lll”'°”'l"lllll'vls'l”llS IV M Ml ~ This is to certify that the thesis entitled The Portrayal of Fact and Fiction in Prints Depicting Urban Women and Their Roles From 1871—1914 in French Society ‘ presented by Sharon Lodwig Albert has been accepted towards fulfillment of the requirements for Master of Arts degree in Department of Art / 2M 57% 3 x0 ‘ 1 Major professor ‘ Date __ 3/23/84 l 0-7639 MSUis 1m Acfirmnh'up ‘ ' F I 1" MSU LIBRARIES .—— \— RETURNING MATERIALS: Place in book drop to remove this checkout from your record. FINES will be charged if book is returned after the date stamped below. n—. will = $51259 3‘ Weigh": f .— l THE PORTRAYAL OF FACT AND FICTION IN PRINTS DEPICTING URBAN WOMEN AND THEIR ROLES FROM 1871-1914 IN FRENCH SOCIETY BY Sharon Lodwig Albert A THESIS Submitted to Michigan State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF ARTS Department of Art 1984 ABSTRACT THE PORTRAYAL OF FACT AND FICTION IN PRINTS DEPICTINC URBAN WOMEN AND THEIR ROLES FROM 1871-1914 IN FRENCH SOCIETY by Sharon Lodwig Albert This iconographical study examines the wealth of imagery depicting urban women produced by late nineteenth and early twentieth century printmakers in France. I have selected examples which typify the range from the wealthy bourgeois woman to demi— mondes, performers, and working women as well as seemingly innocent subjects whose double meanings are telling. In order to discover the meanings of these images I have studied the social history of the various roles women played in this period. in so doing it became evident that the artists favored some subjects and avoided others altogether. Women's activities have been classified and each discussed with the intention of revealing how women were either maintaining traditional roles or encroaching upon previously male spheres and how artists (largely male) reacted to these situations either by depicting them or by avoidance. Il‘ ACKNOWLEDGMENTS i wish to gratefully acknowledge the assistance given to me by the staff of the Art Library. A special debt of gratitude is owed to the members of my thesis committee: Drs. Webster Smith, Sadayoshi Omoto, and especially Dr. Eldon Van Liere, for his continued interest, insightful suggestions, patience, and humor during the course of this study. TABLE OF CONTENTS Page LIST OF FIGURES ............................................. iv INTRODUCTION ............................................... 1 Chapter I. THE EFFECT OF CHANGING EMPLOYMENT PATTERNS ON THE INTERPRETATION OF THE TERM 'BOURGEOIS' IN LATE NINETEENTH CENTURY FRANCE ............ 8 II. THE BOURGEOIS WOMAN .............................. l7 III. THE BOURGEOIS WOMAN'S FASHION REQUIREMENTS .. LI3 IV. THE INTRODUCTION OF SPORTS FOR RESPECTABLE WOMEN ................................................ 68 V. SUFFRAGE, EDUCATION, AND AN ICONOGRAPHICAL GAP ................................................... 108 VI. PROSTITUTION ........................................ 146 VII. ARTISTS, BLUESTOCKINGS, AND WOMEN OF THE THEATRE ............................................. 199 VIII. EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITIES FOR WOMEN ............ 233 IX. CONCLUSION .......................................... 292 BIBLIOGRAPHY ................................................ 297 LIST OF FIGURES Figure Page 1. Manuel Robbe. Les Mamans. Color aquatint and drypoint, 1904 ......................................... 21 2. Manuel Robbe. La Tasse de The. Color aquatint and etching, c. 1906 ..................................... 22 3. Manuel Robbe. Dans le Jardin. Color aquatint and etching, c. 1907 ..................................... 23 ll. Félix Vallotton. Le Bon Marché. Woodcut, 1893 ....... 2L1 5. Paul Helleu. Watteau Drawings. Drypoint, c. 1900 28 6. Edgar Degas. Mary Cassatt in the Louvre. Aquatint, c. 1880 ................................................ 28 7. George Bottini. Sagot's Gallery. Color lithograph, 1898 ................................................... 31 8. Manuel Robbe. La Belle Epreuve. Color aquatint and etching, c. 1905 ....................................... 33 9. Manuel Robbe. Le Choix de I'Epreuve. Color aquatint and drypoint, c. 1908 ........................ 33 10. Manuel Robbe. La Critique du Tableau. Color aquatint, c. 1907 ....................................... 35 11. Manuel Robbe. La Critique lnfluent. Color aquatint, c. 1907 ................................................ 35 12. Jean Béraud. La Patisserie GIoppe. Oil on wood, 1889 ................................................... 38 13. Fashion Illustration. 1870. ............................. 147 14. Fashion Illustration. 1870. ............................. £17 15. Fashion Illustration. c. 1859 .......................... 48 16. Fashion Illustration. 1871 ............................. 119 Figure Page 17. Fashion Illustration. 1878 ............................ £19 18. Indoor Toilettes. 1886 ............................... 51 19. Georges Seurat. Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte. Oil on canvas, 18811—1886 ........... 52 20. Fashion Illustration. 1889 ............................ 53 21. Country Dresses. 1892 ............................... 53 22. Paul Helleu. Le Chapeau de Lancret. Drypoint ...... 55 23. Manuel Robbe. Femme au Chien. Color aquatint and etching, 1907 ................................. . ...... 56 24. Jacques ViIIon. Le Banc de Pierre. Drypoint, 1908 .. 57 25. Jacques ViIIon. La Parisienne. Color aquatint, 1902 . 60 26. Paul Helleu. Jeune Femme en Robe Lonfle. Color drypoint ............................................ 60 27. Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. Amazone et Tonneau. Lithograph, 1899. ................................... 71 28. Edgar Chahine. La Promenade. Drypoint, etching and aquatint; 1902 ................................... 73 29. Fashion Illustration. 1878 ........................... 76 30. Tennis Costume. 1886 ............................... 77 31. Lawn-Tennis Pariy. 1887 ........................... 77 32. Tennis Costume. 1906 ............................... 78 33. Tennis Costume. 1885 ............................... 78 34. Edgar Chahine. Demoiselle au Tennis. Drypoint, 1899 ................................................. 8O 35. Miss Dod. Photograph, 1893 ........................ 80 36. Tichon. Lu-mi-num. Color lithograph, c. 1895 ..... 83 37. George Bottini. Cycles Medinger. Color lithograph, 1897 ................................................. 83 V Figure 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52. 53. 54. 55. 56. 57. Lorant-Heilbronn. Cie des Autos et Cycles Hortu. Color lithograph, 1903 ................................ Cycling Costume. 1894 .............................. Deville. Humber, Paris. Color lithograph ............ Paleologue. Humber GKfles. Color lithograph ........ Pean. Cycles Le Chevreuil. Color lithograph, 1896 .. Misti. Cycles Gladiator. Color lithograph, 1899 ...... Louis Legrand. Cyclistes. Color etching and aquatint, 1900 ........................................ Misti. Cycles and Automobiles. Color lithograph ..... The’ophile Steinlen. Les Cyclistes. Lithograph, 1889 . The’ophile Steinlen. Motocycles Comiot. Color lithograph, 1899 ...................................... Adrienne Barrere. Tout Paris. Color lithograph, 1885 .................................................. Club Fe’minin. Lithograph, c. 1848 ................... Théophile Steinlen. Louise Michel on the Barricades. Oil on canvas, c. 1885 ................................ Théophile Steinlen. May, 1871. Lithograph, 1894 ThéOphile Steinlen. The First of May. Lithograph, 1894 ................................................... ThéOphile Steinlen. The 14th of July. Oil on canvas, 1895 .......................................... Fashion Illustration, 1870 .............................. French Cartoon. Late nineteenth century ............ Une Election Anglaise. L'lllustration, 1909 ............ Edgar Chahine. Le Promenoir. Color etching and aquatint, 1903 ........................................ vi Page 85 86 86 89 9O 91 92 94 95 96 99 114 116 118 119 120 122 123 126 150 Figure Page 58. Jacques Villon. Autre Temps: 1830. Drypoint and aquatint, 1904 ....................................... 151 59. Théophile Steinlen. The Trap. Color lithograph, 1900 ................................................. 154 60. Théophile Steinlen. The Goldbrickers. Photorelief, 1886 ................................................. 157 61. Théophile Steinlen. Girl and Pimp. Color aquatint, 1898 ................................................. 158 62. Théophile Steinlen. The Street Walkers. Photorelief, 1893 ................................................. 159 63. ThéOphile Steinlen. Dispute de Filles. Lithograph, 1895 ................................................. 161 64. Louis Legrand. Sportsman. Drypoint .............. 163 65. Jean Forain. Au Restaurant. Lithograph ............ 165 66. Jean Forain. Le Cabinet Particulier. Lithograph 165 67. Louis Legrand. Digestion. Drypoint and aquatint, 1910 ................................................. 166 68. Louis Legrand. Soupeurs. Color aquatint, 1904 ..... 167 69. Louis Legrand. Private Bar. Etching, aquatint and drypoint, 1911 ....................................... 168 70. Jean Forain. A la Table de Jeu. Etching .......... 170 71. Jacques ViIIon. Les Cartes. Color aquatint, 1903 171 72. Manuel Robbe. Le Ruisseau. Color aquatint and drypoint, c. 1900 ................................... 174 73. Manuel Robbe. Soir d'Ete. Color aquatint and etching, c. 1906 ..................................... 174 74. Manuel Robbe. Le Printemps. Color aquatint and etching, c. 1902 ..................................... 175 75. Manuel Robbe. Soir Amical. Color aquatint and etching, 1905 ....................................... 175 vii Figure 76. 77. 78. 79. 80. 81. 82. 83. 84. 85. 86. 87. 88. 89. 90. 91. 92. Louis Legrand. A I'Ombre. Etching and drypoint, 1905 ................................................... Louis Legrand. Au Bord de la Mer. Aquatint, etching, and drypoint, 1905 ..................................... Manuel Robbe. Femmes sur les Boulevards. Color aquatint and drypoint, c. 1906 ........................ Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. Femme au Corset. Color lithograph, 1896 ....................................... Henri de Toulouse—Lautrec. Femme qui se Peigne. Color lithograph, 1896 ................................. Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. Femme au Tub. Color lithograph, 1896 ....................................... Manuel Robbe. Nu se Coiffant. Color aquatint and drypoint, c. 1906 ..................................... Manuel Robbe. La Bibliothecaire. Color aquatint and drypoint, 1906 ......................................... Manuel Robbe. Visite Matinale. Color aquatint and etching, 1901 ......................................... Manuel Robbe. Petit Miroir. Color aquatint and drypoint, c. 1907 ..................................... Manuel Robbe. Femme au repos. Etching ............. Albert Morrow. The New Woman. Color lithograph, 1897 ................................................... Manuel Robbe. Femme au Bouquet. Color aquatint and drypoint, c. 1907 ..................................... Jacques ViIIon. La Danseuse au Moulin Rouge. Color lithograph, 1899 ....................................... Henri de Toulouse—Lautrec. La Goulue au Moulin Rouge. Color lithograph ....................................... Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. Jane Avril. Color lithograph, 1893 ....................................... Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. Jane Avril. Color lithograph, 1899 ....................................... Page 177 178 180 185 185 185 188 188 190 190 191 208 209 213 214 214 216 Figure Page 93. Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. A l'Opera: Madam Caron dans Faust. Lithograph, 1894 ........................ 217 94. Jean-Francois Raffa'élli. L'Actrice en Voyage. Color drypoint, 1898 ......................................... 219 95. Jean-Francois Raffa'élli. L‘Actrice en Scene. Color drypoint, 1898 ......................................... 220 96. James Tissot. Ces Dames des Chars, a I'Hippodrome. Etching and drypoint, 1885 ............................. 222 97. Teichel. Un Chambrée de Rats. Lithograph, 1851 225 98. Louis Legrand. Premiere legon. Drypoint and aquatint, 1893 ......................................... 227 99. Louis Legrand. Private Bar. Drypoint and aquatint, 1905 ................................................... 228 100. Louis Legrand. Petite Marcheuse. Drypoint, etching, and aquatint, 1908 ..................................... 229 101. Edgar Chahine. Campement de Chiffonniers. Etching, aquatint and drypoint, 1900 ............................ 237 102. Edgar Chahine. La Marchande des Quatre Saisons. Etching, aquatint, and drypoint, 1900 .................. 237 103. Félix Vallotton. Crimes et Chatiments. Lithograph, 1902 ................................................... 238 104. Alexandre—Gabriel Decamps. Marchande de legumes assise, Entourée de paniers. Lithograph .............. 239 105. Manuel Robbe. Marche’ a Montmarte. Color aquatint and etching, 1901 ..................................... 239 106. Jour du marché. L'lllustration, 1909 .................. 241 107. Jour du marché. L'lllustration, 1909 .................. 242 108. Auguste-Louis Lepere. Blanchisseuses. Color soft- ground etching and aquatint, 1893 ..................... 243 109. The‘ophile Steinlen. The Laundresses. Oil on canvas .. 244 110. Theophile Steinlen. Housewife and Children Returning from the Laundry House. Etching, 1899 ................ 245 ix Figure III. III III II] Ill 11‘ Figure 111. 112. 113. 114. 115. 116. 117. 118. 119. 120. 121. 122. 123. 124. 125. 126. 127. Théophile Steinlen. Blanchisseuses reportant I'Ouvrage. Color drypoint, aquatint and etaiing, 1898 .............. Théophile Steinlen. Blanchisseuse. Etching and aquatint, 1898 .......................................... Edgar Chahine. Les Trotteuses. Color softground etching, aquatint, and etching, 1907 ................... Théophile Steinlen. Quittiilq Time for Three Young Dressmakers. Color drypoint, 1900 OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO Richard Ranft. Trottins. Etching, 1894 ................ Felix Vallotton. La Voulez-Vous Cette Belle Broche? Color lithograph, 1901 .................................. Théophile Steinlen. La Rue. Color lithograph, 1896 Edgar Chahine. Midinette. Softground etching, etching, and drypoint, 1904 ............................ Edgar Chahine. Les Chaussettes. Aquatint and dry—- point, 1903 .............................................. Felix Vallotton. La Modiste. Woodcut, 1894 ............. Felix Vallotton. Le Chapeau vert. Color lithograph, 1896 .................................................... Hermann Paul. Modistes. Color lithograph, 1894 ....... Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. La Modiste. Lithograph, 1893 .................................................... Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. Le Petit Trottin. Lithograph, 1893 ...................................... Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. Mme. Le Marguoin, Milliner. Lithograph, 1900 .............................. Telegraph Girls. Illustration, 1871 ..................... Lucien Faure. The Empire Typewriter. Color lithograph, 1897 ........................................ Page 246 247 255 260 262 271 274 275 276 279 283 INTRODUCTION The purpose of this study is to examine printmakers' inter- pretations of the various roles urban French women pursued during the years between the Franco—Prussian War and World War I. Recent exhibitions and their catalogues as well as books have had as their theme these women.1 However, the classifications used which attach questionable moral natures to the women depicted in the included prints often seem beside—the-point, arbitrary, or unfounded. My original assumption was that the general terms 'respectability‘ or 'liberation' would form a basis for a classification system which would more accurately reflect the public's and printmakers' interpretations of various types and depictions of traditional and new roles which women were expected to play as well as roles which they were restricted from pursuing. Prints were chosen for this study because they especially reveal the relationship between art and the culture of urban France during the years between these two wars. The visual imagery pro— duced by this culture interpreted aspirations and perceived ideals as well as actual conditions. These interpretations varied depending on which segment of the public the images were directed at and the intended purpose of the print. Art was to be brought to the people with prints being the available medium. Printmakers were allowed more freedom in their choice of subject matter and were also 1 allowed to develop more pointed messages because of the privacy aspect of fine art prints which were often kept in portfolios rather than hung as paintings were. As prints began to be executed in color, designed in larger sizes, or commissioned for portraits which were to be displayed as evidences of affluence, however, they alSo began to be framed and hung on walls. Prints which appeared in radical journals or journals aimed at improving social conditions also brought art to the working class. Lastly, the brief discussions con— nected with the iconographical generalizations submitted in the above- mentioned exhibition catalogues and books served as an impetus for a more extensive study of that culture and its visual imagery. In order to accurately determine the printmakers' intentions and the public's interpretations of prints depicting women, this investigation began with an examination of the social history of con— ditions which existed when the prints were executed. One major source used was Octave Uzanne, who was a friend of and reporter on late nineteenth-century artists and also an observer of the various types of late nineteenth—century Parisian women.2 Uzanne's observa~ tions provide both delightful descriptions of his concept of the ideal bourgeois lady and critical accounts of the exploitation and appalling conditions of the working—class woman. Although he also dealt with the aspirations and conditions of the 'new woman' who sought political, educational and professional freedoms, he classified these women as unnatural specimens. Other useful contemporary sources used were general French history surveys, studies of the nineteenth century French economy, and those dealing with the conditions of women in France, as well as collections of early nineteenth—century popular images.3 My examination of conditions during this period first focused on the criteria and aspirations of the bourgeois because this was the class which the government held responsible for transforming France once again into a nation of international prestige. Printmakers were encouraged to eulogize the factors which demarcated the separate sphere of this class. The necessary components which printmakers were expected to emphasize when depicting the women of this class were those of respectability, wealth, and acceptable signs of libera— tion. Industrialization provided new opportunities for men to both enter the bourgeois class and/or advance upward within this class, and also presented new opportunities for liberation to both bourgeois and working—class women. The boulevards of Paris began to be populated by respectable bourgeois women as well as smartly dressed working—class women. Improved employment opportunities, besides presenting new possibilities for bourgeois women, began to provide wages adequate enough to not force working—class women into part— time prostitution as a means of supplemental income. The resulting mingling of the classes provided artists with various 'messages' to depict. Printmakers, like the various publics to which the prints were directed, varied in the messages they wished to emphasize. These ranged from eulogy of the wealthy bourgeois to portrayal of the entire range of Parisian types and to satire on the decadence of the bourgeois, and social protest or propaganda. Printmakers visually documented their agreement or disagreement with the doctrine of separate spheres as it related to distinguishing the bourgeois from the working class and respectable women from morally corrupt women. Printmakers who chose to depict performers, working-class women, or prostitutes (often synonymous terms during that period as a result of actual employment conditions), began to reinterpret traditional themes. They could also choose either to stress exploitation by depicting actual conditions or depict what they perceived as distinc- tive, attractive 'natural' traits of various 'types' or 'ideals' which added to the color of Parisian streets. Although in literature and visual imagery the 'ideal' respectable bourgeois woman was still con— trasted to the 'new' woman, printmakers began also to compare common observed traits of all of these women. Printmakers were less innovative in their reinterpretation of the doctrine of separate spheres as it related to distinguishing men from women. Although this study includes the areas of reform, education, and professional activities which women began to enter, printmakers, by and large, chose not to depict women who success— fully entered men's separate spheres even though these women were visible and literature documented their changing conditions. In fact, even though printmakers might have viewed their purpose as that of portraying all women and showing their common shared traits, there still existed a general categorization by the male public and artists which divided women into two groups. One group was that of fashion- able, respectable bourgeois women in contrast to the other group which was women of questionable morals (prostitutes, performers, and employed women with a special emphasis on laundresses and dress— makers). Printmakers can be assumed to reflect male society's belief at the time that women who attempted to enter male spheres were a threat to the goals of the males in the various classes and therefore to be restricted from these spheres. By not depicting these women, printmakers may have chosen consciously to indicate that they did not exist. On the other hand, printmakers could not have been expected to perform the function of merely being reporters on all the different roles women played in this period. A comparison of their choices of subject to depict and avoid to actual conditions provides clues as to their intentions. The role which the printmaker could assume was varied. He could hope that his depictions of 'woman' would satisfy Salon require- ments or avant-garde art dealers. He was a chronicler of what Baudelaire asserted art must become——representations of modern life. However, he must have been aware of the entertainment possibilities of his art. He would have known that the general public could easily attach amusing connotations to his images by reference to the wealth of 'Physiologies' and popular images from the early nineteenth century. These studies and illustrations described the distinctive 'qualities' of various quaint, picturesque, or colorful Parisian types. Often, the actual meaning of what the artist was depicting or what would seem to us to be seemingly innocent subjects can be deciphered by merely referring to the connotations which the title assumed in these Physiologies . Altl ability or III varied accor Since female ruity or ma lion proved images as a lconographi social histc interpretin French wor Situations and for wl Tl known pri The major line-art p hale also as compar 4131' a r Although the images selected indirectly represent respect- ability or liberation, the interpretation of respectability and liberation varied according to which social or economic class was consulted. Since female liberation was often documented by reference to promis- cuity or male 'pretensions,‘ or by avoidance, this type of classifica- tion proved to be less useful in this study than an examination of the images as a reflection of actual class conditions and/or ideals. This iconographical investigation developed into a consideration of images, social history, and artists' biographies together for the purpose of interpreting the messages contained in images representing urban French women. This investigation will seek to reveal what the actual situations of women were, to what extent and how they were depicted, and for what reasons. The emphasis of this study is limited to prints of mostly well— known printmakers whose works are easily accessible in this country. The majority of the prints considered here are either limited-edition fine-art prints or prints which appeared in illustrated journals. 