's depiction of,

Harvest (Clements), 154, J55, 156

156, 75 7; Sherwood's depiction of, 126, 12J. See also

Haussmann, Georges-Eugène, 25

College Girl; New Girl; New Woman

Havemeyer, Henry O.: art consultant of, 192

girls, activity books for, 2 2 i n n . See also College Girl; New

Havemeyer, Louisine: art consultant of, 1 9 1 - 9 2 ; Cassatt's

Girl

correspondence with, 94 (sidebar) Hayden, Sophia Gregoria (later Bennett): biography of,

Golden Portal (Sullivan), 54, 5 6 - 5 7 Gordon, Laura de Force, 82-83 (sidebar)

86, 197; illness of, 88; illustration of, 797; male writers

Goupil and Company, 5 (sidebar)

on femininity of, 170—71 ; Palmer's meetings with, 94;

Grafly, Charles: Art Sanctifies the Sorrows of the World, 1 5 0 -

praise for design of, 168, 169, 1 7 1 ; women-only compe-

5i.

'53

tition won by, 5, 86, 197; works (see Woman's Building)

Graham, Charles, 29

Hayes, Laura, 20g

Grand, Sarah, 128 (sidebar)

Hearst, Phoebe Apperson, 140 (sidebar)

Grand Basin sculptures: Columbian Fountain (MacMon-

Henneberg, Rudolf Friedrich August: Tyche (Fortuna), 139

nies), 38, 39, 40, 163 (sidebar); The Republic (French),

Henner, Jean-Jacques, 189

3 8 , 4 0 - 4 2 , 41

Henrotin, Ellen, 1 7 5

Great Britain. See England

Herbelin, Madame, 198

[256]

INDEX

Higinbotham, Harlow, 179 (sidebar)

Inter Artes et Naturam (Puvis de Chavannes), pi. 4, 61

Hill, Octavia, 203

International Board of Judges, 80 (sidebar)

Hirshler, Erica, 2251138

international fairs: end of women's buildings at, 6g (sidebar) ; "Negro Buildings" of, 66; Progress of Women mural

L'Histoire de l'Ecriture dans les temps anciens et modernes (Cor-

at ( 1 9 3 3 ) , 225n43; separate women's spaces at, 69

mon), 52, 54; temps anciens, 54; temps modernes, 5 5 historical realism, 46-54

(sidebar), 2 i 6 n 3 . See also women's buildings; specific

History of the World's Columbian Exposition, Chicago: Woman's

expositions and fairs inventions and patents by men: in progress cycle, 3 2 - 3 6

Work (illustration) in, 12, 13, 15, 42-43

inventions and patents by women: achievements high-

Hoffman, Heinrich, 200

lighted, 78 (sidebar), 79; in Philadelphia Centennial

Homage to Woman (Low), 1 8 1 , 183, 184, 1 8 5

Exhibition, 68 (sidebar)

Homer, Winslow, 47

Isabella (queen of Castile), 66, 68, 69

Honoré, Bertha. See Palmer, Bertha Mathilda Honoré

Isabella Association, 66, 68, 87

Hopper, Edward, 16

Ives, Halsey C., 80 (sidebar), 1 8 1 , 196, 2 i 8 n 3 6

Horticulture Building, 35, 80 (sidebar), 2 1 3 m l Hosmer, Harriet: commission for, 66, 68, 212n8; work in Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition, 67 (sidebar); work

Jackson, William Henry: The White City (As It Was), 8 (side-

in Rome, g —WORK: Queen Isabella of Castile, 66, 68, 69 Hôtel de Ville (Paris): murals of, 42, 44, 57, 53, 54—55;

bar) James, Henry, 9, 72, 128 (sidebar) Japanese prints, 1 3 5 , 1 3 7 , 1 9 1

plurality of mural styles in, 48-49 (sidebar), 2 1 4 ^ 5 ;

Johnson, Charles Howard, 130, 737

restoration of, 25, 47-48 (sidebar); themes of murals

Johnson, Rossiter, 2 2 2 m

in, 48, 49, 52; woman's mural for, 163 (sidebar)

Johnston, Frances Benjamin: Miss Apperson Playing Banjo

Howe, Julia Ward: biographer of, 192-93; daughter of,

beside Statue of "Flora," 140, 140—41 (sidebar)

169; on education of women, 87 (sidebar); exhibit of 1884-85 and, 2 i 6 n 3 ; introduction to The National Exposition Souvenir (ed. Farmer), 2 i g n 5 4 Hoxie, Vinnie Ream, 76 (sidebar) Humbert, 206 Hunt, Lynn, 3 7 - 3 8 Hunt, Richard Morris, 85 Hunter, Jane H., 2 2 i n i o

Kaine.J. L., 6 (sidebar) Keith, Dora Wheeler: biography of, 197-98; illustration of, 198 —work: Science, Literature, and Imagination, 79, 158—59 (sidebar), 160, 2i8n46 Keppel Collection, 78 (sidebar) kindergarten movement, 70, 7 1 , 73, 1 6 1 (sidebar) King, Pauline, 185

Iceland, raw materials from, 78 (sidebar)

Knowledge Is Power (Church), pi. 3, 130, 732

Illinois State Building, Reception Room: consensual nar-

Knox College, 180 (sidebar)

rative of women in, 149; furniture, /50; painting, 1 5 1 ; praise for unities in frieze, 1 7 3 - 7 4

Lady Managers. See Board of Lady Managers

Illustrated American, 76 (sidebar)

La Farge, John, 207

immigration, depiction of, 164, 165 (sidebar)

Laird & Lee (company), 6 (sidebar)

impressionists: antimural sentiments of, 90, 94-98 (side-

Land Transportation (Boyle), 58, 59

bar); criticism of, 224n32;Japanese prints as influ-

Laurens,Jean-Paul, 48, 48 (sidebar), 206

ence on, 1 3 5 , 137; M. MacMonnies influenced by, 90,

Lawrence, Mary: Columbus Setting Foot on Land, 21, 214mg

1 1 6 ; Palmers's collection of, 224~25n38; subjects and themes favored by, 1 3 3 - 3 4 , 1 4 3 Influence of Woman in the Arts (van Parys), 162, 163 (sidebar)

