Bicycles, Bangs, and Bloomers: The New Woman in the Popular Press - Hardcover

Marks, Patricia

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0813117046 ISBN 13: 9780813117041

Publisher: University Press of Kentucky, 1990

Synopsis

The so-called "New Woman"―that determined and free-wheeling figure in "rational" dress, demanding education, suffrage, and a career-was a frequent target for humorists in the popular press of the late nineteenth century. She invariably stood in contrast to the "womanly woman," a traditional figure bound to domestic concerns and a stereotype away from which many women were inexorably moving.

Patricia Marks's book, based on a survey of satires and caricatures drawn from British and American periodicals of the 1880s and 1890s, places the popular view of the New Woman in the context of the age and explores the ways in which humor both reflected and shaped readers' perceptions of women's changing roles.

Not all commentators of the period attacked the New Woman; even conservative satirists were more concerned with poverty, prostitution, and inadequate education than with defending so-called "femininity." Yet, as the influx of women into the economic mainstream changed social patterns, the popular press responded with humor ranging from the witty to the vituperative.

Many of Marks's sources have never been reprinted and exist only in unindexed periodicals. Her book thus provides a valuable resource for those studying the rise of feminism and the influence of popular culture, as well as literary historians and critics seeking to place more formal genres within a cultural framework. Historians, sociologists, and others with an interest in Victorianism will find in it much to savor.

About this title

About the Author:

Patricia Marks, professor of English at Valdosta State College, is author of American Literary and Drama Reviews and co-author of The Smiling Muse: Victoriana in the Comic Press.

From Publishers Weekly:

In the 1880s and '90s the expanding aspirations of women were the subject of satire and caricature. Through humorous pieces drawn from British and American periodicals, Marks ( American Literary and Drama Reviews ) traces the evolution of the "New Woman." Often pictured in newfangled bloomers, striding toward colleges and careers, these "revolting daughters" were described as disintegrators of the social fabric, in apposition to the conventional "womanly woman" typified by the shopgirl, the seamstress, the governess. Among the women who had failed to fulfill Victorian expectations of wife and motherhood, and thus were termed "redundant," a sense of alienation fueled changes in their interests and relationships, shows Marks. These new directions, mirrored in the press with immoderate humor, as evidenced in this collection of prose, verse and cartoons, constitute a significant contribution to the study of feminism and Victorianism.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
• Publication date: 1990
• ISBN 10: 0813117046
• ISBN 13: 9780813117041
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 232