1 have also introduced some fashion illustrations, posters, and paintings as comparative material. In areas where a large number of prints exist, a representative selection had to be made. Ilerrill Printma on (New I Heinerr Univer Forces P‘riEe‘, Basin The P fill Place PTeEE and t m INTRODUCTION: NOTES 1Rediscovered Printmakers of the 19th Century (Chicago: Merrill Chase Galleries, 1978); Gabriel P. Weisberg, Images of Women: Printmakers in France from 1830-1930.‘ (Salt Lake City: Utah Museum of Fine Arts, 1977); and Victor Arwas, Belle Epoqire Posters and Graphics (New York: Rizzoli International Publications, Inc., 1978). 2Octava Uzanne, The Modern Parisienne (London: William Heinemann, 1912). 3Theodone Zeldin, France 1848-1945 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979—81), Five Volumes; Torn Kemp, Economic Forces in French History (London: Dennis Dobson, 1971); Roger Price, An Economic History of Modern France, 1730-1914 (London and Basingstoke: The Macmillan Press Ltd, 1981); Francis I. Clark, The Position of Women in Contemporary France (London: P.S. King 8 Son, Ltd., 1937); James F. McMillan, Housewife or Harlot: The Place of Women in French Society 1870—1940 (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1981); and Beatrice Farwell, The Cult of Images, Baudelaire and the 19th-Century Media Explosion (Santa Barbara: UCSB Art Museum, 1977). THE lnu Prusdan I to German London In 0i industr IOSlered C n0 longer Industrial processes hmmd this requ mathlnerr Wings, Vblsum Support in propo CHAPTER I THE EFFECT OF CHANGING EMPLOYMENT PATTERNS ON THE INTERPRETATION OF THE TERM 'BOURGEOIS' IN LATE NINETEENTH CENTURY FRANCE Industrialization was forced upon France following the Franco— Prussian War. The tasks of rebuilding France and making reparations to Germany necessitated increased business income and profits.1 The London International Exhibition of 1871, which displayed the results of industrialization from countries all over the world and further fostered competition between nations, illustrated the fact that France no longer held the first position in the world or Europe in terms of industrialization, economic power, or finance.2 The new products and Processes which were displayed at the Exhibition could be manu- factured profitably only by the use of increased industrialization, and this required a knowledge of and expensive investment in new machinery. These new ventures also contained, for the knowledgeable businessman with means, opportunities to accumulate disproportionately vast sums of wealth. As French industrial establishments increased in size to Support the heavy investment in machinery, urban population grew, in Proportion to rural population, in response to the increased urban 8 employment 0 urban areas, ability of Ira which consis develop a ne roads after ‘ branches aft To I this new chi and increasi made during lions and g rEbellion of however, w Struggle be leaction to War.5 'The b(“"96015 . SNVedin 1 Pads 1 republ I01 ev merits comma ItVem Was a. highe! Ilasts 'IS Do aDDEa employment opportunities.3 The accelerated peasant migration to urban areas, especially Paris, was also facilitated by the new avail- ability of transportation facilities. The highway system of France, which consisted primarily of main roads until the 18605, began to develop a network of local roads which were connected to the main roads after 1870. The main lines of the railroad system created branches after 1880.4 To the increased demands placed upon the businessman by this new changing and impersonal world of business, the hostility of and increased demands by workers were added. Attempts had been made during the 1871 Paris Commune to cooperate with worker associa- tions and give them more control over their working conditions. The rebellion of the wage-earners and petty bourgeois during the Commune, however, was a result of various conditions. It was also a power struggle between Paris and the central government, and Paris' reaction to the central government's handling of the Franco-Prussian War.5 The long-standing comparative conditions of the poor and the bourgeois employers who had remained in Paris could hardly have been solved in the brief period of the Commune. Paris had since 1789 been the principal asylum of advanced republican ideas in France and a faithful source of strength for every opposition. It had made and overthrown govern- ments time and again. Its whims had had to be accepted as commands by the provinces. . . . The state had had its revenge by depriving it of self—governing institutions. It was administratively the most backward commune in France. . The hostility between town and country reached its highest pitch here. . . . It contained the strongest con— trasts of wealth in the country. The animal degradation of its poor, on the borderlines of starvation and crime appeared as a constant menace to bourgeors socrety. 1 of twenty [artisans oi the ur Even tho wage-ear bourgeoi lmmediat account them at from the develop Paris, I SDread demand of an a mercile the we Commu rtactin dime f In the 10 The fact that the municipal council of the Commune consisted of twenty-five manual workers from primarily small workshops (artisans) and sixty-five petty bourgeois is not surprising since many of the upper class left Paris during the war or the siege of Paris. Even though most of those arrested after the fall of the Commune were wage-earners, social antagonism between the workers and the bourgeois who had remained, does not seem to have existed in Paris immediately following the fall of the Commune if the fact is taken into account that many of the employers of those arrested testified for them at their trials. Although three-quarters of those arrested were from the provinces, one major source of the breach which later developed between the bourgeois and the masses occurred outside of Paris, with large support from the peasants. "Outside, the myth spread that the Communards had behaved like savages: the press demanded they should be slaughtered like beasts; at the very mention of an amnesty the peasants outside were terrified and clamoured for merciless punishment."7 Therefore, despite the cooperation between the workers and their employers during and immediately after the Commune, and the fact that the people the peasants were actually reacting against were wage—earners, many of whom had originally come from the provinces, the reactions of these outsiders resulted in the bourgeois becoming more conservative and less sympathetic to the workers while the workers became more extremist.8 Another after~ math of the Commune was that the moderate trade unions of the 18603 were declared illegal until 1884, even though they continued to exist. 9 Th besieged w nent's plea tive positir expensive lhechang for the mi increasing business ' Ancien Re ‘versus‘ 1 sanctuary hcreashn was the l tiement.‘ tions of Itlsure v man, A able to ( desirabl. also let aDpropr preserv I(Ol‘ a” ‘ DOWerfL 11 The new bourgeois businessman of the 18705, then, was besieged with a number of often conflicting demands: the govern— ment‘s pleas for increased revenues and the achievement of a competi— tive position with other modern nations, the need to invest in new expensive machinery and processes, and also the demands of workers. The changing climate of this new business world created insecurities for the middle-class businessman. Carol Duncan, however, dates the increasing spread of this feeling about the active impersonal world of business to as early as the end of the eighteenth century, under the Ancien Re’gime. ”People developed a new consciousness of private 'versus' public life and a pressing new need for a secure and tranquil sanctuary removed from the impersonal and competitive relations that increasingly marked commercial and civic affairs."1o This sanctuary was the home and the family, with the wife-mother as the ”unifying element. " 11 Just as the concept of the home was contrasted to the condi— tions of the business world, the concept of the bourgeois pursuit of leisure was contrasted to the demands placed upon the active business- man. Although France recognized the need for modernization to be able to compete with other nations, she also attempted to retain the desirable aspects of her past. Politicians stressed the importance of also recreating "an ambiance which had a veneer of respectability appropriate for the maintenance of conservative middle—class values," preserving "the inheritance of the past,” and equalizing "opportunities for all without endangering the support of those who were already powerful ."12 TI vague as i post-I811 which the prised ner sensed a hssochl A bor decor he pc be at manu; cultis polite inclir in; 6 wife the i live I | takes ini I0 define for move this bro was a b a“lime narrowl. ‘Iheiher IIltle 0f alSo de' 12 The various resulting definitions of the bourgeois became more vague as activity, no less than leisure pursuits, was required of the post—1871 bourgeois. Theodore Zeldin stresses the following criteria which the bourgeois, even into the twentieth century, felt still com— prised necessary determinants of their class. The new 'bourgeois' sensed a necessity to display in particular ways his membership in his social class and place himself above the lower classes. A bourgeois must spend his money to maintain a certain decorum. . . . He had to have a 'salon' . . . to show that he possessed a surplus of wealth, . . . A bourgeois had to be able to perform his job in bourgeois costume, so that manual or dirty physical work was unacceptable. . . . He cultivated 'distinction,I which involved a special kind of politeness, . . . He had to show taste, . . . and inclining therefore to conservatism and understatement. . He had to equip his sons with the 'baccalauréat' and his daughters with a dowry. . . . He did not allow his wife to work, until 1914 at least, but used her to cultivate the domestic virtues of which he made himself the champion. . Though they praised work, their ideal was also to live off a private income. Eugen Weber, although also stressing the leisure concept, takes into account the following changing criteria which were applied to define the new more active bourgeois. A5 opportunities existed for movement into the bourgeois class and advancement upward within this broad classification, perceptions varied concerning whether one was a bourgeois. In the 18505, the bourgeois might be defined as anyone who lived in the city and did not work the land, or more narrowly, as men whose income derived from private revenues, whether or not they held certain professional positions which’claimed little of their time. As early as the 18505, however, a bourgeois was also defined as one whose business activity and influence were able toinlluence define the l aman was . lived in the idle could 6 new, small bourgeois.‘ previously class, coul was adequ. have had ; ll World of r leguired 1 needs. I Value of I family cor business“ amount 0. 0n the p. Children Cireer b mention and Civil but Only 13 to influence others. During the 18905, the various criteria used to define the bourgeois class continued to be contradictory. Although a man was generally defined as a bourgeois by the peasant if he lived in the city, the fact that merchants and wholesalers were not idle could exclude them from the bourgeois class. However, business— men, small shopkeepers, or artisans might define themselves as bourgeois.” The fact that men involved in business activity, which previously was not considered appropriate for the bourgeois social class, could now amass wealth equal to or exceeding an amount which was adequate to place them into the bourgeois economic class must have had an effect on the changing definitions of the bourgeois. The new bourgeois who participated in the industrialized world of new machinery and processes might also view, however, this required effort as only a temporary concession to one of the nation's needs. The other concern of the nation, the preservation of the old value of leisure, was not forgotten. Besides large industries and family concerns being passed on to heirs, the practice of many businessmen was to ”sell up as soon as one had made a reasonable amount of money-~just as one had reached prosperity—~and to retire on the proceeds, . . . and finance the rise in the world of one's children [male] by educating them for the liberal professions."1S Career books from the 18405 through the second decade of the twentieth century stressed the advantages of the liberal professions and civil service as jobs which "left plenty of time to relax."16 Therefore, the new bourgeois, in his working years, was active, but only long enough to acquire the needed wealth to retire and educate his son course to train become proper 14 educate his sons for professions which allowed leisure time, and of course to train and provide for his daughters so that they could become proper wives for these respectable men of leisure. Ur grew from I industrial e decreased f rents whicl total numbe 215, 233. 4EL 1975), PP. 5n IOXIOI‘d : CHAPTER 1: NOTES 1Kemp, Economic Forces in French History, pp. 220—222. 2lbid. and Weisberg, Images of Women, p. 18. 3Urban population, cities with a population of 2,000 or more, grew from 31.1% in 1872 to 37.4% in 1891. From 1896 to 1906, industrial establishments which employed fewer than ten people decreased from 62% to 59% of the total number while the establish— ments which employed over 100 increased from 21% to 25% of the total number. Price, An Economic History of Modern France, pp. 215, 233. “Eugen Weber, Peasants into Frenchmen, The Modernization of Rural France, 1870-1914 (StarWdT Stanford University Press, 1976). PP. 196, 205. 5Theodore Zeldin, France 1848-1945, Politics and Anger (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979), pp. 372-380. 6115101., p. 372. 7 . lbrd., pp. 374—380. 8 . lbrd., p. 380. 9 Kemp, Economic Forces in French History, pp. 281—282. 10Carol Duncan, l'Happy Mothers and Other New Ideas in French Art," Art Bulletin LV (1973): 570—583. “Ibid. 12Weisberg, Images of Women, pp. 18-19. 13Theodore Zeldin, France 1848—1945, Ambition and Love (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979), pp. 15—17. 15 mWebe 15Zero 16raid 16 14Weber, Peasants into Frenchmen, pp. 236—239. ”Zeldin, Ambition and Love, p. 87. 151618, pp. 91—92. The r: values, during to the demand women accepti and desirable men and won Outside world Roman times Medieval time ce“lurv (Pie Woman, as tl arefuge' we a term datin Stattd that menagére II "exclusive ( one Importa The proposed m CIIIICII‘en all CHAPTER II THE BOURGEOIS WOMAN The re-creation and maintenance of respectable middle—class values, during the period when French businessmen were adjusting to the demands of industrialization, were dependent on middle—class women accepting the doctrine of separate spheres as being natural and desirable. This division into natural and separate spheres for men and women, which considered the home as a refuge from the outside world, was not new. It had appeared throughout history: Roman times (Roman epitaph casta vixit, lanan fecit, domum servavit), Medieval times (The Goodman of Paris, c. 1393), and seventeenth century (Pierre Le Moyne, La Galerie des femmes fortes, 1647). Woman, as the person responsible for seeing to it that the home was a refuge, was described as 'la femme au foyer' (woman by the hearth), a term dating back to Roman times. P. J. Proudhon (1809—1865) stated that women had two choices: la femme au foyer who was a ménagére (housewife) or a courtisane (harlot). The bourgeois woman's "exclusive devotion to the hearth was a touchstone of respectability, one important symbol of the family's bourgeois status."1 The theories of Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) had also proposed methods which he felt were necessary for the training of children and women for the new changing world. Rousseau’s 17 philosophy of education for their parents' economic opp opportunities of concentrati property into involved, co after the Re rate of popul less than in This different bec lional fulfillm trained to 'w class family : This training haven again: responsible r conducive to her children If children I century stre her children 18 philosophy of enlightened child rearing advocated a new type of education for male children which would allow them to rise above their parents' social status in the new age of changing and increasing economic opportunities. As this new philosophy stressed providing opportunities for all of the male heirs, instead of the older practice of concentrating on one male heir, one solution was to limit family size. Legally, also, the application of the Napoleonic Code's section on partible inheritance, which could result in the splitting up of pr0perty into economically unproductive parcels if many children were involved, could have had an effect on family size. From the period after the Revolution of 1789 through the nineteenth century, France's rate of population growth increased (at a decreasing rate) but was less than in Britain, Germany, or Italy.2 This new eighteenth century bourgeois woman would be different because "she has been educated to find personal and emo- tional fulfillment in the execution of her duties . . . psychologically trained to 'want' to do the very things she must do in a middle— class family society . . . this is the goal of women's education."3 This training would ensure that the home would become the tranquil haven against the harsh outside world. Woman would also become responsible for providing the fulfilling environment which would be conducive to the proper and enlightened training and education of her children. Books written about Education materneile (education of children by their mothers) in the first half of the nineteenth century stressed the woman's responsibility for the socialization of her children and her role as the "potential redemptress of mankind."4 i It must be although llll lheirdaugl once the sc wife-mother nineteenth woman. In similar tor and women vocation? wife and a world: tt Al responded 19 It must be remembered, however, that well into the nineteenth century, although mothers might be responsible for the complete education of their daughters, the responsibility for their sons' education ended once the sons had reached the "age of reason.”5 This eulogy of the wife-mother as a bourgeois ideal continued to be used throughout the nineteenth century to define what constituted a normal respectable woman. Jules Simon, who advocated a type of women's education similar to men's, still advocated in 1892 that separate spheres for men and women were natural. His statement, taken from La Femme au vingtieme siecle, stressed this physical separation: "What is man's vocation? It is to be a good citizen. And woman's? To be a good wife and a good mother. One is in some way called to the outside world: the other is retained for the interior."6 Although printmakers would have been expected to have responded to and reinforced this eulogy of the bourgeois wife—mother, they curiously represented the loving mothers with their children out-of—doors, not cozily and safely grouped around the hearth. Baron Haussmann's transformation of Paris into tree—lined boulevards and parks had provided a new safe and respectable domain for these loving mothers and their children.7 Manuel Robbe (1872-1936) portrayed these mothers and their children in at least twelve prints out of the approximately 100 prints which he executed during the years 1898- 1910.8 Robbe's choice of depicting mothers with only their daughters can be assumed to illustrate the continuing tradition of the control of the daughters' education by the mother. Robbe depicted the parks and tree-lined boulevards as the exclusive domain of respectable women and their child enphasizes the that the daugh They are enga little bourgeois of those worn [Figure 1) can with their doll The combinatio turned out da who serves th roles in the 8 long Félix ' away from the Robbe's bourg newt store to from women, Robbe's wome the new publ eleven to fou however, wor design of the festive strear in contrast 1 Which had st 20 and their children, during the daytime hours (Figures 1—3). He emphasizes the closeness of the mothers and daughters to the extent that the daughters seem to be just younger versions of their mothers. They are engaged in the same activity and are even dressed like little bourgeois ladies, even including hats that are miniature versions of those worn by adult women (Figures 2-3). The title 'Mothers' (Figure 1) can be interpreted as applying to the children playing with their dolls as well as the mothers caring for their daughters. The combination in Figure 2 of the richly dressed woman and her well turned out daughter, attended by the woman in a blouse and skirt, who serves the tea, might be an illustration of one of the outdoor cafes in the Bois de Boulogne where children were often taken for tea.9 Felix Vallotton (1865-1925) also portrayed the bourgeois woman away from the hearth (Figure 4). These women, all in hats like Robbe's bourgeois women, are crowding into the Bon Marché depart— ment store to shop for needed goods. The physical separation of men from women, in the outside world, is de—emphasized in contrast to Robbe's women, who were transplanted from their private gardens to the new public gardens, even though Vallotton's print was executed eleven to fourteen years before Robbe's prints. In this instance, however, women are still the consumers and men the employees. The design of the billowing materials and draped ceilings, which resemble festive streamers, seem to portray a celebration of wealth. However, in contrast to Robbe, Vallotton contributed prints to publications which had strong proletariat views. This print might well be a satire 21 Figure 1. Manuel Robbe. Les Mamans. Color aquatint and drypoint, 1904. 22 Figure 2. Manuel Robbe. La Tasse de The. Color aquatint and etching, c. 1906. Figure 3. 23 Manuel Robbe. Dans le Jardin. Color aquatint and etching, c. 1907. racers”; . . Figure 4. 24 Félix Vallotton. Woodcut, 1893. refiner sf 1% I Le Bon Ma rché. on the decaden contrast to pro produced the Q As the home and servr bourgeois worn: side to shop fr to employ serv considered her from 100,000 i tion of Paris.‘ hourEleois as l bourgeois as . disagreed abo servants Whic f"I'll income, that the hour leconges th Cdnsisted of , The 'Detite be 'ppml'liately women Could women Would "Theme (the l he term Imlt 25 on the decadence of the bourgeois; an image that would bring out the contrast to proletarian women laboring over the textile machinery, who produced the goods being sold in the Bon Marché. As the production of necessities was moving outside of the home and servants were employed to perform domestic duties, bourgeois women were both freed from domestic labor and forced out- side to shop for necessities. By definition, the bourgeois family had to employ servants. Even in the lower—middle class a servant was . 