Leeke, Rebecca L., 1 2 9 - 3 0 (sidebar) Lefebvre, Jules, 198 Legros, Alphonse, 195, 200, 203

[257]

INDEX

Lemaire, Madeleine Jeanne Collé: biography of, 198-99

Self-Portrait, 91. See also Primitive Woman

—WORK: Art and Handicraft in the Woman's Building (fron-

male artists: allegorical female bodies depicted by, 10,

tispiece) , pi. 1, 13, 13, 1 6 - 1 7

37-45; critical praise for, 173; evaluating paintings

Lennox, Charlotte Ramsay, 78 (sidebar)

of women by, 181-88; modern women depicted by,

The Liberator (newspaper), masthead, 107, 109

130, 131, 133; public art as domain of, 9-10; status

Liberty: female figure as, 13, 37-38, 40-42, 158-59 (side-

and wages of, 35; work processes of, 35-36, 92, 173,

bar); New Woman's idea of, 7 2 - 7 3

218n34. See also male themes and narratives; specific art-

Liberty Leading the People (Delacroix), 214n2Ô

ists

Library of Congress: architectural context of, 27; Blash-

male body: allegories of, 2 1 3 - 1 4 ^ 3 ; depicted as youth-

field's mural in, 22, 24; Cox's murals in, 13, 14, 15, 17;

ful, manly, or old, 37; fame associated with, 141-42; in

styles of murals in, 60, 2 i 5 n 3 7 lighting, 2,

1930s revival of women's progress cycle, 186, 187

8 (sidebar)

male themes and narratives: approach to, 10; in criticism

Lincoln, Abraham, 40, 44, 45, 107, 108, 22on6g

of Woman's Building, 167-78; of evolutionary prog-

Lockwood, Mary, 78 (sidebar)

ress, 20—22; female narratives compared with, 19-20;

Logan, Mary, 174

on feminine and effeminate design, 1 7 0 - 7 1 ; of hard-

Los Angeles, Woman's Building in ( 1 9 7 3 - 9 1 ) , 10, 1 1

ships and triumphs, 22, 25, 27; in historical context of

Loughborough, Jean, 209

1890s, 181-85;

Louisiana Purchase Exposition (St. Louis, 1904), 69

of human triumph over gravity, 30, 32; of perfection

historical context of 1930s, 185-87;

of civilization, 27-29; of technological advancements,

(sidebar)

32-36; of uncivilized vs. civilized, 22, 25, 27, 29-30. See

Low, Mary Fairchild. See MacMonnies, Mary Louise

also criticism; progress and progress cycle

Fairchild

Manchester Society of Women Painters, 206

Low, Will H.: on art, 21; on Cassatt's and MacMonnies's murals, 174; marriage of, 180 (sidebar) ; on public dec-

Manet, Edouard, 48-49 (sidebar), 221-221119

oration, 8; on Puvis, 50 (sidebar)

Manufactures and Liberal Arts Building: exhibits of, 1 7 1 -

—WORK: Homage to Woman, 181, 183, 184, 185

72; size of hall, 28; sources on, 2 1 3 — 1 4 ^ 3 ; decora-

lunchrooms and cafés, 79, 80 (sidebar)

tions: fate of, 180 (sidebar), 2 i 5 n 4 2 ; illustrations of, 43> 63; praise for unity in, 173; themes of, 32, 34, 36,

Lundborg, Florence, 2 2 4 ^ 6

42, 62; working processes for, 35-36, 173, 2 i 8 n 3 4 Margherita (queen of Italy), 76 (sidebar)

MacEwen, Walter: fate of murals of, 180 (sidebar);

Martiny, Philip, 2og

Melchers's work in unity with, 173; murals by (Music and Life), 2i5n42; painting process of, 36, 2 i 8 n 3 4

Massachusetts Mothering the Coming Woman of Liberty, Prog-

MacMonnies, Frederick: commission for, go; marriage

ress, and Light (Parsons, Brown, and Brown), fronti*,.,

and divorce of, 183, 199; status of, 35; students of, 193, 206, 209

158 (sidebar), 159 Maternity (Rongier), 156, ¿57

—WORK: Columbian Fountain, 38, 39, 40, 163 (sidebar)

Matisse, Henri, 146, 148, 177

MacMonnies, Mary Louise Fairchild (later Low) : atten-

matriarchy ("mother right"): anthropologists on, g g - i o i

tion to work of, 8; biography of, 199; Cassatt compared

(sidebar); historical discourse on, 100-2; M. MacMon-

with, 133, 135, 1 7 6 - 7 7 ; circle of, 196; commissions

nies on, 120; suffragists on, 1 0 1 - 2 (sidebar). See also

for, 9, 90, 92; contract issues and, 2i8n45; divorce and

motherhood

remarriage of, 183; early women depicted by, 116, 120,

McCord, Louisa, 141

121, 122, 146; illustrations of,

225n40 Munch, Edvard, 145 municipal housekeeping, use of term, 71 ^72 mural movement: cultural assumptions underlying, 28;

spheres maintained in, 61—62, 63, 64; women's refor-

debates about allegory in, 48-49 (sidebar), 60; exam-

mulation of, 62, 64

ples in Paris, 44, 51, 55, 5 4 - 5 5 ; government's campaign as impetus, 46-47 (sidebar); impressionists'

Modern Transportation (Boyle), 54-55, 5 7

[259]

INDEX

of, 22, 29, 1 0 2 - 3 ,

mural movement (continued)

io

3 ! matriarchies among, 100 (side-

bar); people on display in exhibits, 30; in progress

disdain and French debates over, 94-98 (sidebar);

cycles, 34, 55, 55

public context of, 25, 27; reformation of, 60-61; role of Puvis de Chavannes in, 49-50 (sidebar). See also

