2. DEBUNKING THE CULT OF TRUE WOMANHOOD/MOTHERHOOD ON THE FRONTIER

2019 ◽  
pp. 98-182
Keyword(s):  
True Womanhood ◽  
Cult Of True Womanhood

scholarly journals "A Jewish Maestra and a Lady too": Reflections on Femininity in the Career of Ethel Stark

2019 ◽  
Vol 28 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria N. Rachwal
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Social Justice ◽  
Symphony Orchestra ◽  
Jewish Woman ◽  
Critical Dimension ◽  
Feminist Activism ◽  
Cultural Traditions ◽  
True Womanhood ◽  
Cult Of True Womanhood

Ethel Stark (1910–2012) was one of the most important conductors and concert violinists in Canada in the Twentieth century. This article highlights how an Austro-Canadian Jewish woman who lived outside the constraints of conventional domesticity, both navigated through and defied the ideals of the “Cult of True Womanhood” and spearheads a movement of feminism in music. I argue that Stark’s exposure to Jewish cultural traditions of social justice and womanhood in her childhood formed a critical dimension of her feminist activism later in her life, and in particular in the founding of The Montreal Women’s Symphony Orchestra (1940).

scholarly journals (Un)Dress in Southworth & Hawes’ Daguerreotype Portraits: Clytie, Proserpine, and Antebellum Boston Women

2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-30
Author(s):  
Margo L. Beggs
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Special Significance ◽  
White Skin ◽  
Antebellum America ◽  
True Womanhood ◽  
Societal Norms ◽  
Young America ◽  
Cult Of True Womanhood ◽  
Hiram Powers ◽  
White Elite

Young America: The Daguerreotypes of Southworth & Hawes (2005) is a monumental exhibition catalogue showcasing the work of Albert Sands Southworth and Josiah Johnson Hawes. Together the partners established a renowned daguerreotype studio in mid-nineteenth-century Boston that catered to the city’s bourgeoisie. This paper seeks to unravel the mystery of dozens of daguerreotypes found in Young America, in which elite Boston women appear to be nearly nude. The unidentified women stand in stark contrast to the carefully concealed bodies of Southworth & Hawes’ other female subjects. Why would they expose themselves in such a manner before the camera’s lens? This paper attributes the women’s state of (un)dress to their deliberate emulation of two sculptures in the classical tradition: Clytie, a marble bust dating to antiquity, and Proserpine, a mid-nineteenth-century marble bust by American neoclassical sculptor Hiram Powers. This argument first reveals how a general “classical statue” aesthetic prevailed for women’s deportment in antebellum America, then demonstrates that the busts of Clytie and Proserpine had special significance as icons of white, elite female beauty in the period. Next, this paper makes the case that Southworth & Hawes devised a special style of photography deriving from their own daguerreotypes of the two statues, in which the women’s off-shoulder drapery was deliberately obscured allowing their female clientele to pose in the guise of these famous statues. The paper concludes by arguing that the women shown in these images could pose in this style without contravening societal norms, as these mythological figures were construed by women and men in the period to reflect the central precepts of the mid-nineteenth-century “Cult of True Womanhood.” Moreover, the busts offered sartorial models that reinforced standards of female dress as they related to class and privilege. By baring their flawless, white skin, however, the women positioned themselves at the crux of contentious beliefs about race in a deeply divided nation prior to the American Civil War.

scholarly journals Moral and Manners of Flappers (New Woman) in F. Scott Fitzgerald Works

2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 47-50
Author(s):  
Henny Suharyati
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Method ◽  
Young Generation ◽  
Secondary Sources ◽  
True Womanhood ◽  
Great Gatsby ◽  
Library Research ◽  
Tender Is The Night ◽  
The Great Gatsby ◽  
The Media ◽  
Cult Of True Womanhood

Flapper's phenomenon appeared in the 1920s in line with the feminist achievement on women's suffrage. Industrialism opened the possibility for vistas of young American generations at that time to undergo a good member of changes both in moral and manners. The characteristics of flappers are reflected in literary works by Fitzgerald, an American famous novelist. In achieving the objective of this research, a qualitative method is applied by the way of library research - collecting data from both primary and secondary sources. The former, This Side of Paradise (1919), a novel telling about the young generation, The Great Gatsby (1925) and Tender is The Night, both describing the maturity of the flappers. The outcome of the research proves that there is a similarity, in moral and manners, between the flappers in Fitzgerald's fictions and those in reality during the 1920s. The new values differed from the old ones which were maintained by the cult of true womanhood, especially in concern with those young generations performances, manners, and morals. The media encouraged the development of the new values. There is also a sense of paradox: on one hand Fitzgerald implicitly tended to spread out the moral and manners of flappers, but on the other hand, he criticizes them.

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