1O consudered necessary . in Paris, the number of servants increased from 100,000 in 1866 to 206,000 in 1906, which was 11% of the p0pula- tion of Paris.11 A similar problem exists, however, with defining the bourgeois as the class which has servants as with defining the bourgeois as the class which values leisure. Just as various groups disagreed about what businesses were bourgeois, the number of servants which a bourgeois woman employed varied according to the family income. The employment of one general servant did not mean that the bourgeois woman was freed from domestic work. if one recognizes that the bourgeois class was a very broad group which consisted of the 'grande bourgeoisie,‘ the 'bourgeoisie moyenne,’ and the 'petite bourgeoisie,‘ then the concept of leisure time would most appropriately be attached to the 'grande bourgeoisie.’12 Robbe's women could be illustrations of the grande bourgeoisie while Vallotton's women would be more apt to be illustrations of the bourgeoisie moyenne (the largest subdivision of the bourgeois class]. The use of the term 'middle class' then, in studies dealing with late nineteenth century France geoise moyenne Morton vinel to descri‘ differently to ‘ 'clinging vine' describe the 5 Having no had no ma their husk the husba ness and husband, a term of the clingir and medic Outside it Of her fur |n Frame, m; the middle cl: Protected the guardian and it ”P- Althoi in F was moving y tion in Frani woman marr3 mbl‘al ideas 26 century France, should more accurately be equated with the bour- geoise moyenne instead of the broad bourgeois class. Morton Hunt's analysis of the derivation of the term 'clinging vinel to describe nineteenth-century women should be applied slightly differently to French women, as opposed to English women. The term 'clinging vine' originated in nineteenth-century Victorian England to describe the situation of the bourgeois wife. Having no tradition of land inheritance, middle-class women had no marriage settlements and were wholly dependent on their husbands, any dowry being completely controlled by the husband, and divorce being all but impossible. Clever— ness and education, never prized by the middle—class husband, went out of vogue, and ’Bluestocking' became a term of reproach. Industrialism itself directly fostered the clinging—vine concept; the making of clothing, food, and medicine, and the teaching of children, were moving outside the home, depriving the middle—class wife of many of her functions, though leaving her cloistered.l3 in France, marriage contracts were commonly drawn up, even among the middle class, and sometimes the working class. These contracts protected the wife from the Napoleonic Code which made the husband guardian and administrator of the dowry if no contract was drawn up.14 Although divorce was abolished in France from 1816 until 1884, it was not easy, however, to obtain a divorce after 1884.15 in France, also, the making of clothing, food, and medicine was moving out of the home as well as the later education of the male children. Jules Michelet, a self—proclaimed hero of female emancipa- tion in France, in his book, L'Amour, 1858, recommended that a woman marry a man about ten years older than herself so that "her moral ideas could be moulded by the one she loved."16 As in England II in the FI the comp society l bride mic their gre bourgeoi consider. lndustrializa to become p: activities for home for ne in l912, des dEpicted: In the l People, 90 to tl friends coat at rush, | Louvre walking They 0 have s. attract 0f char Th (185949271 ffishionabrE draWing b' Ested in il forwald ir Woman is 27 in the French bourgeois milieu, a man married only after the completion of his education and once his position in society had been securely established . . whereas his bride might be fresh out of convent school. in view of their greater maturity and experience of the world, bourgeois husbands can be assumed to have exercised considerable authority over their wives.17 industrialization, which provided the opportunity and income for men to become part of the bourgeois class, also redefined respectable activities for middle—class women. They now had to shop outside the home for necessities and objects to decorate their salons. Uzanne, in 1912, described the middle—class bourgeois woman who Vallotton depicted: In the morning she must attend to her house, her trades— people, her children, her dress; in the afternoon she must go to the dressmaker, the coiffeur, pay a visit to some friends, shop, buy some flowers at the market, try on a coat at the tailors, a hat at the milliner's; always on the rush, looking at her watch and then tearing off to the Louvre or Bon Marché . . . . One may see them any day, walking in serried bands through these great shops. They often spend without necessity . . . for they must have some distraction . . . they decorate the walls with attractive colours, and their rooms are filled with all kinds of charming objects.18 The subject of Watteau Drawings, c. 1900, by Paul Helleu (1859-1927) (Figure 5), might also be interpreted as one of Uzanne’s fashionable women, who is leaning gradefully in order to study a drawing by Watteau. Although similar in composition to Edgar Degas' Mary Cassatt at the Louvre, 1880 (Figure 6), Helleu was more inter— ested in illustrating how graceful a woman could appear leaning forward in a modified S-curve with her dainty hand, bent at the wrist, leaning lightly on a parasol. Like Watteau's women, Helleu's woman is dressed in a soft~appearing, tiered and be-ribboned dress. 28 Figure 5. Paul Helleu. Watteau Drawings. Drypoint, c. 1900. Edgar Degas. Mary Cassatt in the Louvre. Figure 6. Aquatint, c. 1880. r“! w . “'77 5 Figure Figure 6 Helleu, as i shows her i appearing l fashionably gallery twc Sagot's eXl to see the except for Bottini's c similar in Prostitute: wives. B bonnet wit Portion of SUbJ'Ects i N lesbi; be rSpres could be Confronte i reSpecter tiling inc itiivtues ear'l twi Sten at 3O Helleu, as interested in the texture of hair as that of feathered hats, 19 shows her without a hat, which was not considered proper for a woman appearing out in public. George Bottini (1874—1905) had illustrated fashionably dressed women studying prints at Edmond Sagot’s art gallery two years earlier (Figure 7). Evidently the reputation of Sagot's exhibitions had spread as we are shown five women lined up to see the prints. Everything here also seems rather respectable except for the fact that the subject of the art being studied, in Bottini's case, includes that of a nude woman pulling on her tights, similar in theme to Toulouse-Lautrec's Elles series which depicted prostitutes in their daily duties, just like that of ordinary house- wives. Bottini also set up a contrast between the woman in her bonnet with a dog, in the remarque, and the women in the main portion of the print, in their modern outfits. Since the principal subjects in Bottini's paintings were night clubs, dance halls, brothels, and lesbian scenes,20 Bottini likely meant the women in this print to be representations of demi-mondes. Another explanation, however, could be that at galleries, at least, the modern art patron would be confronted with depictions of reality, not just idealized scenes. The difficulty of deciding whether artists were depicting the respectable upper or middle classes or women of questionable reputa~ tions increases as women of all classes began to engage in the same activities and appear in the same places in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Women of these different classes might be seen at the same dress shops or department stores. They might also 31 Figure 7. George Bottini. Sagot's Gallery. Color lithograph, 1898. be shown v wen were 5 promotion 1 lilOs, as l by "sympa mondaines middle-cla: room wher culture. were purc B music, an to the cu Wbmen as women, C The sub] a” Patrc alllSt‘s 5 been SUE Very mir geSted t cosmme Shawl, i rurrres 32 be shown with a common interest in art. After the Commune, when men were struggling to rebuild France, the responsibility for the promotion of the arts was given to women. During the 18805 and 18905, as before the Commune, salons flourished. These salons, run by "sympathetic and cultured ladies of means" and former demi- mondaines encouraged and lauded new and established artists.21 The middle-class bourgeois also adopted the term 'salon‘ to describe the room where they admitted guests and demonstrated their level of culture. At least some of these furnishings, according to Uzanne, were purchased by their wives. Bourgeois women were also encouraged to study painting, music, and other arts as a respectable way to fill their time and add to the cultured environment of their homes. Uzanne described these women as the "true Parisienne."22 Robbe, who depicted all classes of women, depicted women involved in the arts in at least ten prints. The subject of La Belle Epreuve (Figure 8) is that of the woman as art patron, as well as that of the fashionably dressed, visiting an artist's studio to purchase a print. in contrast, Robbe could have been suggesting in Figure 9 that the woman herself is the artist. The very minor detail, to us, of her being without a hat could have sug— gested that she was not suitably dressed to appear in public. Her costume, composed of a blouse without wrist ruffles, skirt, and shawl, in contrast to the woman's dress in Figure 8 which has ruffles at the sleeves, suggests that her activity, art, dictated a more practical outfit. Although Gabriel Weisberg states that ”Among g» $fi... 33 Figure 8. Manuel Robbe. La Belle Epreuve. Color aquatint and etching, c. 1905. Figure 9. Manuel Robbe. Le Choix de l'Epreuve. Color aquatint and drypoint, c. 1908. the most orig connoisseur c of his prints that of amuse also really d' bourgeois wc miscuous. The coincided wi Victor Arwa colour print avidly boug t0 Whom the class. Th. Arlists hac admitted: the results LEFortls Cl Sure that Years, hat The public original p the theta “‘01 Will 34 the most original of Robbe's themes of women was that of woman as 23 the intention of Robbe in two connoisseur or patron of the arts," of his prints (Figures 10-11) might be more accurately described as that of amusement rather than of encouragement. Perhaps Robbe also really did not see that much difference between his models and bourgeois women, even though models were assumed to be pro— miscuous. The role of bourgeois women as art connoisseurs and patrons coincided with the growth in popularity of the original color print. Victor Arwas describes the middle 18905 as the ”golden age of the colour print. Etchings and aquatints as well as lithographs were avidly bought by the public which demanded colour.”24 The public, to whom these images were directed, was the growing new middle class. The print section of the annual Salon of the Society of French Artists had an 1891 statute which read: 'No work in color will be admitted.| They upheld this statute in 1897 and LeFort published the results in La Lithogaphie in 1898. Charles Maurin rebutted LeFort's comment in 1898 in the Journal des Artistes, ”. . . we are sure that we represent numerous printmakers who, for the last ten years, have given a new scope to the original French print. The public is no longer fooled; they admire and buy essentially original prints . . . ." Delteil also argued that color prints were the 'domain of the Salon.l The Salon of 1899 stated that 'Works in color will be admitted.‘ in the 18805, there were four major shops Figur l—‘T'W‘-—!_ri “fir?" :: . l 35 Figure 10. Manuel Robbe. La Critique du Tableau. Color aquatint, c. 1907. Figure 11. Manuel Robbe. La Critique Influent. Color aquatint, c. 1907. in Paris de of the 1890 printers se and portfoi ln Exposition expose the Salon and original pr president 1 regular dii The major or publish Kleinmann Vollard, a Kleinman these dea Robbe, C and Luce prints fo journals. 36 in Paris dealing with contemporary posters and prints. By the end of the 18905 there were at least twenty—three dealers, journals, and printers selling or publishing contemporary work, both single prints and portfolios.25 in the late 18805, the Société de i'estampe originale and the Exposition des peintres—graveurs hoped, by their exhibitions, to expose the 'knowledgeable public' to graphic works not seen at the Salon and ‘cultivate an elite group of collectors committed to the original print.‘ The lawyer, Eugene Rodrigues, founded and was president of Les Cent Bibliophiles, a group of collectors who met at regular dinner parties and commissioned lavishly illustrated books. The major art dealers in the 18805 and 18905 who ran galleries and/ or published original prints, series, and books were Edouard Kleinmann, Andre Marty, Gustave Pellet, Edmond Sagot, Ambroise Vollard, and A. Arnould. Marty had also founded L'Estampe Originale. Sagot began publishing sales catalogues in 18811, Kleinmann in 1893, and Arnould in 1896. The artists handled by these dealers were Legrand, Toulouse—Lautrec, Helleu, Steinlen, Robbe, Chahine, Villon, lbels, Willette, Forain, Grasset, Vallotton, and Luce. in addition to these artists producing limited edition prints for dealers, they also produced prints for the new art journals. These journals brought inexpensive quality art to the lower middle-class just as the more elitist limited print editions brought art to the middle- and upper-middle class.26 ”Cautiously conservative in theme (even when experimental in composi’tiOh).”27 these artist he most apt of their cia increasing Jea class, illus women into “one: i! of pastry s have been of the tea ing from r liberation i From right and third ata Dega than the flanking picture. shops aio women wi “00“28 able. 37 these artists must have realized that their bourgeois 'patrons' would be most apt to purchase prints which emphasized the leisure criteria of their class. These prints, however, also documented the ever- increasing entry of the bourgeois woman into the male outside world. Jean Béraud, a painter of the high society and upper middle- class, illustrated this ever-increasing encroachment of respectable women into the male outside world in his painting The Pastry Shop "Gloppe" (La Patisserie Gloppe) of 1889 (Figure 12). The acceptance of pastry shops as proper environments for respectable women would have been part of the natural evolution from the respectable domain of the tea shops in the public parks. if one 'reads' Béraud's paint- ing from right to left, it seems that he is hinting at the increasing liberation of respectable women as they entered the man's world. From right to left, a contrast has been set up between the second and third customers. The woman who stands, in her tailored outfit, at a Degas type of 'bar' appears to be more modem or aggressive than the seated femininely dressed woman. in fact, the five women flanking the 'bar' have crowded the man at the left almost out of the picture. The very specific title of this painting as one of the pastry shops along the Champs Elysées, where both older gentlemen and women with their children could safely congregate in the late after- noon28 leaves no doubt, however, that this activity was now respect— able. lt will be shown, however, that very slight modifications to this subject matter could result in a very different interpretation of the type of women represented in prints and paintings. Although Weisberg states that the respectable woman of the 18905, "who had 38 Figure 12. Jean Béraud. La Patisserie Gloppe. Oil on wood, 1889. once been c where" and sexes seem that it fina out in the the famous followed by seriously, 0f politene T| women war Haussmani outside ti 'men 0i ie These def Seitalate Women of bltsiness Wornen hi Status S, in the la llornen a SCioUsly ties for artists, 39 once been confined to the home'I began to be ”seen in public every— where" and "the separation that had existed for so long between the sexes seem less apparent,"29 it was not until the turn of the century that it finally became respectable for fashionable wives to be taken out in the evenings to restaurants, where meals were prepared by the famous male professional cooks. One tradition of sociability followed by gastronomes had considered it best when one was eating seriously, to exclude women so as not to be distracted by the needs of politeness.30 The expansion of the domain of these respectable bourgeois women was aided by conditions outside of their control, such as Haussmann's transformation of Paris and the manufacture of goods outside the home. Although they were sometimes depicted with their 'men of leisure,I they were often depicted without their husbands. These depictions of fashionable women emphasized what their new separate sphere was to be: that of visible public beings instead of women of the hearth. Since their husbands might in fact be men of business occupations who were still striving for the ideal of leisure, women had to function as their status symbols. And to be effective status symbols, they had to be seen outside of the home, dressed in the latest fashions.31 Although artists cooperated by portraying women as status symbols, they also documented, probably uncon- sciously as well as intentionally, the expansion of acceptable activi— ties for women. However, these same artists, as well as other artists, began to produce images whose themes called attention to the fact that the who had been interests share defined as tha no fact that the new activities and interests of these respectable women who had been 'freed from the hearth' were often activities chosen and interests shared by women in the separate sphere which Proudhon defined as that of the 'courtisane.‘ 1Mt 20x french Hist Anxiety and 0- iii. CHAPTER ll: NOTES 1McMillan, Housewife or Harlot, pp. 2, 9, 13. 2Duncan, "Happy Mothers"; Kemp, Economic Forces in French History, pp. 276-277; and Theodore Zeldin, France 1848—1945, Anxiety and Hypocrisy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981), p. 186. 3Duncan, "Happy Mothers." 4McMillan, Housewife or Harlot, p. 10. 5Duncan, "Happy Mothers." 6McMillan, Housewife or Harlot, p. 12. 7Philippe Julian and Diana Vreeland, La Belle Epoque (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1982), p. 3. 8Manuel Robbe 1872-1936 (Chicago: Merrill Chase Galleries, 1979). 9Julian and Vreeland, La Belle Epoque, p. 3. 1OMcMillan, Housewife or Harlot, p. 32. 11Zeldin, Anxiety and Hypocrisy, p. 179. 12Weber, Peasants into Frenchmen, p. 238; and Mary S. Hartman and Lois Banner, eds., Clio's Consciousness Raised (New York: Harper 8 Row, Publishers, 1974), pp. 73, 187. 13’Morton M. Hunt, The Natural History of Love (New York: Minerva Press, 1959), p. 310. ”Zeldin, Ambition and Love, pp. 289—290. 41 15ibid. 16wiciw 17ibia 18Uzai 19Arw 20ibic “Ray (London: Ha 22Uza 23,fl 24A“ 25eh Color Revolu Barbara and 0‘21 . zeca A'WBS. Belle J. iii . . \\§;Eflh p Li2 15ibid., pp. 3574.58. 16McMillan, Housewife or Harlot, p. 10. 17lbid., p. 33. 18Uzanne, The Modern Parisienne, pp. 171-172. 19Arwas, Belle Epoque, pp. 25-26. 20iioio., p. 92. 21Raymond Rudorff, Belle Epoque, Paris in the Nineties (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1972), pp. 240-243. 22Uzanne, Modern Parisienne, pp. 216, 225. 23Manuel Robbe, p. v. 2“Arwas, Belle Epoque, p. 7. 25Phillip Dennis Gate and Sinclair Hamilton Hitchings, The Color Revolution, Color Lithography in France 1890—1900 (Santa Barbara and Salt Lake City: Peregrine Smith, Inc., 1978), PP- 1 20—21. I 26Gate and Hitchings, The Color Revolution, pp. 12-33; and Arwas, Belle Epoque, pp. 7, 29-31, 71. 27'Weisberg, images of Women, p. 35. 28Gabriel P. Weisberg, The Realist Tradition, French Painting a_nd Drawing 1830-1900 (Cleveland: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1980), p. 199. 19Weisberg, images of Women, p. 7. 30Theodore Zeldin, France 1848—1945, Taste and Corruption (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980), pp. 384-399. 31James Laver, Manners and Morals in the Age of Optimism, 1848—1914 (New York: Harper 8 Row, Publishers, 1966), p. 38. TH Fa issues sucl relates to could clas: eventually his wife ii altroiessi man could able to pt Wore clotl 01 Outsid its use b Charles \ PrUsSian faShion ( StdEred ‘ Internati betWeen has the Lond0n CHAPTER III THE BOURGEOIS WOMAN'S FASHION REQUIREMENTS Fashion, a seemingly frivolous topic, compared to serious issues such as prostitution, employment, education, and legal reform, relates to these topics because it allowed people to think that they could classify women. The bourgeois man, who hoped to be able to eventually earn the leisure and qualities of the 'good life,‘ expected his wife to be a lady. And a lady, by definition, did not practice a profession or do her own domestic work. Just as the bourgeois man could not do manual or dirty physical work because he had to be able to perform his job in a bourgeois costume, the bourgeois woman wore clothes which were not conducive to her working either at home or outside the home. The other very important role of fashion was its use by bourgeois men to display their women as status symbols. Charles Worth (1825-1895) had been responsible, before the Franco- Prussian War, for the international recognition of Paris as the women's fashion capital.1 During the war, an interest in fashion was con- sidered inappropriate. The example of England at the 1871 London international Exhibition, which had fostered industrial competition between nations, also fostered fashion competitiveness.2 England was the home of the inventors of textile and weaving machinery; London the international men's fashion capital.3 France's adoption Ll3 ofde Engl production wen womer mwasa function as This was m industry.S generaitre new style lower midc' added to t enabled tt touches al and allow theSeeiat reVersais beintrOdi bOUtgeois this Pepe Holand, i mentSof morals 01 Clillttast athyIi The Ftei an of the English textile and weaving machinery was used to increase the production of textiles of "exquisite quality to enrich the elegance of their women." By the 1878 Paris Fair, "Paris was once again recog- nized as a capital of taste."Ll For women's fashions to continue to function as status symbols, they had to be able to change quickly. This was made possible by the development of a large dressmaking industry.5 Even though the cycle of fashion changes consisted of a general trend toward more 'liberated' styles, elaborations within each new style would result in reversals back to restricted movement. As lower middle-class women adopted these new styles, the small touches added to the existing style served as points of social distinction and enabled the wearer to continue to be a status symbol. These small touches also stressed the distinctive respectability of these ladies and allowed them to be distinguished from the lower classes. Although these elaborations within new 'liberated' styles would be countered by reversals back to restricted movement, fashion changes continued to be introduced which emphasized the more active leisure life of the bourgeois woman. (The majority of the fashion illustrations used in this paper are from books by Fischel and Von Boehn, Uzanne, Holland, and de Marly.6) This continued fashion preoccupation with the dual require- ments of status symbol/respectability was a reaction to the perceived morals of the Second Empire. These new bourgeois attempted to contrast their 'conspicuous consumption' by an emphasis on 'respect— ability' instead of Princess Eugénie's display of 'spurious morality.‘7 The French woman's acceptance of the various demobilizing fashions of the ninei industrializz was similar which had l that time b ditions in f to imprison Th inschl nath emoh0l oMy k woman ethical man. and u] Former subon import of tha female Pt0tec Which an en Under thems encuw VEniel T period, d relitilring wmch We hto the UndErSki PetuCOBt J ‘ 45 of the nineteenth century was further fostered by the assumption that industrialization freed 'ladies' from physical exertion. Their situation was similar to the earlier situation of women in England, the country which had preceded France in industrialization and had been ruled at that time by the dignified Queen Victoria. Hunt describes those con— ditions in England, from the 18205 through the 18605, that led women to imprison themselves in demobilizing fashions. The newly arrived middle class was, in fact, quite insecure in many ways. . . . The desire to find or achieve stability in a rapidly changing world led the Victorians . . . to [view the home as] the place of Peace; the shelter, . Anything threatening that shelter and refuge of warm emotion met violent hostility . . . . With the home being the only locus of emotional behavior and human kindness, woman's love was once again thought to be the source of ethical value . . . woman's love uplifted and spiritualized man. . . . The female, in such a view, had to be spotless and unimpeachable, . . . the pure mother ideal . Formerly, one of the potent reasons for keeping women subordinate was that she had considerable productive importance in the home. lndustrialism robbed her of much of that, and to take its place, there arose the fiction of female helplessness. it was a face—saving and ego- protecting device for woman; for man it was the means by which he tried to make continued sense out of marriage in an era when its values were changing and its forms coming under attack. Women carried out the scheme by making themselves literally helpless through fashion. . . . So encumbered, she passed her time in the only pursuits con- venient to this condition.8 These fashions, also popular in France during the same period, dictated that skirts grew ever wider with the excess material requiring more and more petticoats to stand out. The new solutions which were devised to support these styles were circular hoops sewn into the underskirts or small pads of horsehair attached under the underskirt. Hoops both eliminated the weight of the numerous petticoats which had hampered movement and allowed skirts to become increasingly l 'spotless and unapproa by a com diameter with, bu . . . Th of the in; Althi wearing outf Prussian War their econorr tion. lndep smaller and The decreas Which Utilizi Would have the War, wl husbandsl E eXtess dies ruffles, tie mattrial in the Waist, Stick 0Ut f paratiVely Changed tC Skirts to t COUld not 46 increasingly wider through the 18505. Hunt's description of the 'spotless and unimpeachable' woman became an unapproachable goddess . . . physically . . . surrounded by a complicated bastion of cloth, sometimes equal in diameter to their own height, they could be shaken hands with, but hardly embraced in any more intimate fashion. . . The man had to fall behind to allow for the passage of the majestic ship which woman had become.9 Although the women in Figures 13-11-1 might hardly seem to be wearing outfits which reflected the simple styles of the Franco- Prussian War years, a comparison to Figure 15, of c. 1859, illustrates their economy in the use of material and their downplay of ornamenta- tion. independent of the war, however, hoops had begun to get smaller and even to be discarded by some women as early as 1860. The decrease or abandonment of the hoop and the resulting dress, which utilized less material and was still comparatively loose in front,10 would have enabled women to move about more easily. However, after the war, when women were once again called upon to display their husbands' social status, another unique method was devised to utilize excess dress materials. The woman in Figure 16, besides adding ruffles, tiers, and pleats to her dress, has increased the amount of material in her dress by bunching up added material in the back at the waist. Pads were also inserted at the back to allow the bustle to stick out further.11 Although these dresses continued to be com— paratively easy to move about in, for some reason as the style changed to a lower bustle (Figure 17), the fashion developed for skirts to be so tight in the front and around the hips that women could not sit down or climb stairs, even though there was still a Figure 13. Figure 111. 