Needlework (Merritt), 760

Hotel de Ville (Paris); murals; murals in Woman's

"Negro Buildings," agendas of, 66 New Century for Women (journal), 68 (sidebar)

Building murals: criticism and development in U.S., 2 2 3 n i g ; devel-

New Gallery (London), 195 New Girl: activity books for, 2 2 1 m 1; appearances of,

opment of "arts" narrative in, 32, 34, 45; fate of, 179— 80 (sidebar), 2 i 5 n 4 2 , 2 2 i n 5 ; gendered bodies in,

2 20n70; in Cassatt's Arcadia, 148; consensual narra-

42-45, 6 1 - 6 2 , 63, 64; historical themes of, 47-49;

tive of, 108; emergence of, 1 3 0 - 3 1 (sidebar), 2 2 i n 10;

impressionists' disdain and French debates over, 94-98

Fame as desire of, 142—43; hopes of, 122; male art-

(sidebar); lighting of, 8 (sidebar); 1930s revival of

ists' depiction of, 130, 1 3 1 , 1 3 3 , 1 5 0 - 5 1 ; in 1930s

progress cycle in, pi. 8, 1 8 1 , 185-87, 186, 225n43; ref-

revival of progress cycle, 186, 186—87; physical activi-

ormation of, 60-61; rules for, 8; by women in state

ties embraced by, 1 2 3 - 2 4 , 148, 154; in Rideout's sculp-

buildings, 149-57; working processes for, 35-36. See

ture, 107, 1 0 8 - 1 0 . See also College Girl; Girl of Hope;

also mural movement; murals in Woman's Building

New Woman

murals in Woman's Building: aesthetic criteria in criticism

New Jersey, fisherwomen of, 75

of, 1 7 2 - 7 8 ; approach to, 1 1 ; budget for, 89; College

Newport Art Association, 193

Girl figure in, 84 (sidebar), 125, 127, 134; compat-

New Woman: College Girl figure linked to, 84 (sidebar);

ibility issue among, 94-96, 2 i 8 - i g n 4 8 ; early women

concepts underlying idea of, 81 ; debates on definition

depicted in, 1 1 4 - 2 2 ; fate of, 179-80 (sidebar), 2 2 i n 5 ;

of, 7 2 - 7 3 ; discourse on, 1 2 3 , 1 2 8 - 3 0 (sidebar); Fame

gendered rhetoric on, 172; installation of, 2 2 i n 2 ;

as desire of, 142-43; female artists' depictions of, 1 2 3 -

from London and Paris, 159 (sidebar), 1 6 1 (sidebar),

24; New Girl figure linked to, 128—31 (sidebar); realist

1 6 3 - 6 5 (sidebar); men depicted in, 1 1 6 , 119; mod-

allegorical image of, 1 3 , 16—17; transitional or liminal

ern women depicted in, 1 2 2 - 3 3 ; preparatory studies

space between Victorian lady and, 72, 1 3 0 - 3 1 (side-

for, 162, 164; shortcomings of, 1 7 3 - 7 4 ; s i z e °f> 89-90,

bar) , 216n 1 1 . See also College Girl; Girl of Hope; New

159 (sidebar); unity and harmony ideal for, 172, 1 7 3 -

Girl; post-Victorian sensibility

75, 1 7 6 - 7 7 ; viewing of, 1 7 6 - 7 7 ; working processes for, 36, 92,

95, 96; youthfulness theme of, 1 1 6 , 1 2 1 - 2 4 ,

1 3 3 , 138. See also specific artists

New York, women writers of, 78 (sidebar) New York Art Students' League, 193, 194, 205 New York Library (Woman's Building): books of, 78

Murray, Richard, 2 1 3 n 14

(sidebar); decorations of, 79, 1 5 8 - 5 9 (sidebar), 160, 218n46

Museum of Science and Industry (Chicago), 179 (sidebar)

New York Society of Decorative Art, 198, 205, 207 New York State Board of Women Managers (for Exposi-

La Musique a travers les Ages (Gervex), 48 (sidebar), 49,

tion), 193

1

5 ' 58 Musscher, Michiel van: Allegorical Portrait of an Artist in Her Studio (attributed), 1 4 1 , 143

New York Times, 1 7 1 Nightingale, Florence, 1 6 1 (sidebar), 163 (sidebar) Nochlin, Linda, 62, 22on62

Nabis (group), 98 (sidebar), 146, 148, 149, 177

North American Review, 128 (sidebar)

Nast, Thomas, 2 25n43

Norway, applied arts from, 76 (sidebar)

National American Woman Suffrage Association, 80 (sidebar) National Council of Women, 1 0 1 (sidebar), 2 25n43

Oakley, Violet, 1 8 1 , 2 i 2 n 6 Official Catalogue Exhibition of the German Empire, 6 (sidebar)

The National Exposition Souvenir (ed. Farmer), 99, 219n54 National Science Club, 80 (sidebar)

Official Catalogue of Exhibits, 6 (sidebar)

Native Americans: applied arts of, 76 (sidebar); exhibits

Olmsted, Frederick Law, 3, 25

[260]

INDEX

also Exposition Universelle; France; Hotel de Ville;

Opera House (Paris): cornice sculpture of, 2 i g n 6 i ;

Opera House

decorations and style of, 7, 46-47 (sidebar); impressionists' criticism of, 96—97 (sidebar); opening of, 25 Organization Room (Woman's Building), 80 (sidebar)

Parsons, Elisabeth Cornelia: biography of, 202 —work: Massachusetts Mothering the Coming Woman of Liberty, Progress, and Light, 158 (sidebar), 159

Ouida (Marie Louise de la Ramée), 128 (sidebar)

patriarchy: female artists' view of, 120, 188; privileging of, 1 0 0 - 1 (sidebar). See also male artists

paintings. See murals; Palace of Fine Arts; specific artists Palace of Fine Arts: Church's female student image in, 130; fate of, 179 (sidebar); goals for, 28-29; Sewell's