47 Fashion illustration. Fashion illustration . 1870. 1870. 118 Figure 15. Fashion illustration. c. 1859. Figure 16. Fashion Illustration. 1871. Figure 17. Fashion illustration. 1878. large amount bustle had nc dressed in ti fairly flat in iection had t for the addil have been e: doors. The alternating 2 inspiration f 5&3 of 188 proletarian Upper class. The the Very fa had lost its the telhporz dtSigners i would agah as ittUstrat Country dr in the COtil sorts of d' fined to m encoutage‘ 50 large amount of material in the dress. However, the fashion of the bustle had not yet run its course. The women in Figure 18 are dressed in the fashion of the mid-18805; layers of material which lay fairly flat in front but stick out behind 18-211". This desired pro— jection had been achieved by the invention of wire cages.12 Except for the addition of hats and probably parasols, these women would have been expected to wear these outfits also when walking out—of— doors. The interesting design which would have resulted from the alternating angles of the parasol, bust, and bustle seems to be the inspiration for Georges Seurat's foreground woman in La Grande Ja_tt_e_ of 18811-1885 (Figure 19). Seurat's lower middle-class or proletarian woman is depicted as adopting the fashion lines of the upper classes even though her outfit is less elaborate. The bustle completely disappeared by the mid-18905 although the very fashionable had discarded it in the 18805.13 Evidently it had lost its function as a demarcation of the very fashionable. As the temporary new style (Figure 20) resembled that of the war years, designers had to come up with some new feature so that the dress would again distinguish its wearer as a status symbol. The solution, as illustrated in Figure 21, was the train.1u' These women, in their country dresses, are presumed to be dressed appropriately for strolls in the countryside. These trains, which must have picked up all sorts of debris as the women walked, probably kept the women con— fined to manicured lawns. The tightly corseted waists must also have encouraged a leisurely pace. Although women wore these dresses out-of—doors as well as inside, with the train measuring up to two Figure 18. 51 indoor Toilettes. I886. ‘5 Figure 1 Figure 19. 52 Georges Seurat. 1884—1886. Sunday Afternoon on the island of La Grande Jatte. Oil on canvas, "T‘T‘T 7:." T T’T‘T'Wr'" ’ ' 53 1889. Fashion illustration . Figure 20. Country Dresses . 1892. Figure 21. Li. yards, the just barely Pr able womer vhun euk hhure wh were aspil must have down (Fig hat has or hawm hedng oi skirt. R. ‘VhtCh hat the bit 01 skirt, an mOdern v the Wear ticket ar 0Utfit Sit Surrouhc Skirt, 5 of the E it has a 54 yards, they could also choose the shorter 'walking' skirt, which might just barely reveal their shoes.15 Printmakers recorded the fashions of these wealthy, respect- able women at the turn of the century. They responded by creating visual eulogies of the beauty and distinctiveness of these ladies of leisure whose husbands had either achieved the status of leisure or were aspiring to it. Helleu, who delighted in depicting textures, must have approved of the train which billowed out as the woman sat down (Figure 22). Although her dress is unornamented, her stylish hat has one large bow. She even daringiy displays her bowed shoe in a gesture which one might interpret as a relieved reaction to the freeing of the legs from the restricted design of the bustle and tight skirt. Robbe, also in Figure 23, illustrated the beauty of a train which had to be picked up as the woman walked. This train provides the bit of interest in his wife's new at—home simple outfit of blouse, skirt, and bare head. Jacques Villon, 1875-1963, provides the most modern view of the twentieth century woman (Figure 2L1). Although she wears a large elaborate hat, her outfit consists of a very tailored jacket and skirt. The whole atmosphere of the woman in her tailored outfit sitting on a stone bench is not relieved by a profusion of surrounding trees and flowers which Robbe seemed to favor. The increasing preference for tailor-made outfits consisted of skirt, blouse, and jacket, instead of fancy dresses, by at least some more active respectable women has been interpreted as an adaptation 16 of the English habit of wearing tailor-made clothes out—of—doors. it has also been described as an imitation of male attire by emancipated . . aware... . t. . as out a. a. ssh... . on .. x . 4. ... . \ . z . ., at. .. 5.443?» r"' t i “1%“. 55 Le Chapeau de Lancret. Paul Helleu. Drypoint. Figure 22. 56 an 'A I lit ill” Figure 23. Manuel Robbe. Femme au Chien. Color aquatint and etching, 1907. 57 Le Banc de Pierre. Jacques ViIIon. Figure 214. Drypoint, 1908. women. Tailx sprinkled thr the hoop. T was also not depicted in t century. 0t classes, had sales clerks stressed the could be con recognized t has more co. The lighter thIVe Way ( 0' the old li indicated, h Skirts, A y Outfit: the Women Walk be SQdUCtiv the EmPhat/r train! altho A i the n°h~wo Sleeves, DC Placesl the 58 women. Tailored jackets for the fashionable, however, can be seen sprinkled throughout the period from 1858-1887, even combined with the hoop. The wearing of blouses and skirts, instead of dresses, was also not an original invention of the 18905. Laundresses were depicted in this outfit throughout the second half of the nineteenth century. Other working women, of both the working and middle classes, had also adopted the blouse, skirt, and jacket although some sales clerks were still expected to wear silk. Fashion illustrators stressed the versatility of a two-piece outfit in which the bodice could be combined with skirts of varying lengths. Peasants also recognized that this new 'Parisian' outfit, worn by working women, was more convenient, easier to slip on, and made walking easier. The lighter and more pleasant materials were connected with a more active way of life and with more casual sociability than the protocol of the old life.17 The social status of the wearer could still be indicated, however, by frilly petticoats used with these tailored skirts. A bit of daring was even added to the respectable woman's outfit: the fancy petticoats, seen as the skirt was lifted when the women walked, made a swishing noise, which was evidently found to be seductive.18 Working women, however, as depicted in prints in the Employment section (Chapter VI”), wore fewer petticoats and no train, although their skirts almost touched the ground. A frilly lower sleeve was also added to further distinguish the non-working from the working woman. Following the pattern of sleeves, popular since the 18505, alternately voluminous at different Places, the sleeve with a lower half baggy was still popular from 1901-1910. male: The dis Victoria our owr 'the wh (that is he dirt‘ in any Vill woman on i collar and omission of the evident assume tha men's hars Villon's wc that She c blilOWing 5 were force Skirts. T necESSary A. from the COnCern b tight‘l'dcir early as 1 consideFe 59 1901—1910. This style related to the 'working' outfit of the bourgeois male: The distinction between the clean upper classes and what the Victorians called 'the Great Unwashed' persisted almost until our own day, and can still be detected in such a phrase as 'the white collar workers.‘ Cleanliness at wrist and throat (that is to say, the two places where linen can most easily be dirtied) is still a sign that the wearer does not engage in any kind of 'degrading' manual toil.19 Villon had depicted these signs of class in his depiction, Ea Parisienne (Figure 25), six years earlier than his depiction of the woman on the stone bench. This woman, in ruffled wrist bands and collar and a long train, lounges on a padded indoor chair. The later omission of these ruffles and presumably the train, combined with the evidence of the woman sitting on the stone bench, leads one to assume that Villon had accepted the growing entry of women into the men's harsh outside world. The more rigid or formal appearance of Villon's woman on the stone bench is partly explained by the fact that she could easily sit up straight without fear of damaging a billowing skirt or train. Both Villon's 'Parisienne' and Helleu's lady were forced to sit sideways in chairs because of the style of their skirts. Their deceptively informal postures, then, would have been necessary and therefore accepted as ladylike. Accompanying the preference for the more tailored outfits, from the 18905 until World War I, was the new, almost unanimous concern by both women and men concerning the health hazards of tight-lacing. Some medical people had expressed this concern as early as the 18505. The emphasis on a small waist was evidently considered a distinguishing characteristic of class or gentility. New 60 Figure 25. Jacques Villon. La Parisienne. Color aquatint, 1902. Figure 26. Paul Helleu. Jeune Femme en Robe Longue Color drypoint. 61 Figure 25 Figure 26 .— inventions curved in ahhough ofthe p0 'health' t was invei involved artists fr were as regardec fashion, Althougl addiuon to be sc Wen st; Waist ar as adap as imite Montez‘ the gut ihOUgh hat, cc accomp 62 inventions, such as the metal eyelet hook and steel stays which curved inward, allowed an ever-smaller waist to be achieved, although at the risk of curvature of the spine and the derangement of the position of the internal organs. Just as 'scientific' and ‘health' bustles had been invented in the 18805, a 'health' corset was invented in 1902. Although the exaggeration of the principles involved in this corset soon produced a line, the S-curve, which artists found attractive to depict, the violent bends which resulted were as harmful as the corsets of the 18905. Helleu might have regarded his lady (Figure 26) as representing the latest 'modern' fashion, but fashion does not seem to have freed her movements. Although she has 'progressed' past the point of feeling that the addition of a metal-supported bustle constitutes fashion, she appears to be so distorted by her metal-supported corset that she cannot i even stand up straight. Around 1910—1911, however, the natural waist and hips were finally considered fashionable.20 More tailored outfits could be seen as respectable if described as adaptations of English women's outfits; but suspect if described as imitating male fashions. The highly visible George Sand and Lola Montez, by wearing 'male' attire, were said to be revolting against the subjection and ideals of the bourgeois wife and mother even though these male pieces of clothing might be items as simple as a hat, coat, waist-coat, collar, or tie.21 These items were also often accompanied by trailing skirts and frothy visible lingerie. lf 'trousers' were worn, they had to be authorized by the police.22 Ila, encompass Pantaloon covered t tailored s woman wl 'guard at however, concealer the earl) it effecti instead l Dress Si C(impose 0liposed the ave, not less Which rr difficUh which 5 than us are eXi not Onl 351685 for Wor 63 The terms 'trousers' or 'breeches' were general terms which encompassed both lingerie (pantaloons) or outer garments (bloomers). Pantaloons were worn from 1810 through the 18905; a period which covered the styles of numerous petticoats, hoops, and even the tailored skirt. They were described as a necessary garment for the woman who danced, traveled, or went outside in the winter, to ‘guard against the indiscretions.‘23 The respectability attached to the wearing of pantaloons, however, did not extend to the wearing of bloomers. The hybrid concealed-revealed bloomer, invented by Mrs. Dexter C. Bloomer in the early 18505, was both unpopular and short-livedZLl even though it effectively covered all parts of the body. The wearing of bloomers, instead of a skirt, was advocated by the National (later Rational) Dress Society at a meeting in 1887 in England. The meeting was composed of aesthetes, medical men, and the 'New Woman,I who all opposed the current fashionable dress. Mrs. Oscar Wilde noted that the average dress of grandmothers, among the richer classes, weighed not less than fifteen pounds. Regarding long, hampering skirts, which made short steps the only possibility and walking upstairs difficult, Lady Hambledon, in response to a remark in a trade journal which stated that "there is no need for a woman to be able to do more than use her limbs in a feminine fashion," claimed that ”petticoats are exhausting, unhealthy, dirty and dangerous. The trouser is not only more comfortable, healthy and clean, but also more decent as less liable to derangement."25 The English defense of bloomers for women in the 18805, on the grounds of health and decency, b spread tr for Frenv lV.l Ti women ir teenth at though i been int the 1830 transves George like res not hav be cons [Which 0f the l illustra to disp Sltttbol aElitem faShion W33 wc adVert i”Clea: more a wedlin 6’4 spread to France in the 18905, when bicycling became a popular sport for French women. (See illustrations in the Sports section, Chapter IV.) There seem to be very few depictions of respectable French women in trousers, other than those on bicycles, in the late nine- teenth and early twentieth centuries. The wearing of trousers, even though urged by English women on the basis of decency, must have been interpreted as one of the ultimate signs of emancipation. Since the 18305, women who wore trousers were assumed to be lionnes, transvestites, lesbians, 'harem' women, or women like Rosa Bonheur, George Sand, or George Eliot.26 it should be noted, however, that like respectable women, the early lionnes and emancipated women did not have to include trousers, rather than skirts, in their outfits to be considered masculine. All of these vacillations back and forth between fashions (which alternately stressed the various functions of the ideal woman of the period and lor the actual conditions forced upon the woman) illustrate the changing roles of the new woman. She was expected to display the fact, through her fashions, that she was both a status symbol and a respectable lady of leisure, and artists indicated their agreement with these purposes. These women, adorned in current fashions, represented the female ideal for some artists. Whether she was working-class, bourgeois, or high society, her function was to advertise that she represented the value of leisure. Confusion increased because fashions also began to reflect the role of the new, more active woman. The fact that she was given a choice between wearing a train or a shorter walking dress, in the late nineteenth century, ma Only Villon changing fa more of an which result the fact the questionabli respectabili women of t the exampt. 65 century, may very well have been a concession to women's requests. Only Villon seems to have recognized that women were responding to changing fashions and conditions. His woman on the stone bench is more of an actual portrait than a symbol of an ideal. The confusion which resulted from women's multiple roles is further illustrated by the fact that the new fashions were often instituted by women of questionable reputations.27 The tortuous path of liberation/ respectability was followed in the areas of sports and travel also, Women of the wealthy leisure class and demi-mondes together setting the examples. the Ninete W79 Lady Mary Hand Colo CHAPTER III: NOTES 1Zeldin, Taste and Corruption, pp. 83-88. 2Weisberg, Images of Women, p. 18. 3Zeldin, Taste and Corruption, pp. 83-88. ”Weisberg, Images of Women, p. 18. SZeIdin, Taste and Corruption, pp. 83-88. 6Oscar Fischel and Max Von Boehn, Modes and Manners of the Nineteenth Century, trans. M. Edwards (London: J. M. Dent 8 Co., 1909), III of III: Octave Uzanne, Fashion in Paris, trans. Lady Mary Loyd (London: William Heinemann, 1901); Vyvyan Holland, Hand Coloured Fashion Plates 1770-1889 (London: B. T. Batsford Ltd., 1955); and Diana de Marly, Worth, Father of Haute Couture (New York: Holmes 8 Meier Publishers, Inc.,TI1380). 7Michael and Ariane Batterberry, Fashion, The Mirror of History (New York: Greenwich House, 1982), pp. 230-255. 8Hunt, The Natural History of Love, pp. 3114-3220. 9James Laver, Taste and Fashion from the French Revolution yptil Today (New York: Dodd, Mead 8 Company, 1938), pp. 50—63. 10Fischel and Von Boehn, Modes and Manners, P- 70; and Laver, Taste and Fashion, pp. 69, 77. 11Laver, Taste and Fashion, pp. 69, 77. 12lbid., pp. 77-78. 13Ibid., p. 91; and de Marly, Worth, p. 146. MLaver, Taste and Fashion, pp. 91, 106. 66 Ltd., 1969' I9 Laver, Mo 20 Laver, lg 21 22 2? 2i Murray, ' 2 2 l 2 67 15Ibid., p. 106. 16Uzanne, Fashion in Paris, p. 172. 17Weber, Peasants into Frenchmen, pp. 230—231. 18James Laver, Modesty in Dress (London: William Heinemann Ltd., 1969), pp. 39, 120. 19Laver, Taste and Fashion, pp. 33-3ll, 50, 91-92; and Laver, Modesty in Dress, p. 17. 20Laver, Taste and Fashion, pp. 33, 78, 163—167; and Laver, Modesty in Dress, pp. 154-156. 21Laver, Taste and Fashion, pp. 51-53; and Laver, Modesty in Dress, p. 123. 22Zeldin, Taste and Corruption, p. 94. 23Laver, Taste and Fashion, pp. 62-64, 172; and Zeldin, Taste and Corruption, p. 94. 2”Stella Mary Newton, Health, Art 8 Reason (London: John Murray, 197LI), p. 3. 25Laver, Modesty in Dress, pp. 152-153. 26Farwell, The Cult of Images, p. 115; and Weisberg, Images of Women, p. 141. 27Zeldin, Taste and Corruption, pp. 87—~88. IL I. l respect: leisure dEpend the est; The pr lime, r rEspect ennui ; remant bourge topic c Uzannt able w to the tXerci harmm 50me rticom CHAPTER IV THE INTRODUCTION OF SPORTS FOR RESPECTABLE WOMEN In France, the introduction and popularization of each new respectable women's sport were usually accomplished by women of the leisure classes. Their adoption of each sport, however, seemed to depend on the sanction of their particular class and operated within the established structure of the class's code of respectable rules. The primary reason for participating in sports was to fill the idle time, resulting from the attainment of leisure, in an accepted, respectable manner. The preoccupation with different ways to combat ennui and boredom in the evenings and on Sundays by the elite romantics, the extremely wealthy old families, and any of the b0urgeois who had attained the luxury of leisure time, was a serious topic during the second half of the nineteenth century in France.1 Uzanne credited the increasing participation in sports by the fashion- able wealthy in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century France to the recognition, following the example of the English, that physical exercise and attention to hygiene could act as 'a corrective to the harmful results of an idle life.‘ Uzanne, however, recognized that some modern women, in their enthusiasm for this approved and even recommended activity, tended to ignore the established feminine code 68 ofbeha sports 1 twenuet by phy: man.'”2 Woman, mthus teenth entry ( Popular dasses illO u the Ho marrie the pi dragoc riding hot, Upper the e: mneu bleCl SDOrt m. m 69 of behavior. These women of 'good form,‘ who had appropriated sports from the earlier 'Lionnes,I had been replaced in the early twentieth century by "mannish women . . . who hardened themselves by physical training . . . and cry . . . 'Look! I have become a man."'2 James Laver has described this modern woman as the 'New Woman,' with the "chief liberating impulse [coming] from the new enthusiasm for sport."3 The first female sport adopted from the English in the nine— teenth century was horse—riding. This sport, which heralded the entry of women into sports, is the only sport mentioned as being popularized by 'Iionnes' before women of the respectable leisure classes adopted it, except for the sport of coaching. As early as 1840 the Iionne was described variously as the female counterpart of the lion ('a dandification . . . of the young Romantic') or as "a rich married woman, pretty and coquettish, who can handle the whip and the pistol as well as her husband, ride like a lancer, smoke like a dragoon, and drink any quantity of iced champagne."LI By 1850 riding was an acceptable sport for the aristocratic 'gentlewoman,' in fact, the only sport, and not even commonly participated in by the upper middle-class woman.5 According to Uzanne, this sport remained the exclusive property of the 'rich and luxurious' throughout the nineteenth century, coexisting with the masses' adoption of the bicycle as a method of locomotion.6 Uzanne, writing in 1912, revealed his opinion about some sportswomen by titling a chapter in his book Sporting and Strong-— fided Women. Although he stated that he agreed with the opinion whkh Di exercise discussir parficipa Ridi of e le she van frie rkh as or pin shc aft. mu. her Henrit indepei in his ”hgur Uzannr the 3a Woman dass PNnts LaUtr 70 which Dr. Legrange expressed in Physiologie des exercices ('the exercise of the muscles is as necessary to women as to men'), his discussion, which follows, shows that he hardly believed that women participated in sports for that reason. Riding is excellent for women, and it is a favourite form of exercise, for not only does the rider love to exert her will and her power over the restive animal, not only does she enjoy the excitement of a gallop, but her worldly vanity is also stimulated by the pleasure of meeting her friends . . . to be seen, and to gossip . . . the fair rider . . . accompanied by some man friend . . her mind as free as her body . . . they fly ahead . . . after five or six hours, the delicate little Parisienne, . . . with pink cheeks, . . . jumps prettily to the ground, without showing the least fatigue. She feels joyous, full of life after the splendid exercise, and joins her friends at lunch, much more rested than if she had remained all morning in her boudoir.7 Henri de Toulouse—Lautrec (1864-4901) depicted a more mature and independent appearing female horse-rider who is shown riding alone i in his print, Amazone [horsewoman] and Tonneau [carriage] ‘ (Figure 27). Not surprisingly, this is a rather curious print. If Uzanne's 'rich and luxurious' woman was meant to be interpreted in the same way as the 'aristocratic gentlewoman' of the 18505, Lautrec's woman could be an aristocratic horsewoman encountering an upper— class man in his carriage. However, as the majority of Lautrec's prints depict prostitutes and not-quite—respectable performers, Lautrec may have been illustrating the fact that his women did not look, act, or dress any differently than did respectable women. His type of woman could be seen as encountering a so—called respectable man in his not-very—interesting carriage, which Lautrec did not even bother to fully include. The man, who resembles some of Lautrec's Fl .0 71 Amazone et Tonneau. Henri de Toulouse—Lautrec. Lithograph, 1899. Figure 27. 'patron: ate intr compar appear‘ towers be dep helples 'mascu period after . indica Womer the ir Whose and r did r he d‘ tell I qut( Chat carr ment wom deSl 72 'patrons,‘ seems to be studiously ignoring the Woman. The affection- ate interchange between the two horses, and the title, invites a comparison between the two halves of the print. The aristocratic appearing woman, who easily controls her large male (?) horse and towers over the smaller horse and the man in his carriage seems to be depicted as the stronger of the two. She is not represented as a helpless woman, encumbered by excess dress materials. Her 'masculinized' outfit, not that different from ordinary outfits of the period, consists of tight-fitting bodice and sleeves, a hat fashioned after a man's hat, and a voluminous skirt that may be just barely indicated below the horse's belly. Lautrec. thus shows that, just as women could choose the shorter walking skirt, modern horsewoman of the independent type chose shorter skirts than the earlier horsewoman, Whose skirts almost touched the ground when the woman was mounted and made it impossible to dismount without assistance. Although he did not depict her in the horsewoman's new fashion of a loose bodice, he did omit the white fine lawn collars and cuffs which had once been felt necessary for the 'aristocratic gentlewoman' who rode.8 She makes Qluite a contrast to the elaborately dressed woman in a print by Edgar Chahine (1874—1947) (Figure 28). This boulevard is packed with carriages and their occupants out for a display of wealth, with demi- mondes and ladies of leisure probably vying for attention. This Woman more nearly represents the type of sportswoman that Uzanne described: digests... .. .. _ 73 Drypoint, etching and aquatint; Figure 28. Edgar Chahine. La Promenade. 1902. y lni int The fashion skating pated i that of include society as a it seems and 74 In the number of hygienic amusements in fashion amongst modern women, we must not forget coaching, which is much in fashion with Parisiennes, in spite of the automobile. . The little ladder is fixed. . . . Nothing can be seen. The long skirts successfully conceal everything. Moreover a servant respectfully holds the garment in place. The other sports which became popular in the 18605 for fashionable bourgeois women were boating, archery, croquet, and skating.10 Although most of these sports were probably also partici- pated in by women further down in social or economic status than that of the horsewoman because of the less expense involved, Uzanne included skating in the activities practiced by women in 'fashionable society' or 'women of mark.’ Even though Uzanne included costume as a necessary component in this sport also, physical ability for once seems to have been as important an emphasis: Skating on a bright winter's morning is nearly as favourite a sport . . . . They love coming to the lake, prettily dressed. . . . Skating reveals and develops all the natural gracefulness of a woman, her marvellous power of equilibrium. She flies like a swallow, . . . Skating has more adherants than riding and is becoming more popular with the bourgeoise. Skaters are of all ranks in society, and women have a natural aptitude for it.11 The practice of wearing ordinary dresses, or perhaps slightly shorter dresses, would not have distinguished these sportswomen from ordinary respectable women. Maybe that is why printmakers showed little interest in depicting them, even though fashion illustrators carefully labeled each sports outfit as different although they were in reality all similar to ordinary dresses. Although Uzanne included swimming and aquatic sports in his list of sports 'cultivated by women of mark' 12 by 1912, the number of participants must have been quite small. 'Bathini hat, co hardly iHustra in ordi bathing centur a spor could croquv eyes ( The s thwar horsa habit the f ngL that show warn home some lFlg Skir Her 75 'Bathing' outfits, which might consist of pantaloons and short dress, hat, corset, and stockings through the early twentieth century,13 hardly seem to be correctly labeled as bathing costumes by fashion illustrators. ArtiSts were more likely to depict women at the beach in ordinary summer dresses. Perhaps the consensus was that these bathing costumes were ridiculous. 'Real' tennis had been exported to England in the fourteenth century. In the 18705, lawn tennis, in contrast to 'real' tennis, was a sport which refined men and women of the English middle classes could participate in together. It provided the opportunity, like croquet, for the 'parade of marriageable daughters . . . under the eyes of their elders.‘ France soon reimported tennis from England.m The serious pursuit of tennis, by women, seems to have been thwarted by fashion requirements to a greater extent than in that of horse-riding. Even the long train of the early masculinized riding habits need not have hampered women during the ride. But in tennis, the full fashion cycle of ordinary dress has been illustrated15 (Figures 29-32). Although a bustle of more sane proportions than that in Figure 30 would have allowed women to engage in simple sports more so than the hoop or even the outfit in Figure 29, actual participation only becomes evident in Figure 32. Twenty years earlier, however, at the time of the women depicted in Figures 30 and 31, some illustrator had depicted one of Uzanne's 'mannish' women (Figure 33) actively engaged in tennis. Fully covered, her voluminous skirt is simply attached to her waist instead of arranged in a bustle. Her hat seems to exist merely to keep her hair our of her eyes and 76 Figure 29. Fashion Illustration. 1878. ‘srfirmpw 77 Isthmuurwsfifim... p; . r. .l. .. . .l. Judi-Ian". 1886. Tennis Costume. Figure 30. 1887. Lawn—Tennis Party . Figure 31 . Figure 32. Tennis Costume. 1906. Figure 33. Tennis Costume. 1885_ she has Ahhoug lithe c depictk emphas lws'ter 'hberai wear. photog than t teplac' qu pi essent figurr 1885‘ Darth ahowt l9l2. for v enco items must UZar WOm chm 79 she has even rolled up her right sleeve in the heat of competition. Although Laver does not indicate what country this print came from, if the date is correct, it surely must be one of the more active depictions of nineteenth century sportswomen. Chahine did not emphasize the active participation atmosphere of that illustration in his 'tennis' print (Figure 3H) even though he did record the new 'liberated' fashions which respectable sportswomen were allowed to wear. His tennis player is almost identical in appearance to an 1893 photograph (Figure 35). Both women wear a less elaborate straw hat than the woman in Figure 32 wears, and Chahine's tennis player has replaced her lacy collarette for a stiff white collar, although rather full puckered sleeves and probably even a corset were still considered essential. Their bodices are looser, however, than the bodices in Figures 29-31. Chahine's tennis player's tie is more modern than the 1885 tennis player's ruffled bodice but it would not have aided her participation in the sport. Finally, however, short sleeves were allowed in 1906 and shorter skirts than those of ordinary dresses in 1912.16 In the late 18805 bicycling was introduced as the new sport for women. Although the nature of the sport was soon recognized as encouraging a new kind of unacceptable behavior by respectable young women, even the initial response was one of ridicule. This response must have been almost solely based on the outfit required in bicycling. Uzanne had commented about the delightful outfits which even the women who engaged in the 'manly' sports of shooting and mountain— climbing wore. But for the bicyclist: 80 Figure 34. Edgar Chahine. Demoiselle au Tennis. Drypoint, 1899. . r \..‘ Figure 35. Miss Dod. Photograph, 1893. 'lhe amus no 5 exce to k skir sport, r revealer pbneer banish: iron sl bkyck that w stated whh t in BE with . l865, bicyc thl The the an Cate adv 81 The costumes in fashion for some years for this form of amusement were odd and unfeminine. Women certainly owed no sort of charm to them; . . . There are of course exceptions to the rule, and some feminine cyclists manage to look extraordinarily graceful and attractive in the short skirt and jersey, but with the majority it is not 50.17 Possibly the first intimation of the 'real' difference in this sport, even from horse-riding whose women still rode corseted, was revealed by Miss Ada S. Ballin, in 1885. Miss Ballin, 'the great pioneer of female emancipation,l wrote that "'Tight lacing must be banished from the mind and body of the women who would ride the iron steed.‘ The 'iron steed' in question was, of course, the bicycle, or rather, when Miss Ballin wrote, the tricycle! "18 The year of Miss Ballin's prophesy, 1885, was also the year that women in France first began riding the bicycle. Although Uzanne stated that by c. 1880 all of the chief streets in Paris were filled with bicycle shops and their advertisements,19 a woman commented in Punch in 1883 that "Women can't do 'that,’ you know, not even with divided skirts."20 French men had been riding bicycles since 1865, but women had to wait until 1885 to even be able to ride the bicycle. This was the year that the safety bicycle was invented which had wheels of nearly the same size and was much lighter.21 The only safe female outfit for bicycling, until the early 18905 when the bicycle chain was enclosed,22 was the bloomer. A large sampling of the many female bicyclist prints produced, primarily consisting of advertising posters, can be seen in auction catalogues and an interesting bicycle advertisement booklet.23 These advertisements, of course, illustrate all of the different advantages of '- bicycles bloomers bicycle. to carry she is a althoug 37-38 i any fa: relativi then b Photog might Prefer bicycl who v fashic even great her i allow accic W0“); 82 bicycles and depict the female bicyclists as always stylish, even in bloomers. The bicyclist in Figure 36 illustrates the lightness of her bicycle. In case of problems, she is portrayed as even being able to carry the bicycle to where she can obtain help. Since it is 1895, she is able to wear the ordinary fashionable outfit of the day, although she has chosen a short skirt. The bicyclists in Figures 37-38 have gone to even greater lengths in their declaration that any fashion was possible when riding the bicycle. As bicycles were relatively expensive until c. 1896, it is understandable that until then bicycling was fashionable for only the wealthy.24 Although a photograph exists which illustrates how 'mannish' an outfit a woman might have chosen for bicycling (Figure 39), French advertisers preferred to emphasize a more feminine picture, such as the bicyclist in Figure 40 who must have been one of the wealthy ladies who was driven to the Bois de Boulogne to participate in the new fashionable sport.25 She appears to have decided to opt for bloomers even though she could have worn a skirt. The advertisers took great pains, however, to not ridicule this lady of the elite who chose her costume either because she felt it was attractive or because it allowed her to concentrate on her sport without worrying about accidently revealing her body or lingerie. It is unclear whether Zeldin is referring to the type of woman depicted in Figure 40 or female bicyclist club members when he questions the number of female cyclists in France: 83 Figure 36. Tichon. Lu—mi-num. Color lithograph, c. 1895. Figure 37. George Bottini. Cycles Medinger. Color lithograph, 1897. 84 l 7‘ f'i'c" _/§_{¥:fi‘:‘"\t.¢___‘ "‘i r-je J ‘ - ' : 'vlk‘éyv»:v_ —' i. v V‘s ' .111: 701“"; it MEdiNGfiR L/ Bejmie/elrupe Plinth Figure 37 :/ .. 3;, {a l ,‘ ‘c 85 Comic '7'. jirrzorln Figure 38. Lorant—Heilbronn. Cie des Autos et Cycles Hortu. Color lithograph, 1903. IIL. 86 Figure 39. Cycling Costume. 1894. , n 2‘ Figure 40. Deville. Humber, Paris. Color lithograph. The im physic. butit in Hus were v they w oflghw phyed attacki acdvit Uzanne, h m bkychr mendoned Sports out Young on the thoug was s and g and r on th depar 1885? 0i de startl EVery paSSh dEpaj 0T WC the s CYCHS tOtai grace 900d~ them Of al morn Engh the i tOUrj AHhOUgl Ft9Ute w introdUC Ilb~ 87 The importance of sport in the liberation of women-- physically, sartorially and moraliy—-has often been stressed, but it had not affected more than a small minority of women in this period. In 1893 only about 1 per cent of cyclists were women: they were so noticeable precisely because they were so rare. The male sports associations were originally hostile to female sports; and the women who played football or rugby, and even those who cycled, were attacked by the press as pursuing excessively violent activities. 26 Uzanne, however, had discussed the real dangers which were involved in bicycling in a book written eleven years before his previously mentioned book which dismissed sportswomen as only interested in sports outfits. In this earlier discussion he noted that Young girls fell into the habit of dealing with young men on the basis of comradeship and good-fellowship, without a thought of natural selection and attraction. This tendency was strengthened by the habit of sharing the same sports and games. The young folk played tennis, fenced, boated and rode together. Then came the bicycle, and, mounted on that iron steed, the last remnant of girlish shyness departed. . . . The Frenchwoman of 1880 [more correctly 1885?], unlike her predecessor in 1870, put on a boyishness of demeanor, the independence and freedom of which fairly startled all observers. . . . Mere sensual gratification of every kind was the sole object of society . . . and the passion for bicycling may be said to have accentuated a departure from the ordinary rules governing the intercourse of women with each other, and with the stronger sex . the short jackets and full knickerbockers of the female cyclist were seen at every corner. There was an almost total disappearance, at certain hours, of the lithe and graceful charms of womanhood, and a sort of easy-going good-fellowship, and boyish freedom of speech, replaced them. Many a fascinating hostess, who had been the admired of all admirers, in her . . . evening dress, appeared, next morning, flying through the Bois, in her tight-fitting English-cut bicycling jacket and her baggy nether garments-~— the indispensable badge, heretofore, of the mountaineering tourist.2 Although his concluding statements seem to refer to the elite lady in Figure 40, writing ten to fifteen years after bicycles had first been introduced for women, he might also have been including female bkychsts c led reason tochoose 1 enabled wc msmtin t dcychsts could not til-42 havr have beer comradesr tndepende in Figure the bicyc brazen er woods, iHustrate teahzed - The adve e"'Phasis CaSUauy UnbuttOr eSCape a Chapter bmem resulted attvertis 88 bicyclists of the late 18905. By the late 18905, the public finally had reasons for condemnation other than that of women continuing to choose the bloomer for bicycling even though the enclosed chain enabled women to ride in skirts. They realized that bicycling could result in the development of new muscles which enabled young bicyclists to pursue their sport unsupervised because their elders could not keep up with them.28 The young bicyclists in Figures 41-42 have completely eluded their elders. These bicyclists might have been who Uzanne was referring to when he described the comradeship and good-fellowship which resulted in boyishness, independence, and freedom. Although the correctly dressed couple in. Figure 41 might have bicycled together to their secluded spot, the bicyclist in Figure 42, just as respectably dressed, has been brazen enough to stop to talk to possibly a complete stranger in the woods. The advertisers who commissioned the designs for the posters illustrated in Figures 41-42 must have recognized that young women realized that bicycling allowed them to escape from their elders' rules. The advertiser illustrated in Figure 43 was more blatant in his emphasis on bicycling allowing women to flout these rules. With her casually dressed escort, she bicycles bare-headed in bloomers and an unbuttoned blouse. In this liberated outfit she is able to successfully escape a policeman, probably of the type mentioned in the preceding chapter who felt he had to authorize the wearing of unfeminine outfits by women. The most 'shameiess abandon,‘ however, which finally resulted from women bicycling (Figure 44) was not depicted by advertisers, of course, but by the printmaker Louis Legrand (1863— 89 i ., , I _ / 0'5‘t'u.ma (hire. 4 . , ' ~ ”UMBER ll faul ’niirnurq allomlrp r,.. it « I.) UV on r. U“? machine . . (miner, 1" Figure 41. Paleologue. Humber Cycles. Color lithograph. 90 l l) 4‘. $ §. t ‘V 4 ‘ g ,l .31.“ Hyatt: X P ' “JULEs LAMY, FABRICANTl ‘ 8"_Rede Chateaud‘un,PARis. 7 Aa:rvr_/?5morvu M .... . . Figure 42. Pean. Cycles Le Chevreuil. Color lithograph, 1896. 91 mar w. t .1], zit. it. r' z .. 4:“ 1“": Figure 43. Misti. Cycles Gladiator. Color lithograph, 1899. 1900. I Color etching and aquatint Cycl istes . Louis Legrand. Figure 44. ‘\’—n w 1951). Legr: and young b. studied etchi bicyclists we acceptable fa Proper in pt because he a depictions m youthful bet The prii to bourgeois have been r additional 0 illustrated i ll859~1923y comptetely i C"images. crew, the We”) Out and a Varii We of Steii Almost tder secgnd W01 She is age has C0”title 93 1951). Legrand particularly dealt with prostitutes, errand girls, and young ballerinas. That, combined with the fact that he had studied etching under Féiicien Rops,29 leads one to assume that his bicyclists were not 'ladies.‘ Although his bicyclists are dressed in acceptable fashions, their casual poses would not be considered proper in public. This assumption may be unwarranted, however, because he also depicted quite young girls lounging on banks, whose depictions may or may not have been meant to contain anything but youthful behavior. The price of bicycles dropped in 1896 and bicycling soon spread to bourgeois women and then to the lower classes.30 Figure 45 might have been meant to have been an illustration of the havoc these additional cyclists were able to produce. This type of intention, illustrated in Figure 46, must have appealed to Théophile Steinlen (1859-1923). His throng of working class men and women have completely disrupted the leisurely pace of the leisure class's carriages. Although they must have been described as an unruly crowd, the women, at least, are depicted as opting to wear correct modern outfits consisting of long skirts, jackets and puffed sleeves, and a variety of modern hats. Ten years later an advertiser used one of Steinlen's designs to depict a female motorcyclist (Figure 47). Almost identical in appearance to the female bicyclist who was the second woman from the right in the print illustrated in Figure 46, she is again creating havoc. Nothing stands in her way either. She has completely lost her regard for the country way of life. The advertiser probably also meant to illustrate that the design of the 94 s re m 0 m 0 t U A d n c 8h 59 em 19 W0 cm i.r em .50 MC Figure 45. re: ‘7'? lap-'- 95 .mww— ~ c8505: .mBm:u>O moi_ .cecapm pipowi a: 959“. w 7// i 0.3.. x9. II/ 0/4’/ [I‘ll/l;- ‘ . . . . ~ \ 96 S” St'clnl “t9? Figure 47. Théophile Steinlen. Motocycles Comiot. Color lithograph, 1899. motorcycle's full skirts f aware of the if they were woman in ti As or horse-rii economic st who were c leisure‘ we: women, wh exliosed to increased different n and the dE 'Unrestrair For in WhEthi Society in Plat Prince tashio Wealth fashio Societ‘ 97 motorcycle's divider hanging from the bar helped to keep women's full skirts from getting tangled. Advertisers seem to have been aware of the change in behavior which bicycling encouraged, even if they were not concerned with fostering a new more independent woman in the various classes. As in the case of depictions of women playing tennis, coaching, or horse-riding being in actuality women of at least the social and economic status of upper middle-class, or demi-mondes, the women who were described and depicted at 'watering—places' and 'cities of leisure' were probably also of these 'upper' classes. These were the women, who as a result of improved and cheaper railway travel, were exposed to a variety of classes and types of women as well as men. Increased internal, as well as foreign, travel also brought together different nationalities, diplomats, artists, authors, professionals, and the demi-monde. On these 'neutral grounds,I everyone met in 'unrestrained fellowship as equals.‘31 Uzanne also noted this mix. For in winter, women of every kind elbow one another, whether they will or not. The distances kept by polite society all fade away, when every class is crowded together in places of public resort . . . the most illustrious princesses . . . the best known courtesans, the most fashionable actresses, and the most retiring ladies of the wealthy 'bourgeoisie,' in most confused and easy—going fashion. This is symptomatic of our times. Republican society has suppressed the boundaries which formerly. existed between every class. . . . The courtesan envies the married woman the status conferred by her condition, which gives her free entrance to every circle and every place, however puritan and correct. The fashionable lady mourns her inability to attain a state of independence, and a reputation which would leave her free to commit the wildest freaks. These Iongings and these sprtes cannot fail to draw the various classes nearer to each other, in certai tende chy f sea-b being ture, incre dass Olynw abka d'Ale Rose Ladk when the e Thb nun [figure bOWlng y next to the righ Wearing men Wea tWO fore other as the Wom 0t attrai The Hit t0Ward The rat tint nec feattl re 98 certain places, and on certain occasions, and signs of this tendency are more apparent, seemingly, in winter, when city festivities are in full swing, than at summer haunts, sea-bathing resorts, and watering—places. This fusion is being daily accelerated by the general tendency of litera- ture, art, and the stage . . . all bear witness to the increasing closeness of connection between the various classes. . . . The corridors of the Foiies-Bergeres, Olympia, the Pole Nord, and the Scala, are full of fashion- able women, attracted thither by the reports of Mlle. d'Alencon's love adventures, the barely decent attire of Rose de Mai, and the 'de’shabillés' of Mlle. Anna Held. Ladies of the gay class never fail to fix their residence, whenever possible, in the best quarters of the town. in a great town like Paris, the strictest habits and the easiest virtue often rub shoulders.32 This mingling of 'Tout Paris' was illustrated in a poster in 1885 (Figure 48). All sorts of people are included in the crowd: the bowing woman at the left, the little man further to the right, and next to him the sharp-nosed man talking with a young woman. At the right, a rather athletic man towers over the rest of the crowd, wearing a rounded hat instead of the top hat which most of the other men wear. Although a contrast is meant to be drawn between the two foreground women, the labeling of one as demi-monde and the other as haut monde is not clear. The obvious choice would be that the woman at the left is the demi-monde. She seems to be the center of attraction with at least three men on the right pointed toward her. The little man in top hat and tails, at the left, could be striding toward either woman. However, the woman on the right might be just about to take the center stage. Her escort is curiously young. The rather more attractive appearance of the woman on the left need not necessarily classify her as the demi-monde as some distinctive eature or even wit allowed some famous demi-mondes to achieve 99 D ES ES - BEBE III : Ill :13 L 10) L s. (U CD 0) C C .2 S. '0 <1: IftlLi . Color lithograph, 1885. Tout Paris Figure 48. notori respe which poste symb at re incre wome elega evidi in h manr not Clas: cent immi UTTC of; of; Whi cou det Eui Cd 100 notoriety. Also, the outfits do not give us a clue regarding their respective 'social' statuses. The mingling of the wealthy classes which Uzanne described has been depicted quite effectively in this poster. The all—important preoccupation with women being status symbols, which was further fostered by their display in Paris and at resort places, had resulted in a fierce competition between the increasingly visible actresses, demi-mondes, and wealthy/aristocratic women so as to outdo the other in matters of fashion, luxury, and elegance. The sole mark of respectability, although maybe not evident to us from their artistic eulogies, may have been contained in title only. Laver makes the general statement that ”The historian of manners, indeed, is forced to the conclusion that an epoch which is not an age of promiscuity is necessarily an age of prostitution." He classifies the ages of prostitution as 1852—1870 and the early twentieth century and the ages of promiscuity as 1795—1799 and the period immediately following World War I. Evidently because of the confusion in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, he left that period unclassified. He continues his discussion by concluding that in ages of promiscuity, fashions favor the younger woman in contrast to ages of prostitution favoring the older women. During the Second Empire, when 'jeunes filles du monde' had been carefully guarded, the famous courtesans were women 'of a certain age.’ These women and actresses determined fashion changes, which were imitated by 'femmes du monde.' Euge’nie's court, as well, adopted more 'crying,' loud, or striking colors than the quieter colors of the 18405.33 Laver's omission of the .L late n reflec make and e 'age 1 weH-r Nous appea court HeHe seem the ‘ were loge dose a pa WOIn depi Skir male in 5 tree iSm less ten 101 late nineteenth century from a promiscuity/prostitution classification reflects the changing images and roles of women in that time, which make generalizations difficult. His discussion of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century ideal is devoid of moral implication: the 'age of the fine woman,‘ when fashion catered to the mature form and well-rounded contour. The S-curved stance and the falling Russian blouse required a woman to be tall, statuesque, and full—busomed to appear elegant.34 This description could easily apply to both the courtesans 'of a certain age' and the 'femmes du monde' who Robbe, Helleu, and Villon depicted even into the twentieth century. it also seems to be a continuation of Laver's interpretation of the woman of the 18505 who was a 'magnificant ship' and even the later women who were rigged with enormous bustles. improved travel facilities had brought these mature women together at resort places, but travel had also brought nations into closer contact. The United States, and its women, seem to have held a particular attraction for the French. The independence of American women had been noted since the 18305. Novels in the 18605 had depicted American women alternately in casual clothes and shorter skirts, straight-forward, not bothered by modesty, dominating the male, or with masculine ambitions. Paulin Negoyet, the French Consul in San Francisco, described them in 1875 as being "an ideal, free of preciousness, prudery, superstition, feebleness, or puritan- ism."35 What Diana de Marly describes as the "heyday of the taste— less exchange of well-endowed daughters for European titles which took place between American new wealth and the so—called nobility"36 in the hsted Frenc Ameri were Their comb slhnn the ' wont 'boy heal rep Alt dill the me ch 102 in the 18805 and 18905, was noted also. A book, published in 1898, listed 32 marriages, since 1875, between American heiresses and French noblemen; three French prime ministers had also married Americans.37 However, the outfits of these wealthy American women were said to be rejected by French prostitutes as being too gaudy. Their uninhibited manners and loud, raucous voices were also noted.38 Perhaps an emulation of these American women, as well as a combination of the new emphasis on sports and fashion's emphasis on slimness as well as its emphasis on the 'fine woman,‘ had produced the 'New Woman.‘ This 'New Woman' of Laver's, who as a sports— woman was a visible type of woman, was like Zola's ideal, more 'boyish and sylphlike' instead of the earlier 'plump, large-thighed, 39 This other type of woman, in contrast heavy breasted mother.' to the mature woman at resorts, was shown engaged in the more active sports. This is the woman depicted in Figures 27, 34, and .41-47, as well as Villon's woman on the stone bench (Figure 24), in contrast to Robbe's and Helleu's 'fine women.‘ (She will also be seen depicted attractively as a young working woman.) Robbe and Helleu provided images of the type of woman who represented the ideals which were held sacred by the bourgeois. Although the separate spheres of these women had been expanded, and artists depicted this fact, the ideals represented are similar to the ideals valued in the 18705 and 18805. Legrand and Steinlen docu— mented an activity which was not available to women of the lower classes during most of that period. Although Legrand's young women might not be able to go to resorts, they could flaunt bourgeois conve by rh in mh the w aHowi quen and date symt more more crhi die: esh the the WOl 103 conventions and provide attractive or at least interesting spectacles by riding bicycles. Steinlen probably had a more serious objective in mind when he depicted the class of women he was interested in, the working-class. Bicycles, as an affordable means of transportation, allowed working-class women to be displayed as attractive models fre- quenting the same locales as wealthy bourgeois women. Legrand's and Steinlen's women would begin to be another type of visible status symbol which coexisted with Robbe's and Helleu‘s status symbols. The acceptance and subsequent portrayal of these new more active women, however, as in the case of women portrayed in more traditional activities, echoed the bourgeois and working-class criteria which stressed that women must be charming in manner and dress. Hints of humor or promiscuity might even be added as inter- esting deviations. Active serious sports, however, were meant to be the separate sphere of men; if women became too serious about sports they were labeled as 'mannish.’ In Uzanne's estimation, these mannish women were worse than the adorable sportswomen who favored the costumes over the physical activity: It must be conceded that in most of these modern sports there is a vast amount of 'pose,' and many masculine women who affect men's dress and unsex themselves by excessive independence of mind and unfeminine manners become most antipathetic by their lack of sincerity. But in considering masculine women where is one to end? We begin with Mme. Dieulafoy and finish with the sage-femme. . . . To conclude: all forms' of sport for the modern Parisienne are plausible pretexts for costume or comedy rather than a real physical occupation. Doff the riding—habit and the horse goes; suppress the special costumes of the automobilist, the bicyclist, the shot, the fencer, and feminine sports will have had their olay.‘l0 These me upon mar [or pain' 104 These mannish women, like any woman who attempted to transgress upon man's separate spheres, held no interest to male printmakers (or painters, either). and Fa D El E CHAPTER IV: NOTES 1Zeldin, Anxiety and Hypocrisy, pp. 90-93. 2Uzanne, Modern Parisienne, pp. 159—160. 3Laver, Taste and Fashion, p. 85. ”ibid., pp. 51—52. 5Laver, Modesty in Dress, pp. 141-142; and Laver, Taste and Fashion, p. 85. 6Uzanne, Modern Parisienne, pp. 159-160. 7 . lbid., pp. 161-162. 8Laver, Modesty in Dress, pp. 141-142. 9Uzanne, Modern Parisienne, p. 162 10Laver, Modesty in Dress, p. 142; Fischel and Von Boehn, Modes and Manners, p. 157; and Laver, Taste and Fashion, p. 85. 11Uzanne, Modern Parisienne, p. 162. 12lbid. , pp. 159—160. 13Laver, Taste and Fashion, pp. 216—220. 1“Zeldin, Taste and Corruption, p. 337; and Laver, Modesty in Dress, pp. 142-144. 15Laver, Taste and Fashion, pp. 222-223. 16Laver, Modesty in Dress, pp. 142—144; and Laver, Taste flit Fashion, pp. 222—223. 105 byB.il Britar Boeh COi‘l‘i \ t0xl 106 17Uzanne, Modern Parisienne, pp. 164-165. 18Laver, Modesty in Dress, p. 154. 19Uzanne, Fashion in Paris, p. 163. 20Laver, Taste and Fashion, p. 88. 21Encyclopaedia Britannica, 14th ed. (1929), s.v. "Bicycle," by B. W. Best. 22Laver, Taste and Fashion, pp. 87—90. 23La Petite Reine (Paris: Musée de l'affiche). 2“Encyclopaedia B ritannica , " B icycle. " 25Laver, Taste and Fashion, pp. 88—89. 26Zeldin, Taste and Corruption, pp. 347—348. 27Uzanne, Fashion in Paris, pp. 162—163, 169. 28Laver, Manners and Morals, p. 186. 29Arwas, Belle Epoque, pp. 29-30. 30Laver, Taste and Fashion, p. 90; and Encyclopaedia Britannica, "Bicycle." 31Fischel and Von Boehn, Modes and Manners, pp. 143-144. 32Uzanne, Fashion in Paris, pp. 174—176. 33Laver, Taste and Fashion, pp. 65—68; Fischel and Von Boehn, Modes and Manners, pp. 90-106; and Zeldin, Taste and firruption, pp. 87-88. 3LtLaver, Taste and Fashion, pp. 101, 106—107. 35Theodore Zeldin, France 1848-1945, Intellect and Pride (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980), pp. 129-130. 107 36de Marly, Worth, p. 197. 37Zeldon, intellect and Pride, p. 133. 38Laver, Manners and Morals, p. 214. 392eldin, Anxiety and Hypocrisy, p. 209. 40Uzanne, Modern Parisienne, pp. 165—166. Frc mer dic def the onl fut st; Ill; bl CHAPTER V SUFFRAGE, EDUCATION, AND AN ICONOGRAPHICAL GAP Despite the fact that late nineteenth-early twentieth century French women of the upper classes had been freed from their confine- ment to the hearth, their new leisure activities were controlled by the dictates of respectable behavior, and this code of behavior was defined by their husbands. Although one might wonder, then, why these women married, under bourgeois ideology marriage was women's only 'choice.' The bourgeois father provided for his daughter's future by giving her a dowry. A woman had to marry to achieve status. The moralist, Mme. Louise d'Aiq, explained that "the prob— lems facing a woman who wanted to make her way independently in the world were so great that even a mediocre husband was preferable to none."1 Proudhon's pronouncement that women had only the two choices of housewife or harlot, which was often true in the economic sense, cast doubt upon the respectability of an unmarried woman past a certain age. Most bourgeois women married,2 and once married, stayed married,3 and their lives were controlled further by marriage contracts. These marriage contracts reflected society's belief that women were inferior and therefore their natural state was that of dependency because, in marriage, the law still required the 108 wife wife arre mar as i one tha ius tee of 109 wife to obey her husband in return for which the husband owed the wife his 'protection.’4 The nineteenth—century bourgeois saw marriage as a property arrangement, a concept traceable to ancient times. Arranged marriages regarded the virginity of the bride as well as the dowry as part of the 'property' exchanged between the families. In fact, one Napoleonic Code article states that "Woman was given to man so that she could give him children. She is therefore his property, just as a fruit tree is the property of the gardener." In the nine- teenth century it was expected, moreover, that although the bride be pure, the husband should naturally be experienced.5 Joseph Droz of the French Academy, in his Essay on the Art of Being Happy, 1806, which was in its seventh edition in 1853 and was placed on the open shelves in the Bibliothéque Nationale, wrote: ”Marriage is in general a means of increasing one's credit and one's fortune and of ensuring one's success in the world."6 A Paris justice of the peace as late as 1912 stressed this exchange of dowry by the wife for a protector and more experienced manager and administrator of her property.7 Due to the greater age of the husband, this is somewhat understandable. The changing times also fostered a continuance of this type of marriage. The possibility of an easier and more rapid movement upward in class was aided by consolidating property from the two families. In cities members of aristocracy married into families of similar or higher class or wealth. The upper and middle bourgeois stressed the importance of a large dowry. The consolida~ tion of properties from two families of the lower commercial bourgeois coulc ing 1 level the man pare pari thei dist syn mar a l SOC nir bit th th 110 could be used for setting up a new business or expanding the exist- ing one. If poorer industrial workers were able to rise to the artisan level, they would tend to follow the same pattern.8 As marriage was the most assured means of social ascension for the bourgeois, the marriage of their children was a 'public evaluation placed on the parents' position;' love, the great enemy, the rebelling against parental authority, could result in a 'mésalliance.‘ One's family could then easily drop in social class. One can see why parents were so disturbed by their daughters bicycling unsupervised. Of course, sympathizers with the poorest industrial workers, who often did not marry in the nineteenth century because they could not even afford a legal ceremony, viewed the concepts of arranged marriages and social ascension as ridiculous.9 Three types of legally valid marriage contracts existed in the nineteenth century and into the twentieth century. Communauté de biens (regime of community), the oldest and most common, specified that the husband had sole control of the dowry, both the capital and the income from it. Regime dotal (dotal regime), enacted in the Napoleonic Code, gave the husband control of the income from the dowry, but not the initial capital. Separation de biens or regime d'acqu’e‘ts (regime of separation of community) specified that what the couple individually brought into the marriage belonged to each separately; only the common profits of the marriage were shared. The type of contract which the couple adopted at the time of the marriage determined which of the three coexisting laws ruled their lives. if no contract were drawn up, an unusual omission, the Civil Code define the 5 safegi Undo from authc of pr hon over marr July thre was oft her dsr 111 defined the property as being held in common and gave the husband the sole power of managing it. The Civil Code contained several safeguards and restrictions relating to married women's rights. Under the regime dotal, although the wife hadfree use of the income from property other than her dowry; to sell it, she had to have the authorization of her husband or the courts. Under the separation of property contract, the wife also needed her husband's authoriza- tion to alienate her real estate. She did have full control, however, over her income. This type of marriage contract constituted 9—15% of marriage contracts in the period 1900-1914. A law was enacted July 13, 1907, which specified that a woman married under any of the three regimes had full control over her income. However, this law was not being enforced up to the 19305.10 Legally, then, under two of the three types of marriage contracts, the wife's initial capital, her dowry, was protected and remained hers. New legislation was also passed which attempted to place the income from her dowry under her control. However, throughout the nineteenth century, the wife was forced to reside where the husband chose, could not go to the courts without his permission and in most cases could not operate her own business without his authorization. If she obtained a separation, she was still required to have his authorization in her business affairs. The husband also had absolute control over the children. When he died, if he had appointed advisers, the wife had to confer with them regarding the children, whether or not she remarried.11 Women could not change these laws because they had neither public nor political rights. III» the b was 1 class lnsti their Femi mate tivel thrc eve' intr be 112 These are the 'privileged' women seen in prints that reflect the bourgeois' desire to eulogize their ladies of leisure whose function was to be that of status symbols. Neither bourgeois nor working- class men wished their wives to enter the male political sphere. lnstinctively or consciously in agreement with or as a concession to their patrons' preferences, artists did not specifically depict feminists. Feminism was not a new phenomenon; it had been an issue for approxi- mately a hundred years. Earlier artists and cartoonists had effec— tively dismissed these women as mannish or promiscuous. French women had had political freedom from the Middle Ages through most of the eighteenth century. Rousseau's doctrines, how— ever, which had asserted that the influence of women in Court intrigues was the cause of political and moral disorder, were felt to be still applicable during the Revolution of 1789. Unsuccessfully, in 1790, the Philosopher, Condorcet, in his Essay on the Admission to Civic Rights, maintained that the Declaration of the Rights of Man be extended to women. Unsuccessfully again, in 1791, Olympe de Gouges published a Declaration of the Rights of Women (Declaration des d_roits de la femme et de la citoyenne) which was modeled on the Declaration of the Rights of Man.12 However, at the Constitutional Assembly of 1793, women's rights were severely reduced. Various decrees stated that: Women's clubs and associations, whatever their appellation, are forbidden. . . . Can women exercise political rights and take an active part in government? . . . No. Can they meet and hold discussions in political associations or peoples' societies? . . . No. . . . Women . . . by their nature have a tendency towards excitability which would be the F suffr "worm their of oi femii Pubi exec wom hth Witt won dl‘lr Vic 18E dt-II alt Uh rig Do 113 fatal in public affairs, and the interests of the State would soon suffer from the aberrations and disorder that intensity of passion can produce. Children, lunatics, minors, women, those convicted of odious crimes . shall not be considered as citizens."13 Just as the Revolution of 1789 produced the Declaration of the Rights of Man, the Revolution of 1848 produced universal manhood suffrage. Although the 1848 National Assembly also decreed that "women and minors could neither be members of clubs nor attend their meetings,"14 women did form clubs and united for the purpose 15 of obtaining the vote. Even though Daumier and Gavarni ridiculed feminists in their prints, and the newspaper, Le Charivari, had published many of them, one image, at least (Figure 49), was executed which presented an objective, sympathetic view of those women who were concerned with their emancipation. Although they have defied the 1848 decree regarding meetings, they are portrayed as respectable women in their bonnets and tightly corseted dresses with full skirts. The orator has attracted quite a group of interested women and their 'excitabie nature' is revealed only by a few raised arms. In 1848, one of the Deputies in the National Assembly, Victor Considérant, demanded that women be given the vote. in 1851, Deputy Pierre Leroux, a Socialist and a Saint-Simonian, intro~ duced the first Bill in Parliament concerning women and the vote, although limiting it to municipal elections.16 Both measures were unsuccessful. Both Saint-Simon and Condorcet, who supported the rights of women, were aristocrats, and therefore Opposed by those in Power. The feminists of 1848, who were linked with aristocrats as I I WWW , Figure 49. Club Féminin. Lithograph, c. 1848. well Sociz were expl thre ltn the libs the was an the Mic Pa we on WC 5F al 115 well as the Saint-Simonians' libertarian sexual theoriestand the Socialists‘ preoccupation with the plight of the working-class women, were also opposed by those in power.17 Leon Abensour, 1921, in A History of Feminism from its Beginnings to the Present Day, explained that the timing of women's demands were interpreted as a threat to bourgeois values: The French are accustomed to think of feminism, which only rears its head in revolutionary times, as a threat to family stability and the security of the State . . . and for many years every protagonist of women‘s emancipation came up against the same angry opposition and sarcasms.18 it must be remembered, however, that even Socialists were not united in agreement concerning what constituted women's rights. Proudhon, the proletarian Socialist, in Le Peuple, 1849, wrote: ”For women, 19 liberty consists only in the right to stay at home." Some women, at least, had not found liberty at home. During the 187i Commune, a group of female clothing-industry workers and washerwomen "marched behind the banner of the Commune, demanding an end to male-dominated and clerical standards of morality as well as the right to employment and a living wage."20 Women, such as Louise Michel, "were among the most dedicated supporters of the Commune, participating in debates in the political clubs, tending the sick and wounded, and, in the last resort, fighting with their male comrades 21 Steinlen depicted this woman (Figure 50), who 22 n the barricades . " ould be labeled the 'Red Virgin.| Although Steinlen depicted this pecific woman who had participated with men during the Commune, is painting is also a continuation of the tradition of Eugene Delecroix's llegorical Liberty Leading the People, 1830.23 Other radical feminists 116 1885. C. Oil on canvas, Louise Michel on the Barricades. Théophile Steinlen. Figure 50. such Pelle and demc femi Aht not in 1 men the ten MSt t0g int to thc R0 de Pl‘ be Rt 0f R. 117 such as Hubertine Auclert, Mme. Vincent, Leonie Rouzade, Madeleine Pelletier, and Marguerite Durand demanded immediate female suffrage and in their 'glorification of the revolutionary tradition,‘ advocated demonstrations.“ Although Steinlen continued to represent Liberty as a woman (Figures 51—52), there followed no reference to particular feminists. Even in Figure 52 all of the demonstrators are men. Although he showed the plight of lower—class working women, he did not show them demonstrating for their rights. in a painting executed in 1895 (Figure 53), he depicted the extent to which working—class men allowed their wives to 'demonstrate.I Women have joined men in the festive celebration of the national holiday, July 14, which com— memorated the 1789 storming of the Bastille. This painting perhaps also indicates Steinlen's belief that working—class men and women, together, should unite to achieve their rights. As Steinlen was interested in the lower class exclusively, this painting can be assumed to be a representation of that class instead of the bourgeois, even though the women are represented exactly like an artist such as Robbe would have represented them. Beginning in the 18705 the majority of the feminists had decided to disassociate themselves from a revolutionary tradition and project an image of wishing to preserve the status quo. The moderate Republicans and the majority of the new, more moderate feminists became more closely associated. Both groups viewed the earlier Republicans and feminists as radical and wished to erase that image of violence and disorder. As these middle- and upper-class bourgeois Republicans of the Third Republic comprised the majority of the Figure 51. Théophil-e Steinlen. May, 1871. Lithograph, 1894. ‘\ iv e an I T?"". _ ,L 5%: .zeeemofi: .3 .ceEaem BEQBE .Nm Semi wwwflmrmmtc. 119 Figure 53. Théophile Steinlen. The 14th of July. Oil on canvas, 1895. Dep pre: gre. not anc the Fer dir the lea em pt co re 121 Deputies in Parliament, they were able to accomplish their goal of preserving the status quo. These feminists believed that their greatest chance for success, which the earlier radical feminists had not achieved, was to be friendly to these leading moderate politicians and not to be connected with the Socialists, who were concerned with the particular rights of their proletarian wives. This new Social Feminism, which constituted the greatest number of the feminists, directed its greatest concentration on the rights of married women and that of regulated prostitution. With varying intensities, different leading feminists spread their desires over the subjects of legal reform, employment, education, protective legislation for working women, public health and moral reform, as well as female suffrage, instead of concentrating on first receiving the vote. These bourgeois feminists, reacting against the satirical tradition, as depicted in the newspapers, Le Charivari and Assiette au Beurre, which represented feminists as 'deviants from their own sex and an ambiguous species more male than female,I fought to establish an image of also supporting and pre- serving the status quo: the family, social respectability, and sexual orthodoxy. They wished to be regarded as favoring convention and being capable of being good bourgeois Republican citizens.25 However, the satirical treatment of any feminist, be she Bluestocking, suffra- giste, or Socialist Suffragette survived. Although these feminists would have preferred being depicted like the lady in Figure 54, cartoonists continued to depict them like the confused creature in Figure 55. Both women are dressed in outfits which indicate that they are ready to go out. They both have put on coats and have in 122 1870. Fashion Illustration, Figure 54. 123 " “ " :.¥ 1 Agix llig‘gwfiix‘g‘ Figure 55. French Cartoon. Late nineteenth century. adde in tl in F bine With witi Whit witl fasl ah Léc giv Ion wit int Lil Oi‘ 124 added hats with veils. The lady in Figure 54, however, is dressed in the new, more tailored fashion of the 18705. Although the woman in Figure 55 has chosen a military—style coat, she mistakenly has com- bined the baggy coat with an outdated ruffled skirt and bonnet. With her mind on more important subjects, she is so little concerned with her appearance that she has also combined the outdated bonnet, which Laver describes as "a sign of submission to male authority"26 with her male status symbols of cane or crop and cigarette. The fashion illustrator softened his modern outdoor lady's image by adding a handkerchief. The creation of the moderate feminist movement is credited to Léon Richer and Maria Deraismes. Richer encouraged Deraismes to give lecture series and in 1869 founded Le Droit des Femmes, the longest lived French feminist newspaper. Together they founded the Association pour le Droit des Femmes in 1871. in 1878, to coincide with the Paris International Exhibition, they organized the first international congress on women's rights. Richer then founded Ligue Francaise pour le Droit des Femmes in 1882. In 1889, they organized the second international congress on women's rights. Their championship of women's rights, however, did not extend to the 'premature' granting of female suffrage, for this would 'endanger the democracy.I In 1888, Richer stated: ”i believe that at the present time it would be dangerous--in France—-to give women the political ballot. They are in great majority reactionaries and clericals. If they voted today, the Republic would not last six months."27 This echoed the feeling of the majority of the Republicans, as well as the radic triun fema syst geoi sym goa cou dep ima inc ing SOt tha 125 radicals, who believed that giving women the vote would be a clerical triumph. The conservatives, as can be expected, were against female suffrage because it would threaten the 'traditional family system' of 'male supremacy in the home.