Pax Patriae (Dodson), 1 5 3 - 5 4 , J54 Pennsylvania State Building: description of, 1 4 9 - 5 1 , 1 5 3 54, 156-57; Gentlemen's Reception Room of, 150,

Arcadian paintings in, 2 2 i n 2 ; Sweden's commissioner to, 1 8 1 ; Woman's Building compared with, 168;

152; Ladies' Reception Room: consensual narrative

women artists exhibiting in, 66, 80 (sidebar). See also

of, 1 1 , 149; fireplace decoration, 1 5 0 - 5 1 ; furniture, 152; murals/paintings, 154, 155, 757; scholarship on,

Department of Fine Arts

222n2g; sculpture, 753

Palette Club (Chicago), 1 7 3

Pepchinski, Mary, 2 1 5 - 1 6 n 2

Palm, Regina Megan, 222n29 Palmer, Bertha Mathilda Honoré: activities of, 83 (sidebar), 182-83; African American women's exhibit and,

Philadelphia, Bitter's bas-relief sculpture in, 2 1 3 m 5 Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition (1876), Women's

2i6n7; art collection and home of, 74, 1 8 1 , 192, 196,

Pavilion: agenda of, 65; criticism of, 85-86; description

224-25038; biography of, 2 0 1 - 2 ; building's architec-

of, 67-69 (sidebar); views of, 67; Woman's Building

tural design and, 85-86, 88; on Cassatt's and MacMonnies's murals, 1 7 5 ; Cassatt's correspondence with, 95,

compared with, 4 (sidebar), 66 Philadelphia Cooking School, 78 (sidebar)

134, 1 3 7 , 148, 170; causes and priorities of, 5, 74-75,

La Physique (Duez) , 4 2 , 4 4

78 (sidebar), 84, 167, 170; consensual narrative of, 82,

Pissarro, Camille: angered by Cassatt's mural commission,

98; decorations preserved by, 179 (sidebar), 180 (side-

92, 94-95 (sidebar); on decorations, 96 (sidebar), 97

bar); decorative program and, 94-96, 98, 102; emancipatory rhetoric of, 2 i g n 5 5 ; Exposition Universelle and, 69 (sidebar); handbook overseen by, 5 (sidebar); M. MacMonnies's correspondence with, 95; on motherhood, 126; mural commissions and, 89-90, 92, 94,

(sidebar), 98 (sidebar); subjects and themes favored by, 1 3 s . 1 4 3 . 1 4 5 —work: Apple Picking at Eragny-sur-Epte, 143, 144, 145 plans and architectural drawings: bird's-eye view, 29; White City ideal in, 25, 26; Woman's Building, 77. See

159 (sidebar), 1 7 6 - 7 7 , 2 i 8 - i g n 4 8 ; portraits and illustrations of, pi. 7, 71, 75, 1 8 1 - 8 3 , 1 $ 2 >

201

also architecture and buildings; architecture and design

> 224n37,

225n4o; sculpture commissions and, 88-89,

21

7n33>

sculpture of, 225n3g; speeches and addresses of, 5 (sidebar), 8 1 - 8 3 , 1 8 3 ; success as Board president, 73-74, 176, 182-83; on suffrage activism, 70. See also Board of Lady Managers Palmer, Potter: art collection and home of, 74, 1 8 1 , 192,

of Woman's Building; grounds and landscaping Pocket Guide and Note Book of the World's Fair (Kaine), 6 (sidebar) Pompeii: Cupid in Flight (frescoes) of, 140 Portrait of Mary Cassatt (Degas), 9 1 post-Victorian sensibility: balancing act in, 8 1 , gg, 143, 170; concept of, 72-73; dilemma of, 75, 124, 157, 1 8 1 - 8 2 ; legacy of, i6g; male artist's portrait of Palmer

196, 224-25038; marriage of, 201 Panama Pacific International Exposition ( 1 9 1 5 ) , 224036

and, pi. 7, 1 8 1 - 8 3 , I $ 2 >

Papin, Denis, 58

ists' resistance to, 1 8 1 , 183, 184, 185; in rhetoric about

22

4 n 3 7 > 225n4o; male art-

Paris (France): alternative artistic languages in, 46; Amer-

Woman's Building, 169-70; Rideout's sculpture and, 64; transitional or liminal space of, 72, 1 3 0 - 3 1 (side-

ican competition with, 20, 34; Eiffel Tower of, 30;

bar) , 216n 1 1 . See also New Woman

Haussmann's renovation of, 25; motto of, 163 (sidebar); mural movement in, 44, 46-50 (sidebar), 5r, 53,

Potter, Bessie, 88, 1 2 3

54—55; murals for Woman's Building from, 159 (side-

pottery, exhibit space for, 80 (sidebar)

bar), 1 6 3 - 6 5 (sidebar); Salon of, 47 (sidebar), 89. See

Praeger, S. Rosamond: Ellen Mary Rope, 203

[261]

INDEX

race: of Cassatt's modern women, 1 3 3 ; constructed hier-

Prang, Louis, 146, 148

archy of, 20; of Lady Managers, 70; Lady Managers' use

Presenting Students for Examination (Merritt), 1 6 1 (sidebar)

of term, 167. See also African Americans

Price, Aimée Brown, 2141130

Raimondi, Carlo, 191

primitive/civilized theme, 22, 25, 27, 29-30. See also eth-

Ramée, Marie Louise de la (Ouida), 128 (sidebar)

nographic exhibits; progress and progress cycle Primitive Woman (M. MacMonnies): criticism (praise and

Rand, Ellen Emmet: Rosina Emmet Sherwood, 205

derision) of, 172, 1 7 4 - 7 7 , 223ni7; early working

Rand, McNally & Co., 6 (sidebar)

women as subject, 116, 120; fate of, iy8, 179-80 (side-

realism: criticism of, 172; historical, 46-54; modern classi-

bar); other works compared with, 1 3 5 , 1 5 3

cism, 46, 60-64,

— VIEWS: at Art Institute, 77S; details and whole,

118-19;

4

57> 58, 59, 60; of Cassatt's modern women, 1 3 3 , 134—

study for, pi. 5 Progress (Durand), 34,

11

realist allegory (l'allégorie réelle): Boyle's use of, 36, 54—55, 35. 1 3 7 - 3 8 . ' 4 > - 4 3 . 1 4 5 - 4 6 . i 4 8 - 4 9 ; concept of, 13,

96

16—17, 2i4n26; contemporary realism as, 54—60; criti-

progress and progress cycle: definitions of, 20-21; in Grand Basin sculptures, 40; in Hall of Honor murals,

cism of, 172; modern women depicted in, 1 2 2 - 3 3 ; in

114; learning from, 187-88; men's vs. women's

Pennsylvania State Building murals, 154, 156; use of

advancement in, 96-97; narrative of inventions and

term, 52, 54, 2 i 4 n 3 0

technological developments as, 32-36; 1930s revival

Record Rooms (Woman's Building), 78 (sidebar)

of women's story in, pi 8, 1 8 1 , 185-87, 186, 225n43;

Reid, Robert, 193

realist allegory of transportation as, 36, 54-55, 57, 58, 59, 60; in Rideout's sculptures, 103—4, io5>

10

Renoir, Pierre-Auguste, 96-97 (sidebar), 98 (sidebar),

7>

133

109, 108—11; visual metaphor for female, 126, 1 2 7 ;

The Republic (Columbia) (French), 38, 40-42, 41

women's co-opting language of, 99 (sidebar); in wom-

Republic, Third: French celebration of, 46-47 (sidebar),

en's murals of Pennsylvania State Building, 1 5 1 , 1 5 3 -

50 (sidebar), 96 (sidebar)

54, 156—57; women's story in, 9 7 - 1 0 3 , 9 9 - 1 0 2 (side-

Republic figure: American symbols of, 165 (sidebar);

bar) . See also evolutionary paradigm

female figure as, 37-38; French's depiction of, 38,

Proust, Marcel, 198-99

40-42, 41; Greco-Roman origins and, 41—42; Sher-

public art: as male domain, 9-10; realist style criticized in,

wood's depiction of, 124, 126, 727, 128-29, 134> ! 7 9

172; woman's place in, 188. See also architecture and

(sidebar)

buildings; decorations; murals; sculpture public buildings: American competition with Parisian, 34; assumptions underlying, 27-29; boom in, 25, 27; clas-

The Republic's Welcome to Her Daughters (Sherwood), 124, 126, 727, 128-29, 179 (sidebar) Reverie (Rongier), 156, 757

sicizing allegory as standard for, 36; French view of,

Rideout, Alice Louise (later Canady): biography of, 2 0 2 -

96-97 (sidebar)

3; commission for, 88-89; consensual narrative of, 104,

Puvis de Chavannes, Pierre: gendered depictions by,

148; illustration of, 705, 202; modern classicism refor-

6 1 - 6 2 ; as influence on muralists, 90, 92, 114, 116,

mulated by, 64; Palmer's meetings with, 94; praise for

1 3 5 , 149, 163 (sidebar), 1 7 3 , 174; innovations of,

sculpture of, 168, 172; on subjects, 97; women's prog-

49-50 (sidebar), 60; modern classicism of, 46, 62, 64,

ress story of, 103-4, i ° 7 . 1 08-11, 124

114; murals in Hôtel de Ville, Paris, 50 (sidebar); neo-

—WORKS: Woman as the Spirit of Civilization (cornice),

classicism as starting point for, 2 i 4 n 3 i ; rescripting

104, 705, to6, 107; Woman's Place in /hstory (pedi-

Arcadia by, 114, 146-48; revisionist mode of, 36; Salon

ment) , 705, 109; Woman's Virtues (cornice), 104, 705,

entries of, 47 (sidebar); subjects favored by, 1 3 3 —WORK: Inter Antes et Naturam, pi. 4, 61

706 Riviere, Briton: Danielin the Lion's Den, 132 Robert-Fleury, Tony, 193, 198

Queen Isabella Association, 66, 68, 87

Rodin, Auguste, 209, 225n39

Queen Isabella of Castile (Hosmer), 66, 68, 69

Rogers, Randolph, 2 2on69

[262]

INDEX

Rohl-Smith, Carl, 209

separate spheres: criticism in context of, 167-68; in

Rongier, Jeanne: challenge facing, 1 5 6 - 5 7

Gilded Age, 17, 6 1 - 6 2 , 63, 64; "naturalness" of, 73. See

—WORKS: Maternity, 156, 1 5 7 ; Reverie, 156, 1 5 7

also post-Victorian sensibility

Roof Garden Café (Woman's Building), 80 (sidebar)

Sérusier, Paul, 98 (sidebar)

Root, John, 3

Seurat, Georges, 138, 22on62

Rope, Ellen Mary, 195, 205, 203-4

Sewell, (Lydia) Amanda Brewster: biography of, 205;

Rorer, Sarah Tyson, 78 (sidebar)

commission for, 92; early women depicted by, 1 1 4 ,

Rubens, Peter Paul, 1 4 1

1 1 6 ; easel and mural painting, compared, 221 n2; fate

Russia, applied arts from, 76 (sidebar)

of mural of, 180 (sidebar); illustration of, 205; praise

Rydell, Robert, 22, 21 in2, 2 i 3 n i 2

for mural of, 175; works in Palace of Fine Arts and Woman's Building, 80 (sidebar) —WORKS: Arcadia, 1 1 4 , 1 1 6 , n j , 180 (sidebar), 2 2 i n 2 ;