‘28 The groups in power had succeeded in re—establishing bour— geois ideals and 'elevating' their women to the position of status symbols by the 1878 Exhibition, and anything which threatened these goals was doomed to failure. If somehow bourgeois respectability could be retained, feminists would be tolerated. Artists' conscious depictions of these moderate feminists would be indistinguishable from images depicting bourgeois and bourgeois-appearing women which are included in Chapters ll and Ill. Feminists continued to be aware of the importance of project- ing an image of respectability in their struggle for rights. These social feminists particularly wished to disassociate their image from that of the English feminists, one of which was depicted in L'lllustration in 1909 (Figure 56). This lone feminist, willing to sub- mit herself to the might of the crowd of men who tower over and surround her, was the type of feminist who Jane Misme seems to have been referring to in 1914. Misme, editor of the newspaper, La Francaise, the‘ main organ of the majority feminists, wrote: The radicals' claims to full suffrage rights and/or sexual liberation . . . could only put in jeopardy the more modest but more plausible ambition of first securing the municipal franchise. It was very well for the English to have suffragettes, . . . but France required only 'suffragistes.I Street demonstrations were . . . harmful to the movement's prestige. French women . . . were much more discrete and reserved than the women of England or America and should never appear on the streets for the sole purpose of being Figure 56. 126 Une Election Anglaise. L'lllustration, 1909. To f1 actua selve ofin res; recc Alti she way rev am an' re; th WE b‘. 127 seen [except, of course, in their role as status symbols]. In any case, since France was a nation which respected intelligence, the feminist cause could be carried by words and arguments rather than by protests and demonstrations. The feminist congress was the best place to impress the validity of their arguments on the public. To further distinguish themselves from the 1848 'man—haters' (who actually had campaigned for divorce for the women who found them— selves in intolerable positions instead of as a reaction to the institution of marriage), Misme proclaimed that most of the social feminists were respectable married women. Even Pelletier, a radical feminist, recognized that her unrespectable image did not help her cause. Although she scorned feminine feminists and wore masculine clothes, she admitted that she attracted 'unwanted' attention because of the way she dressed. She is the same woman who classified herself as a revolutionary Socialist and demanded full suffrage rights immediately and sexual liberation.29 A united front was further hampered by male trade unions' antagonism toward the bourgeois women's feminist movement. Their reaction was two-fold. They claimed that bourgeois women's "interest in class reconciliation was a plot to woo the working class away from the ideal of social revolution and its concentration on the suffrage was an attempt to make working women think that they were exploited by men rather than by capital." When women's trade unions threatened to undermine the efforts of men's trade unions in 1901, one male trade union leader wrote that "working-class women did not need any help from women of the bourgeoisie, however sincere their motivation." The radical feminist, Rouzade, however, as a result of at her a adopt VECG Uni inn vis spl frc be lor 128 her agitation within the Broussist socialist group, did get them to adopt women's emancipation as part of their program in 1880.30 Despite all of this internal, as well as external, antagonism toward the moderate feminists, in 1901 a Bill was again introduced in Parliament in favor of the vote for women, although unsuccessful. in 1910, 163 Deputies voted for female suffrage in local elections, again without success. Although the Chamber voted for full female suffrage in 1919 and passed the resolution by a vote of 344 to 97, the Senate rejected it in a vote of 156 to 134. The tradition that women's natures were incompatible with the realm of matters concern— ing the State remained in force until 1944, when women finally received the vote.31 (Women received the vote in England and the United States, respectively, in 1918 and 1920.) As can be seen, printmakers did not seem to be particularly interested in either the moderate or radical feminists. The highly visible feminists represented a dangerous threat to men's separate spheres while the moderate feminists were virtually indistinguishable from charming, respectable bourgeois women. They were allowed to become involved in modern issues, such as health and reform, as long as they did not challenge traditional rules of dress or behavior. Moderate feminists probably preferred that they be represented as merely a continuance of the theme of good bourgeois wives and mothers, which was, of course, a p0pular type of print. They might even have proudly displayed these images as being the type of women they represented. The emphasis on respectability, by moderate femi' the Rep for had tair ai51 not tiOI Pal Re th to 129 feminists, eliminated the effectiveness of depicting these women in the more interesting vein of promiscuity. One of the rights which the moderate feminists of the Third Republic had campaigned for was education for women. The campaign for women's education, however, like the campaign for political rights, had been going on since 1790. Condorcet, who in 1790 had main- tained that the Declaration of the Rights of Man be extended to women, also maintained that women's education needed to be improved. The noted feminist, Etta Palm d'Aelders, also campaigned for public educa- tion for women. in 1848, Eugenie Niboyet, the founder of the news- paper, La Voix des Femmes, the principal feminist organ of the 1848 Revolution, advocated better education for women.32 By the nineteenth century a number of noted men had joined the feminists in their campaign for a type of women's education similar to men's, such as Victor Duruy, Jules Ferry, Camille Sée, Jules Simon, Francois Guizot, Montesquieu, Helvetius, and Fourier. Separate spheres for men and women began to be questioned. Ferry seems to have been questioning the consequence of Proudhon's classi- fication of women as being either housewives or harlots when he wrote in 1870 that female education would substitute for the cabaret the "enlightened hearthside, animated by conversation, embellished 33 However, the prime concern of at least some of with reading.” these proponents was merely that public education replace the present clerical domination in the education of females. Duruy, Napoleon lll's minister of Education in 1863, when asked about government losses in that year's general elections, replied, "How much of our current diff neil atti 130 difficulty results from the education of our girls by those who are neither of their time nor of their country?”34 Writing about women attending male universities, he further wrote: We shall have contributed to the disappearance of the intellectual divorce that too often exists between the husband and wife. How many times harmony in a marriage is troubled by difference in education, sentiment, and ideas that prevent the two spouses from understanding one another and that force them to live in two separate and contrary worlds.35 Both radicals and Republicans equated universal education of women with secular education, a freeing of their education from clerical domination. Ferry, in Discours sur l'égalité d'éducation, 1870, wrote about the "necessity of rescuing women from the Church in order to win them for science."36 Sée, in Lyce’es et colleges de jeunes filles, 1884, wrote that "priestly power over women was already so great that through them the Church enjoyed political mastery, for, although women could not vote themselves, they could influence the vote of their husbands, in keeping with the directives they received from 37 their confessors." The entire French Church, but especially Bishop Dupanloup of Orleans, accused Duruy of being "motivated solely by a desire to detach women from the Church."38 Well into the nineteenth century, however, influential men still questioned the advisability of educating females in the same manner as men were educated. They feared the consequences of women being trained in a way which would allow them to leave the separate sphere of respectable wife. Rousseau had written that if a woman was given more than a domestic education, she would become an intellectual woman, the 'femme-philosophe' and ”From the lofty eleva alwaj losei OUS that 0rd ed rep nir cri frt sti 131 elevation of her genius, she despises all the duties of a woman and always begins to play the man . . . [She] has left her natural state."39 Joseph de Maistre pointed out that "Knowledge is what is most danger— llL10 ous to women. Of course, according to Proudhon, it was useless to try to educate women. In La Pornocratie de la femme dans le temps modernes, 1875, he wrote that women had intellectual and moral 41 values equal to one-third of that of men. Although Jules Michelet has been called an early hero of female emancipation, he also advocated that women return to their natural state, that of a domestic role, in order to foster mutual domestic happiness.42 Although by the twentieth century primary through university education was provided for women, Uzanne, the sympathetic scholar and reporter of some types of women, voiced the same opinions which early nineteenth century critics had voiced. Higher education was not to be ‘ o o o o l critic12ed for women who were unfortunate enough to be Without support 1 from husbands, but for most women, the earlier education which had stressed domestic and religious instruction, appropriate for her role, was to be recommended. Anything further threatened the home because women became independent. Women who pursued an education, like the earlier Bluestockings and Daumier's feminists, became something other than females, a sort of third sex. Even if women pursued training and educa- tion for careers outside the home, employment opportunities for women were not adequate. Uzanne elaborated on this theme in 1912: God forbid that one should ridicule the unfortunate women who are left alone to fight their own battles in life, who are obliged to arm themselves for the conflict, scourge their memories and link their fingers, pass examinations, and become graduates, lady doctors, governesses, clerks, or electricians! They are no more to be ridiculed or criticized 132 than the factory—worker who earns her living, because her husband's wages are not sufficient to keep herself and her children. But to be learned for pleasure, for amusement, or for 'pose' is the most grotesque and stupid part a woman can play. This is an age of pedantry and it is no wonder if women, in their desire to be guided, and to mould themselves after an example, should take on the manners and tone which distinguish the leading spirits of the day. A great movement is on foot which must inevitably bring about this result. This movement is called the higher education of women. Up to the present time the young girl, whether educated in a convent, a lay school, or at home, received instruction which, if elementary, was all- sufficient for the social position she was meant to occupy. An endeavor was made to develop in a reasonable direction the graceful, delicate, and gentle side of her nature in a sound moral atmosphere, and to teach her carefully some special accomplishment, with a smattering of others. But today, . . . the girls are taught a quantity of subjects, superfluous when they are not absolutely dangerous; and the whole educational system, following suit, becomes more and more like that of the boys. its aim is degrees and diplomas, a large number of candidates attend at each course, and in consequence the difficulty of the examinations increases . . . and if a few moments are left free, competent persons are ready to initiate them in the mysteries of dressmaking and cooking. They are turned out perfectly accomplished creatures. They are instructed in various laws to make them devoted wives, and in physiology to give them a desire to bear children. As a direct result they become artificial, their bodies and minds are warped, they are unfeminine without acquiring virility, and are fashioned into a kind of third sex. What is the object of this system of education? Do the girls from any point of view get any advantage from it? Will they be better off, more respected, happier? The answer is more than unsatisfactory . . . for the more favoured by position and means this mass of knowledge, without any faith as a safeguard, leaves the woman unbalanced, vague, uncertain between her duty and her capricious desires, incapable of directing herself, and what is more, incapable of accepting direction from others, for she is convinced that her knowledge places her above all guidance. As for the large majority (for through every social degree the craze has taken root), the results are ill-assorted marriages, where the wife considers herself superior to the husband; crowds of deplorably needy and ambitious women demanding careers; thousands of unfortunates who sink to poverty and prostitution, and one more cause of the growing mal int. ab< the CBl 3C WE d; 133 depopulation . . . in spite of an encyclopaedic education, . . . the Parisian woman has preserved the great ideal that makes the strength and nobility of woman--i.e., the maternal instinct. . . . Later on the mother is her child's first instructor. If a boy, he must of necessity be soon handed over to others; . . . in such cases it may be an advantage to have taken a learned degree. . . . For her daughters the Parisian woman may care up to the time of their marriage. it is owing to her, and her desire to share as much as possible in her child's life, that courses of lectures ('cours') have been instituted, where she attends with her daughter.‘'3 It must be remembered, however, that universal education for males, as well as for females, represented a challenge to vested interests. Both the working class and their leaders were uncertain about what the content of required education should be.“ Echoing the perceived role of domestic education for women, eighteenth— century church leaders and phil050phers alike had agreed that the purpose of educating the popular classes was to teach them to accept their proper (that is, inferior) place in society. Rousseau was not alone in thinking that "to educate those who must gain their daily bread by manual toil beyond a certain point was not only 45 Proudhon viewed the idea of a unnecessary but dangerous." vocation as a 'petty bourgeois dream.’ Proudhon and A. Corbon recognized the desire for straight-forward scientific information but realized that technical schools, which would replace artisan apprentice— ship, would disclose the artisan's secrets of his trade.”6 As in the case of feminists, there seems to be a total lack of French prints with a theme of educated women, just as will be ‘seen in the case of the professionals who were able to pursue a career as a result of their higher education. Again, as in the case of the illOC YES the W0 134 moderate feminists, women probably preferred this lack of the type of publicity which would single them out as beings different from respectable women. This feeling probably existed even more so in the case of women pursuing higher education at universities. These women appear to have attempted to first accomplish this right quietly because written proclamations existed which stated that they could not attend universities. Printmakers, as in the case of feminists, likely saw nothing visually interesting to depict about these serious women. These serious women would not have been likely to have sparked printmakers' interest. These women were not fashionable aristocratic women who displayed their cleverness at Court. In addition, they even emphatically displayed the fact that they were not promiscuous. Despite universal education being perceived, however, as a threat to vested interests, legislation was introduced in the early nineteenth century . 47 As a result of demands from feminist journals for women's education, the Legislative Assembly of 1848 passed a law in 1850 which made education compulsory for both sexes and established the same rules regarding the establishment of girls' schools as the 1833 Cuizot Law had for boys' schools.Ll8 Cuizot’s Law of 1833 also made intermediate schools obligatory for all towns with above 6,000 inhabitants, although not mentioning anything about girls' schools.149 Providing primary education to girls, however, need not have necessarily resulted in a threat to domestic tranquility; not even to a change from separate spheres since boys' and girls' schools were set the 135 separate entities. Past that point, however, girls were approaching the marriageable age. It is not surprising, therefore, that the pro— ponents of female education past this point stressed the advantages which higher education would bestow on women in their role as future wives. Duruy, in 1867, founded a series of classes (cours) nationally, taught by faculty from lycées and universities in town halls to provide the same instruction for girls as for boys. The girls could attend chaperoned. As a result of Duruy's appeal to Eugenie, she had sent her two nieces since she had no daughter, to the Paris classes.50 Duruy believed in the "ideology of separate spheres and regarded domestic duties as women's essential preoccupation. Developing their minds was a way of turning them into more interesting companions for their husbands and increasing their authority in the family and in 51 By 1870, however, there were only about fourteen of society." these classes. Ten years later, Sée's Law was passed which established State secondary education for girls. The intention of See's Law, like Duruy's cours, however, was still that the outcome of secondary education for females was not the same as for males. Although females pursued the same Baccalauréat studies as males, the awarding of a Baccalauréat, necessary to pursue University studies, was not granted to girls upon successfully finishing their secondary education; they only received 'le diplbme de fin d'études sécondaires.‘ 52 Se’e's intention was to reinforce the ideal of domesticity, . . . the law of 1880 was merely to broaden the cultural horizons of girls in order to make them . . . more capable of taking an intelligent to; lau: hig att hai an of Ur th th 136 interest in the intellectual preoccupations of their husbands. . . . if girls learned about science it was to make them aware of matters such as the influence of the atmosphere on health, the best types of food and clothing for children and how to treat ailments until a doctor could be fetched.53 it was not until 1902 that a reform was passed which allowed females to pursue Baccalauréat studies at boys' lycées and obtain a Bacca— lauréat.54 J Duruy's cours had been attended primarily by females of the highest social classes, probably companions of Eugénie's nieces. Their attendance would have continued the tradition of the aristocracy, who had always supplied their women with tutors of Latin, Greek, poetry, and mathematics so that they would 'shine at court.‘ Their instructors, of course, had to be private tutors because Article 102 of the imperial University stated that "no woman shall be lodged or received within the confines of any lycée or college."55 It was also expected by Sée that females pursuing secondary education would be from at least the upper middle classes; in Paris they were usually from families whose father was a top civil servant or a fairly wealthy businessman. Else- where, however, they came from families whose father was usually lower middle-class; almost one—third from teachers or civil servants and another third from self-employed businessmen. These parents were more interested in their daughters receiving a certificate which would qualify them for employment than a diploma. This resulted in female secondary education becoming vocational in character.56 These are the female graduates, according to Uzanne, who must have realized that they could not rely on husbands to support them. III‘l ment aHowi obedi cate. than be e insh wen den den trai a” cer we me SE a 137 Although Falloux' Law of 1850 had provided for the establish- ment of girls' schools, his law had contained a provision which allowed Roman Catholic school mistresses to present a letter of obedience to the Government in lieu of a qualifying teacher's certifi— cate. As female teachers were probably felt to be more appropriate than male teachers for girls, the only way that primary schools could be established for girls was to allow the former female Catholic instructors to continue to teach girls. The fact that in France there were only nineteen training schools (écoles normales) for women elementary teachers in 1870 illustrates the shortage of qualified female elementary teachers. In 1879 a law was passed which required women's training schools (for female elementary teachers) to be established in all departments. it was then possible, in 1881, to require a qualifying certificate from anyone who wished to teach.57 The fact that by enactment primary and secondary schools were provided for girls only in 1850 and 1880, respectively, does not mean that some primary and secondary schools for girls did not exist before those dates.58 In addition, as early as 1880 both private secular schools and Catholic schools began offering Latin, which allowed girls to prepare for the Baccalauréat and therefore University entrance.59 Proponents of higher education for women also began to stress the advantages which resulted from coeducation. Duruy, writing to rectors of provincial academices, "emphasized that the secular educa- tion of girls would greatly augment the 'moral influence' of the 60 University. " Hippeau, in L'lnstruction publique, described Oberlin, l the as ' 0rd mac Dui mit ma ing to re de 138 the first man's college in the United States which admitted women, as "admirable for its decorum and fellowship.“ He noted the ”perfect order in American schools; . . . The presence of young women had made college men courteous. . . . [in response to] Monsignor Dupanloup, . . . [who] had feared that 'more than one marriage might result'; between professors and students, [he replied,] was marriage, then, such a bad thing?”61 Proponents even began comment- ing favorably on the resulting independence of these women. A report in favor of coeducation stressed the resulting ability of these women to distinguish appearances from realities. Hippeau also noted the resulting abilities of reasoning, self—expression, and mutually tolerant debate at Packer Collegiate institute in Brooklyn Heights, New York. Although Michelet did not advocate that women set up their own businesses, he did praise the commercial classes for involving these women in their businesses. Even the Republicans who represented the vested interest admitted that one value of female education was that it controlled women's disruptive natures.62 This seems to be almost a complete reversal from Uzanne's earlier predictions of what education encouraged in women. Maybe these men realized that women were disruptive when their demands for education were refused. Even more surprising than the existence of primary and secondary schools for females before the State required them is the fact that a Baccalauréat was received before 1880 and that women entered universities before the State required secondary schools. it was believed, however, that the middle-class women who received a higher education would continue to support the status quo and str fac th; ma Ur te B; L‘. 