Saint-Gaudens, Augustus: historical realism of, 48; status of, 35, 2 i 4 n 2 g

Pleasures of the Past, 2 2 i n 2 ; Sylvan Festival, 2 2 i n 2

—WORK: Columbus Setting Foot on Land, 21

Shaw,Jennifer, 50 (sidebar), 61

Saint Louis Art Museum, 179 (sidebar)

Sheridan, Philip, 44, 45

Salaunia, Raoul, 199

Sherman, William Tecumseh, 44, 45

Salon de Paris, 47 (sidebar), 89

Sherwood, Rosina H. Emmet: biography of, 128, 205-6;

Samoan Village, 3 1

Cassatt's work compared with, 135; College Girl figure

Sand, George, 78 (sidebar)

referenced by, 84 (sidebar), 1 2 7 ; commission for, 92;

Sartain, Emily, 80 (sidebar)

fate of murals of, 179 (sidebar), 180 (sidebar); illus-

Sartain, William, 205

tration of, 205; models of, 2 2 i n i 6 ; modern women

Schmid, Rupert, 89, 202

depicted by, 1 2 2 - 2 3 ,

Science, Literature, and Imagination (Keith), 79, 1 5 8 - 5 9

12

4>

1

128-29; subject of,

1 1 4 ; techniques of, 1 3 4

(sidebar), 160

—WORK: The Republic's Welcome to Her Daughters, 124, 126,

The Sciences (Cox), 13, 14, 15, 17

127, 128-29, 17g (sidebar)

scientific works by women: achievements highlighted, 78

ship of state metaphor: in Abbéma's murals, 163 (side-

(sidebar), 2 2 i n i 4

bar) ,164,

Scott, Thomas, 58

165 (sidebar) ; of Exposition Universelle,

2i3n2o; in F. MacMonnies's Columbian Fountain, 38,

Scribner's Magazine, 123

39,4°

sculpture: allegorical female bodies in, 38-42; assistants

Siam (nowThailand), applied arts from, 76 (sidebar)

for, 209; New Girl in, 123; rules for, 8; status and wages

Signac, Paul, 146

of artists in, 3 4 - 3 5 ; technological progress theme of,

Simmons, Edward, 2 1 3 - 1 4 M 3

32,

skirt dancing, 1 3 5 , 136, 1 3 7 (sidebar)

34-36, 2 i 3 n i 5 . See also Grand Basin sculptures;

sculpture in Woman's Building; sculpture movement

Slater, Mary E.: Art Sanctifies the Sorrows of the World, 1 5 0 -

sculpture in Woman's Building: achievements highfor, 95-96; gendered rhetoric on, 172; materials and

5i. '53 Sloan, John, 16 Smith College, skirt dancing at, 136, 1 3 7 (sidebar)

on-site construction of, 89; men depicted in, 108; wom-

Smithsonian Institution: commission for, 1 0 2 - 3 , JTOJ;

lighted, 76 (sidebar); competition for, 88-89; direction

en's progress story in, 103-4, /05, 106, 107, /09, 1 0 8 11. See also specific artists

exhibit in Woman's Building, 76 (sidebar) social class: banjo playing and, 140—41 (sidebar); fine

sculpture movement, 25, 27, 28. See afeo sculpture; sculp-

arts and, 2i7n28; industrial revolution's impact and,

ture in Woman's Building

8 1 - 8 3 ; of modern women depicted in murals, 1 2 3 ,

Sears, Mary Crease, 204, 204

1 3 3 ; "naturalness" of separate spheres and, 73; portrait

Sea Transportation, 58

reflective of, 182-83; of women involved in fairs, 65,

Self-Portrait (M. MacMonnies), 91

68-70; women's college education and, 85 (sidebar)

[263]

INDEX

The Telephone and the Ticker (Beckwith), 43

social Darwinism, 20-22, 30. See also ethnographic exhibits; evolutionary paradigm

themes and narratives. See male themes and narratives;

Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts (Paris), 1 7 9 (sidebar)

visual language

Solari, Mary, 80 (sidebar)

T h o m p s o n , J. Edgar, 58

souvenir books, 4, 10, 1 1 , 99, 2191154. See also archival

T h o m p s o n , N. D.: The Dream City, 7 - 8 (sidebar) Tiffany, Louis Comfort, 207

sources Spring (Bush-Brown), 154,

Tiffany Glass Company, 193

stained and leaded glass, 158 (sidebar), Î 5 9

Trans-Mississippi and International Exposition ( O m a h a ,

Stanford,Jane, 22, 23, 85 (sidebar), 2 i 7 n 2 8

1898), 69 (sidebar)

Stanford, Leland, 22, 23

Transportation Building (Hall of Transportation): archi-

Stanford University, Memorial Arch, 2 1 - 2 2 , 23

tectural style of, 25; artifacts by w o m e n in, 80 (side-

Stanton, Elizabeth Cady: addresses of, 83 (sidebar), l o i

bar); entrance to, 36, 54, 5 6 - 5 7 , 5 9 ; progress narrative

(sidebar); feminist theology of, 120, 145, 222n25; on

in decorations of, 36, 5 4 - 5 5 , 57, 58, 59, 60, 96

w o m e n ' s superiority, 1 0 1 - 2 , 1 0 1 - 2 (sidebar)

The Triumph of Invention (Waagen), 110,

state buildings, 149-50. See also California State Building;

111

T r u m a n , Benjamin, 4 (sidebar), 2 2 2 m Twain, Mark (Samuel L. Clemens), 208

Illinois State Building; Pennsylvania State Building Statue o f Liberty, 38, 41

Tyche (Fortuna) ( H e n n e b e r g ) , 139

Stephenson, G e o r g e , 58 universities, w o m e n in, 8 4 - 8 7 (sidebar). See also College

Stevens, John: "Human Fruitfulness" panel o f Minnesota

Girl; w o m e n ' s education

Fruit panorama, 1 4 J

University of Michigan: Harlan Hatcher Graduate

St. John, Agnes, 204 Stone, Lucy, 83 (sidebar)

Library, mural in, 180 (sidebar)

Stowe, Harriet Beecher, 78 (sidebar)

U.S. Congress, 68, 80 (sidebar), 81, 187

suffragists: demands of, 66, 68-69; emancipatory rheto-

U.S. Department of Justice, Bisttram's mural in, pi. 8,

ric of, 107, 2 i g n 5 5 ; in England, 161 (sidebar), 163

1 8 1 , 1 8 5 - 8 7 , 186

(sidebar); exhibit space for, 80 (sidebar); feminism of,

Ussi, Stefano, 200

7 1 - 7 2 , 120; Palmer's relationship with, 7 4 - 7 5 ; role in

Utah, raw materials from, 78 (sidebar)

World's Congress Auxiliary, 83 (sidebar); success of,

Utopias, painted idylls of, 146, 1 4 8 - 4 9 . See also Arcadia

187; w o m e n ' s attitudes toward, 70; on w o m e n ' s status in historical periods, 100-2, 1 0 1 - 2 (sidebar). See also

Valentine of Women Bathing Cupids ( C h u r c h ) , 146, 148

equality

Vanderbilt, Alva, 183

Sullivan, Louis: Boyle's work and, 2 i 5 n 3 i ; on neoclassical style of Fair, 28

Vanderbilt, Cornelius, 58 The Vanishing City (photographic encyclopedia), 6 (sidebar)

—WORK: G o l d e n Portal, Transportation Building, 54, 56-57

van Parys, Louise Gabillot: biography of, 206-7; commission for, 92, 94; historical w o m e n depicted by, 163

Swynnerton, A n n i e Louisa Robinson, 92, 1 5 9 - 6 1 (side-

(sidebar)

bar), 163 (sidebar), 206 symbolist movement, 98 (sidebar), 135, 1 3 7 - 3 8

—WORKS: The Arts of Woman (study), 762, 163 (sidebar); Influence of Woman in the Arts (study), 162, 163 (sidebar)

Taft, Lorado, 209 technological developments: Ferris wheel as, 30, 32, 3 2 ; g e n d e r e d bodies depicting, 4 2 - 4 5 , 43, 44, 45; m e n ' s

V a u g h a n , Kate, 137 (sidebar) Victorian culture: fascination with youthful female in,

vs. w o m e n ' s stories of, 9 6 - 9 7 ; narrative and decora-

122; g e n d e r roles in, 3 7 - 3 8 ; "Lady" used in, 69, 1 2 9 -

tions reflecting, 3 2 - 3 6 . See also evolutionary paradigm;

30 (sidebar); transition to New W o m a n from, 72, 1 3 0 -

inventions and patents by men; inventions and patents

31 (sidebar), 2 1 6 m 1; true w o m a n h o o d of, 42. See also

by women; progress and progress cycle

Gilded Age; post-Victorian sensibility

[264]

INDEX

The Victory ofSamothrace (sculpture), 104, 124, 126

ied in, 7 1 - 7 2 ; redefinition of, 167-68; Woman's Build-

visitors: lighting of Fair and, 2, 3, 8 (sidebar); Midway

ing as expression of, 168; writing story of, 9 9 - 1 0 2 (sidebar), 9 9 - 1 0 3 . See also women

experiences of, 30, 3 1 ; number of, 21 in2; The Republic (sculpture) understood by, 4 1 - 4 2 ; response to Hall

The Woman's Bible (1898), 222n25

of Honor (Woman's Building), 1 1 3 - 1 4 ; transportation

Woman's Building: achievements showcased in, 76-80

cycle read by, 54-55- See also criticism; media and pub-

(sidebar); aerial view of, 88; consensual story of women's

lic discourse

history and progress in, 1 1 , 82, 98, 104, 108, 148-49,

visual language: gendering by age and activity, 1 2 1 - 2 2 ;

158 (sidebar); female consciousness underlying, 7 1 - 7 2 ;

of Greco-Roman heritage, 27-29, 4 1 - 4 2 ; reassign-

funding for, 5; goals for, 28—29, 84; Midway Plaisance

ments of meaning in, 1 5 - 1 6 ; stretching the boundar-

near to, 29; opening and closing speeches at, 8 1 - 8 3 , 183; public programming in, 66, 82-83 (sidebar);

ies of imaginable in, 17; women as muses in, 1 1 - 1 5 .

reflections on, 1 8 1 - 8 8 ; significance of, 9 - 1 0 ; state build-

See also allegory; criticism; male themes and narratives;

ings compared with, 149, 1 5 1 , 153; in survey histories

progress and progress cycle; realism; realist allegory

of Fair, 7 (sidebar), 2 2 2 m ; women's "herstory" under-

(l'allégorie réelle)

lying decorations of, 9 9 - 1 0 2 (sidebar), 9 9 - 1 0 3 ; wom-

Vuillard, Edouard, 98 (sidebar) Waagen, M. A.: The Triumph of Invention, 1 1 0 ,

en's hopes for, 66, 68. See abo architecture and design of Woman's Building; Board of Lady Managers; commis-

111

sions for Woman's Building; decorations of Woman's

Waldorf-Astoria Hotel (New York), ceiling mural, 183,

Building; Hall of Honor; murals in Woman's Building;

184, 185

New York Library; sculpture in Woman's Building

Walton, William, 2 2 3 m 7

— SPECIFIC PARTS: Assembly R o o m , 5 (sidebar), 66,

Warner, Marina, 36, 37

82-83 (sidebar), 87; Ceylon Tea Room, 79, 80 (side-

Washington, George, 44, 45

bar); Cincinnati Room, 80 (sidebar); Model Kitchen,

Watt, James, 58

80 (sidebar); Organization Room, 80 (sidebar); Presi-

W. B. Conkey Company, 6 (sidebar)

dent's Office, 75, 75, 80 (sidebar); Record Rooms, 78

Webster, Sally, 179 (sidebar), 222n25

(sidebar); Roof Garden Café, 80 (sidebar)

A Week at the Fair (guidebook), 6 (sidebar)

The Woman's Building, Chicago, 1893; The Woman's Build-

Weimann,Jeanne Madeline, 21 in5, 2 i 6 n 6

ing, Los Angeles, 19J3

Weir, J . Alden, 19, 20

(souvenir book), 10, 11

woman's emancipation movement, 10. See also emancipa-

Wheeler, Candace Thurber: on applied art, 5 (side-

tory rhetoric; New Woman; suffragists

bar); biography of, 207-8; daughter of, 158 (sidebar),

Woman's Exchange (New York City), 207-8

2i8n46; fate of murals and, 180 (sidebar); Hall of Honor color scheme of, 174; illustration of, 207; mural commissions and, 92; on Woman's Building, 168, 1 6 9 70

Woman's National Indian Association, 80 (sidebar) Woman's Place in History {Rideout), 105, 109 Woman's Virtues (Rideout), 104, /05, 106 Woman's Work (illustration), 12, 13, 15, 42—43

—WORKS: New York Library furnishings, 79

women: consensual story of history and progress of, 1 1 ,

Wheeler, Dora. See Keith, Dora Wheeler

82, 98, 104, 108, 148-49, 158 (sidebar); dominant

White City: ideal of, 25, 26, 27; Midway Plaisance dis-

paradigms for, 1 1 - 1 7 ; fine arts as sphere of, 82-83,

tinguished from, 29; use of term, 1. See also World's

2i7n28; as first artists, 102; "herstory" of, 9 9 - 1 0 2 (side-

Columbian Exposition (1893)

bar), 9 9 - 1 0 3 ; male artists' struggles to visualize, 1 8 1 -

The White City (AsIt Was) (Jackson), 8 (sidebar)

88; modern work conceived for, 1 1 0 - 1 1 ; physical activ-

Whitney, Anne, 76 (sidebar)

ities embraced by, 1 2 3 - 2 4 , 1 3 3 , 145, 148, 154; skirt

Willard, Frances, 70

dancing among, 1 3 5 , 136, 1 3 7 (sidebar); stretching

Woman as the Spirit of Civilization (Rideout), 104, 705, 106, 107

the boundaries of imaginable for, 17. See also female artists; female decorators; women's education; wom-

womanhood: Cassatt's new version of, 1 7 7 - 7 8 ; emerging

en's organizations; working women

consciousness of, 7 0 - 7 1 ; moral guardianship embod-

[265]

INDEX

The Women of Plymouth (or Puritan Settlers, Fairchild): fate

dered body in, 36-45, 2 1 3 m 8; archival sources, 3,

of, 179 (sidebar), 180 (sidebar), 221115; views of, pi. 2,

4 - 8 (sidebar); as defining moment/event, 2-3; histor-

121; working women in, 120-22

ical realism in, 46-54; modern classicism of, 60-64;

women's buildings: agendas of, 65-66; European origins

nationalism of, 84; night view of, 3; planning and scale

of, 2 i 5 - i 6 n 2 ; inherent paradox of, 66, 73; Los Ange-

of, 3-5; semiautobiographical novel of, 209; size and

les ( 1 9 7 3 - 9 1 ) , 10, 11; in other fairs, 6 7 - 6 9 (sidebar);

length of existence, 1 - 2 , 9; White City ideal for, 1, 25,

separate women's spaces vs., 6g (sidebar), 2 i 6 n 3

26, 27; women's demands for representation in, 66,

women's education: achievements of, 131 (sidebar);

68. See also architecture and buildings; Board of Lady

advocacy of, 81-83; College Girl and, 84-87 (sidebar),

Managers; decorations; exhibits and exhibition halls;

125, 127, 134; English mural depicting, 161 (sidebar);

Department of Fine Arts; grounds and landscaping;

New Girl and, 130-31 (sidebar); New Woman and, 129

lighting; male themes and narratives; plans and archi-

(sidebar); opportunities for, 82-83 (sidebar); physical

tectural drawings; visitors

health linked to, 137 (sidebar); statistics on, 130 (side-

World's Columbian Exposition, Chicago, 1893 (souvenir

bar)

book): cover, 4 World's Congress Auxiliary, Woman's Branch, 83 (side-

women's organizations: as educational opportunities, 74;

bar)

exhibit space for, 68 (sidebar), 80 (sidebar); histories of, 21, 212n4; inherent paradox of, 73; members and

World's Industrial and Cotton Centennial Exposition

causes of, 70; public sphere of, 70-72. See also specific

(New Orleans, 1884-85), 2 i 6 n 3

organizations

writing: evolution of, 52, 54, 5 4 - 5 5 ; of "herstory,"

Women's Pavilion. See Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition

97-103, 99-102 (sidebar); women's, in Library (Woman's Building), 78 (sidebar), 79. See also criticism

(1876), Women's Pavilion Women's Trade Union League, 74 working women: in Fairchild's mural, pi 2, 120-22, 121;

Yandell, Enid Bland: biography of, 208-9; illustration of,

industrial revolution's impact on, 81; in MacMon-

208; Palmer's relationship with, 217n33

nies's mural, pi. 5, 116, 118—19, 120; in 1930s revival

—WORKS: Caryatides, 209; Three Girls in a Flat, 209

of women's progress cycle, 186, 186-87; statistics on,

Young Women Picking Fruit (Cassatt), 146, J47

75, 78 (sidebar); in urban workplace, 12, 13, 1 5 - 1 6 , 42-43. See also fruit and fruit picking; inventions and

Zorn, Anders Leonard: Little Brewery, 181; Mrs. Potter

patents by women

Palmer, pi. 7, 181-83, I $ 2 >

World's Columbian Exposition (1893): allegory and gen-

224n37>

225n4o; Sara Tyson

Hallowell, 196

Text 9 . 4 / 1 1 . 5 New Baskerville

Display Akzidenz Grotesk, Engravers MT

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Project Editors Sue Heinemann, Laura Harger Copyeditor Adrienne Harris Production Coordinator Pamela Augspurger

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