139 strengthen the ranks of the Christian Socialists. in addition, the fact that France opened her universities to women in 1863 only meant that they allowed them to enroll.63 These early women had to, in many cases, pursue their studies without being allowed to attend University lectures. in 1861, Julie Daubié, a Paris primary—school teacher aged thirty-seven, became the first woman to receive a Baccalaureat, although she had to take her examination in Lyon. The Lyon dean of the faculty accepted her 'on his own responsibility' after she was refused in Paris. Her feat was reported as having created 'considerable excitement in the Press and among the general public.‘ She graduated from the Paris Faculty of Arts in 1871.64 in 1868-1869, Madame Brés became the first French woman to enroll at the Paris Medical Faculty. This Faculty, from the beginning, allowed women to attend lectures. in 1881, this Faculty was also the only one to expressly allow women students to take its courses. Madame Brés, who had been a temporary house surgeon in a hospital during the Franco-Prussian War, received her medical degree in 1875.65 interesting accounts document the first women who enrolled in the Faculty of Law, 'one of the last strongholds of the masculine citadel' which 'fell' in 1884.66 Zeldin describes the first woman law student as a ”woman 'of a certain age' who came accompanied by her husband and by the secretary of the faculty, frightened that there might be a scandal."67 Francis Clark includes a description of this woman, Mlle. Chauvin, who entered the Faculty in 1887 and graduated in 1890. In an article written for the feminist newspaper, Le Droit des M. in 1926, Monsieur. I'Hermitte said, Fin: Bea M the for ha re to fr ‘u- 140 1 can see her still as a student coming to attend the classes in law each morning accompanied by her mother. Reserved and unpretentious, 'the woman student,‘ for she was the only one of her kind, arrived always some minutes before the beginning and sat down in her own place in the great lecture—room, in the first bay at the left of the lecturer.68 Finally, in the 18905, French women had Enrolled at the Ecole des Beaux—Arts and the. Ecole des Chartes.69 Although these first female university students were a new type of woman, they escaped printmakers' scrutiny because they, like the moderate feminists, might have been mistaken, at times at least, for acceptable bourgeois women. As determined as these women must have been, they allowed the public and press to describe them as respectable women who were often escorted by mothers or husbands. This wise course of action, of course, attached an air of respectability to their behavior, which must have discouraged the press and artists from depicting them as mannish, part of a third sex, or promiscuous. marr aged Hous Par % Yor CHAPTER V: NOTES 1McMillan, Housewife or Harlot, p. 12. 2The French population contained a higher proportion of married women than in Britain; in 1901, 42% of the French women aged 20-24 were married compared to 25% in Britain. McMillan, Housewife or Harlot, p. 40. 3The number of divorces per number of marriages rose from c. 1/20 of 1% in 1885 to c. 1/10 of 1% in 1900. Clark, The Position of Women in Contemporary France, p. 181. ”Zeldin, Ambition and Love, p. 343. 5McMillan, Housewife or Harlot, pp. 16—17; and Francoise Parturier and Jacqueline Armingeat, Daumier, Lib Women (Blue- stockiggs- and Socialist Women], trans. Howard Brabyn (Paris-New York: Leon Amiel Publisher, lnc., 1974), p. 10. 6Zeldin, Ambition and Love, p. 288. 7lbid. 8|bid., p. 287. glbid. 10Clark, The Position of Women in Contemporary France, pp. 160-170; and Zeldin, Ambition and Love, pp. 289-291. 11Clark, The Position of Women in Contemporary France, pp. 169—170, 244. 12Clark, The Position of Women in Contemporary France, pp. 212-213; and McMillan, Housewife or Harlot, pp. 76—77. 13Parturier and Armingeat, Daumier, PP- 8‘10- 141 139- 3 $35 J.___ 142 1L‘lbid. , p. 134. 15Clark, The Position of Women in Contemporary France, pp. 213—216. 16lbid. 17McMillan, Housewife or Harlot, p. 80. 18Parturier and Armingeat, Daumier, Po 132- 191bid., p. 11. 20McMillan, Housewife or Harlot, p. 86. 21lbid., p. 87. 22lbid., p. 81. 23Phillip Dennis Cate and Susan Gill, Théophile Alexandre Steinlen (Salt Lake City: Gibbs M. Smith, lnc., 1982), pp. 69—72. 2”McMillan, Housewife or Harlot, pp. 82—92. 25McMillan, Housewife or Harlot, pp. 78-96; Zeldin, Politics and Anger, p. 213; and Weisberg, images of Women, p. 7. 26Laver, Modesty in Dress, p. 123. 27Zeldin, Ambition and Love, p. 345; and McMillan, Housewife or Harlot, pp. 81—84. 28lbid. 29McMillan, Housewife or Harlot, pp. 78-96. 3Olbid. 31Zeldin, Ambition and Love, p. 360. 32McMillan, Housewife or Harlot, pp. 76—80. Cambrk The Ra IHStrU Commu SChool but it Were i by adi and d. fl‘0m 1 E3 143 33Katherine Auspitz, The Radical Bourgeoisie (New York: ambridge University Press, 1982), p. 41. 3“ibid., pp. 41-42. 35lbid . , pp. 42-43. 36McMillan, Housewife or Harlot, p. 50. 37lipid. 38McMillan, Housewife or Harlot, pp. 49—51; and Auspitz ERadical Bourgeoisie, p. 42. I 39Duncan, "Happy Mothers." queldin, Ambition and Love, p. 345. mlbid. “mid” pp. 292-293. LBUzanne, Modern Parisienne, pp. 227-231. MZeldin, intellect and Pride, pp. 145-147, 152-153. usMcMillan, Housewife or Harlot, p. 47. 46Zeldin, intellect and Pride, pp. 145—147. “in 1833, a law introduced by Guizot, Minister of Public struction, required every commune or group of neighboring nmunes to set up and maintain at least one elementary (primary) 1ool. Guizot had prepared a section of his Bill for girls' education, t the section was deleted. Despite the fact that boys' schools re insured by legal guarantee in 1833 while girls' schools existed administrative authorization from the Préfect of the Department :1 depended on the initiative of private persons for their creation, »m 1837 to 1840, the number of girls' schools rose to 1130. Clark, e Position of Women in Contemporary France, pp. 113-118. II; inhabita town wi girls. 113-118 mediate interme and lac realizec DP. 12 127; ai Daum \ Pp. Chm EVer in n Ftar \ 144 usGirls' schools were to be established in every town of 800 inhabitants (Falloux' Law). Duruy's Law of 1867 enacted that every town with 500 inhabitants must have at least one State school for girls. Clark, The Position of Women in Contemporary France, pp. 113-118. ngBy 1850, however, there were only about twelve inter- mediate boys' schools. Bardoux' Bill of 1878 devoted a chapter to intermediate schools for girls. However, due to financial difficulties and lack of staff, the impossibility of this being compulsory was realized. Clark, The Position of Women in Contemporary France, pp. 121-122. 50Clark, The Position of Women in Contemporary France, p. 127; and Auspitz, The Radical Bourgeoisie, pp. 41-42. 51McMillan, Housewife or Harlot, p. 49. 52Clark, The Position of Women in Contemporary France, pp. 130-131. 53McMillan, Housewife or Harlot, p. 51. 5”Clark, The Position of Women in Contemporary France, p. 132. 55 McMillan, Housewife or Harlot, pp. 49—52; and Parturier, Daumier, p. 10. 56McMillan, Housewife or Harlot, pp. 49—52. 57Clark, The Position of Women in Contemporary France, pp. 116-119; and McMillan, Housewife or Harlot, pp. 47-50. 58The number of primary schools outside the control of the Church increased from 1014 in 1832 to 1130 in 1840. in 1879, how- ever, Duruy's classes, which had numbered fourteen in 1870, dropped in number to five. Clark, The Position of Women in Contemporary France, pp. 114—115; and McMillan, Housewife or Harlot, pp. 49-53. 59McMillan, Housewife or Harlot, pp. 49—53. 60Auspitz, The Radical Bourgeoisie, p. 42. The Na PP- 4‘ Sorbo 1867, degre hon c Zekfii PP. P- 5 uni 191 nun in Cor 145 61Auspitz, The Radical Bourgeoisie, pp. 44-45; and Hunt, The Natural History of Love, p. 332. 62Auspitz, The Radical Bourgeoisie, p. 45. 63Clark, The Position of Women in Contemporary France, pp. 40-41. 64 in 1864, French women enrolled in Science and Arts at the Sorbonne although they were excluded from lectures until 1880. in 1867, a French woman enrolled in the Paris Faculty of Science for a degree in Mathematics although she was forced to receive her educa- tion outside the Faculty. McMillan, Housewife or Harlot, p. 53; Zeldin, Ambition and Love, p. 344; and Clark, The Position of Women in Contemporary France, p. 50. 65Clark, The Position of Women in Contemporary France, pp. 41-43; and McMillan, Housewife or Harlot, p. 53. 66Clark, The Position of Women in Contemporary France, p. 54. 67Zeldin, Ambition and Love, p. 344. 68Clark, The Position of Women in Contemporary France, p. 55. 69m several instances, foreign women entered French universities a few years before French women. it was not until 1912-1913 that French women totally exceeded foreign women. The number of French women enrolled in universities increased from 139 in 1889 to 2,547 in 1914. Clark, The Position of Women in Contemporary France, pp. 40—75; McMillan, Housewife or Harlot, p. 53; and Zeldin, Ambition and Love, p. 344. a re: ques cert abol whi pro whi acc ma ne fer fr CHAPTER Vl PROST | TUTlON Although the moderate feminists' preoccupation with projecting a respectable image to stress their class demarcation might lead one to question their dedication to the emancipation of women, they were certainly attacking traditional theories when they campaigned for the abolition of regulated prostitution. They were also allying themselves with a totally unrespectable type of woman. The nineteenth century French system of state-regulated prostitution was established because of the following four assumptions which were accepted as fact: (1) Male pre- and extra-marital sex was acceptable; (2) bourgeois females must be virgins at the time of their marriage and not engage in extra-marital sex; (3) a type of female was necessary for the maintenance of assumptions 1 and 2; and (4) these females who supplied sex to males outside marriage must be separated from decent bourgeois families. Dr. A. J. B. Parent du Chételet, 1936, in his De la prostitution dans la ville de Paris conside’re’e sous le rapport de l'hygiene, de la morale et de l'administration, stated that: prostitution was endemic in society, on the one hand because of the permanent nature of the demand and on the other because of the existenceof a morally defective class of women whose propensities for idleness, luxury and debauchery ensured a permanent supply of prostitutes. Prostitutes . . 146 A n\ rw‘ < resp of t pror trol mai to ' at ins 9‘ C6 147 were born rather than made. Since prostitution could never be eliminated, it therefore followed that the authorities had a duty to control it, in order to prevent the spread of disease and infection throughout society.1 The isolation of these women into spheres separate from respectable women was accomplished by placing control in the hands of the Prefect of Police in Paris and with municipal authorities in the provinces; 'enrollment' by the prostitutes being required. These con— trolled houses where they were segregated were referred to as maisons tolérées (tolerated houses). The prostitutes were expected to be confined to a milieu clos in maisons closes. They were to live at the house, conduct their business there, be bi-weekly medically inspected there, assigned to special hospitals, and go to special jails if they did not follow the rules; leaving the house rarely or possibly given one day off per week. However, although by the twentieth century enrollment continued to rise, the number of registered brothels in Paris dropped from 204 in 1855 to 69 in 1888; a similar trend existed in the provinces. Evidently prostitutes were choosing to operate out of 'clandestine brothels.‘ In 1888, the Paris police estimated that these brothels contained approximately 15,000 prosti— tutes.2 Likewise, prostitutes in Paris began rebelling against register— ing as prostitutes.3 As a result of these various estimates and facts, in 1900 Lépine, the Paris prefect of police, authorized maisons de rendez—vous. The females, called filles isolées, or filles insoumises, were not required to register or be inspected and were allowed to work at the'brothel but live outside it. Although this mandate reduced the regulation of prostitution, various other regulations thrOL intro bega its i bett (bot One sing pro res wer prc det wa rwr we ch in 148 throughout France numbered 557 in the 18805, with only 219 being introduced before 1880.4 By mid-nineteenth century the system of regulated prostitution began to be questioned. Various doctors and politicians objected to its inefficient regulation with some doctors feeling that they were better qualified to regulate prostitution. However, some moralists (both male as well as female) felt that the system should be abolished.5 One of the major goals of the moderate feminists was to "obtain a single standard of morality by abolishing the regulated system of prostitution and by making men conform to the standards of sexual respectability demanded of girls and women."6 Two of these feminists were known for their efforts in attempting to provide alternatives to prostitution for these women who Chételet had branded as 'morally defective.I Mme. de Witt—Schlumberger, the granddaughter of Guizot, was involved in attempts to rehabilitate them. Mme. lsabelle Bogelot, who as an orphan had been raised in the household of Maria Deraismes, was president of the Oeuvre des Libe’re’es de Saint-Lazare, which was a charity founded to ”help prostitutes find employment when they were freed from the notorious women's prison."7 Little legislation, however, was passed regarding state— regulated prostitution. in the 18905 regulations were passed regarding financial exploitation of prostitutes in maisons closes. In 1908 a law was passed regarding prostitution by minors, twenty—one being the minimum age allowed in maisons closes. Uzanne, however, noted in 1912 that: ”Mothers who sell their daughters as soon as they reach thirteen or fourteen are unfortunately only too common, and their bear stan (Fit The tot vkl der des 149 bearing as they walk the streets does not escape those who under—— stand these things."8 Uzanne might have been referring to prints by Chahine (Figure 57) or Villon (Figure 58) as he wrote the above statement. These young girls are not like Robbe's young girls who were taken to the Bois for tea. Chahine's young girl is at the promenoire, pro- vided with a brandy-soaked plum just like Manet's 'dressed to kill' demi-monde in The Plum, 1877-78.9 Arwas provides the following description for this print. The promenoire was the area around the bar at the rear of some theatres and music halls, where men went stalking and girls of marginal virtue went hoping to be captured, if only fleetingly and not very lucratively. In this plate Chahine placed a girl at the bar, clothes and ringletted curls intended to make her look very young indeed, waiting, almost desperately. A toper at the bar, a multi- tude of swells and flocks of girls merely emphasize her utter isolation.1O She definitely appears to be wishing she were somewhere away from this crowd. The crowd's lack of interest in her can be interpreted either as an acceptance of a common occurrence or as an avoidance of this type of fate some mothers felt was inevitable for their daughters. One might wonder if the woman seated in black might be her mother. The other bit of interest given to her is by a woman at the left, either in surprise or shock. Another depiction by Chahine of this same woman will be discussed in Chapter VIII. The subject of Villon's print is described as referring to the "years around 1830. This work is one of a number in various media executed around the Bal Monnier whose thesis was a renewed interest in the Romantic Period of the first half of the 19th century."H mom: JCEmJUm Cam 9:5un L200 .tocmEoLd o.._ .mcEmLU cmmpm Km 9.39“. 150 Figure 58. Jacques Villon. Autre Temps: 1830. Drypoint and aquatint, 1904. Vill sta illr tit TI d; 152 Villon's young girl, however, who has the same sort of wistful stare, seems to be thinking of earlier days when she was allowed to play with her hoop. Her mother has placed her so that she will attract the attention of passers-by. Two men and the woman in the upper right—hand corner have noticed her. Perhaps Villon was illustrating the face that Chahine's young girl was merely a continua- tion of a practice which had also existed in the 'Romantic' period. The choice, by mothers, of the 'better of two evils' for their daughters also relates to the ballet, which Legrand devoted two series to and which will be discussed in the next chapter. Uzanne, as an early twentieth century commentator, attributed the increased number of 'part—time' prostitutes to various factors, both sympathetically and sarcastically. The following two statements seem to be contradictory. In his chapter, The Workwomen of Paris, which only included factory-workers, journey women, bakers' assistants, laundresses, florists, needlewomen, dressmakers, errand girls, and milliners, he stated that "60 percent of workers are obliged to give themselves to prostitution in order to live.” In the chapter, Middle—Class Prostitution, he stated: For, strange though it may seem, it is not the working girls who are responsible for the increase in the number of insoumises. It is domestic servants, daughters of lower middle-class families, peasant girls, female teachers unemployed, former pupils of the school of the Legion of Honour at Saint—Denis, orphans, 'divorcées,l and emanci- pated females of all sorts who have not been able to make up their minds to a laborious and well—regulated life.12 This contradiction, however, can be interpreted as an indication that although in the past inadequate employment OPF hac whi emr 6X Dr 153 opportunities, other than prostitution, had existed for women who had to rely on their own resources, even at the present time women who had attempted to train themselves for employment, still found employment opportunities, other than prostitution, inadequate. Other late—nineteenth century critics confirmed Uzanne's explanation that women's low wages forced them into prostitution. Dr. 0. Commenge, in his report, La Prostitution clandestine a Paris, 1897, stated that most prostitutes were not full—time professionals and that from 1878—1887, 31.8% of the arrests of non—registered prostitutes in Paris were domestic servants. The socialist Briquet, as well as other social reformers, also blamed prostitution on the. low wages of women instead of Chatelet's 'morally defective class of women': A woman's wage is only a pittance (un salaire d'appoint): it is fixed in accordance with a calculation which holds as axiomatic that a woman 'must have recourse to someone who helps her.I Normally, this someone is her husband, from which flows women's subjection in marriage: but he is not always the husband, wherein lies the profound immorality in the capitalist regime which not only pushes women into prostitution because of the deplorable conditions of work it imposes on them, but, even worse, speculates on the ability which women workers have to find an addition to their wages in the trafficking of love in order to pay for their labour at a derisory rate.13 Steinlen, who executed a number of paintings and prints in the 18905 which depicted laundresses, was the logical choice for the poster advertising the stage version of L'assommoir (The Bistro], in 1900 (Figure 59). Although in some works he had continued in the tradition of Daumier's laundresses who were trudging 'beasts of burden:,' he also depicted laundresses as pretty, lively young women. The part in the play which was selected for the poster illustrates an My Area: rr Tessie- Wei “1 1’ Figure 59. Théophile Steinlen. The Trap. Color lithograph, 1900. 'I.’ . attr sea was int di\ vir ur of ec 155 attractive young working—class woman being entrapped by brandy— soaked plums and promises of things which she cannot afford on her wages. She is not depicted as 'morally defective' but as being pushed into prostitution. The title implies that she will lose in the end. Uzanne's inclusion of daughters of lower middle-class families and divorcées illustrates that the educational system for women did not pro— vide adequate training for women to support themselves. The resort by unemployed female teachers and former pupils of the school of the Legion of Honour at Saint—Denis illustrates that even if some women pursued the education which was available to them, job opportunities were still not available. However, his description of other part-time prostitutes as 'emancipated females of all sorts who have not been able to make up their minds to a laborious and well—regulated life' was a continuance of Chatelet's type of 'morally defective class of women whose propensities for idleness, luxury and debauchery ensure a permanent supply.‘ Uzanne's chapters on high—class and low—class prostitutes (refer- ring to the status in the profession rather than the class which the women had belonged to) are interesting mainly for the terms which he used to describe the various types, because these terms provide obvious clues for the interpretation of print titles. The different names attached to the high-class prostitute and images representing her have been phryne, hetaera, courtesan, belle petite, tendress, agenouil_lée, horizontale, dégrafe’e, cocotte, and demi-monde/mondaine. Her souteneur was called a female ogress and/or a male lanceur. Traditionally, she was expected to ride in the Bois in a severely simple habit in the tradition of the 14 'hautev école,‘ know about sports, and be a fashion setter. In the cha ODE gir on 'et wt st- CC 156 chapter on low-class prostitutes, the different types included are the old ones who haunt the fortifications, the gigolette with her souteneur (the 'garotter of La Villette or the stabber of Grenelle'), the pseudo-flower girls and workgirls, prostitutes attached to h6tels garnis (boites a femmes) on the Right Bank, waitresses (femmes de brasseries) on the Left Bank, "e’tudiantes' (pseudo models, former workgirls, unemployed ladies' maids) who replaced the former Left Bank grisette, and the 'lady of the window.‘15 Steinlen, as in the case of laundresses, did not present one stereotyped view of the lower—class prostitute. Although the young couple in Figure 60 appears innocent enough, they are actually part of a series of 'pimps and prostitutes lolling about the Parisian fortress walls' which Steinlen executed for a series of journal covers for Bruant's journal, Le Mirliton, in the 18805. (Bruant, originally a 'chansonnier populaire,‘ at the Chat Noir cafe-concert, later established his own café— concert and journal, Le Mirliton.) Steinlen's series, like Bruant's songs, were of the street people of Montmarte. Although the title, The Gold— brickers should provide a hint of the actual subject, one of the later covers carries the innocent title, idyll. In a later print (Figure 61), the woman is no longer young and pretty, although her pimp does not have seemed to have changed, even to the cigarette hanging out of his mouth. The 'couple,' engulfed in darkness, peer out with glowing eyes like predatory cats. Even her nose has taken on a shape similar to that of a lion or tiger. In fact, the 'Goldbricker' is probably one of Steinlen's more attractive depictions of prostitutes. In 1893, Steinlen provided the illustration (Figure 62) for a Bruant song which appeared in the weekly literary supplement (Gil Blas Illustré) to the daily newspaper, Gil Bias. 157 Dauximm'ANs-es .— N‘ 2! PMIX : 10 l:r2NTl\1l.~ I; Min-1mm: H84 Le Mirlito PAIIISSII‘I LE l" [T LE 16 DE CHIOUE IDIS Putin. an In. 5 fr, — Bin-rain - Knullflll‘l! limlr»-lmu:rl. M an rxlun‘l .Iu - ll.“ tun - .2 ln-jmrla'u-nll. us: In . 6 fr. Ill‘/I:.(-ti-iir m rlu'f: I'll'r'r‘lr'm' .' .S'I'i-rlilru'w' (ll- ['1 R-v/uclivm: CAMlLlJ-Ilil-ZSAINTE-CIUHX ARlSTlDE BRUANT (iii-mum f‘ni'lx'r'uiw. Les DOS, par JEAN GAILLOU _ Si on puurruit vivri- Inuli- Sn \‘ie «'Hmm" 4:11. on pvnsi-ruit juumi~ 11 Tam: di-s mules i-uups. Figure 60. Théophile Steinlen. The Goldbrickers. Photorelief, 1886. ‘fW—n .— 158 Figure 61. Théophile Steinlen. Girl and Pimp. Color Aquatint, 1898. IIL Figure 62. Théophile Steinlen. Photorelief, 1893. in. h.-.—.h.u‘.—b --¢~ “WEE-Mk A's son! dea ms Ou'om pus d‘appas D qui n‘out p35 L'sou (has 12w has. Pier-raises . muwscs. A's mardmm 1‘ soil. Quand 11 hit noir, Sur la vomit». I] In ch'rcux (rises. Les Finds uses. Pierreuscs. Trotteuses. A’s mart/hem l' soir. Quand i] fail mir. Sur la lroltoir. Ill A's will nonun' gs. Pam. par-ii. En applanl l'ae Mourqui s'en ra. A's Darrin-n1 l‘suu Guam! 1! fail noir. Sn: 1: lrouoir. Mum) A's onl pus d' tam. Car 1: daopin N‘est pas rup'm” C'est du lapin. Pimeuscz. Trotteuses. A's min-chem. l' sou. Ouand 1] Trail 001:. Si: 10 Hollow. A’s onl pus (1' led A's pri'm 1' hon Dian. (h’ est uu hon lieu, D’ chaufi'cr Ieur pjeu. Pierreusee. Trotteuses. A's marched! I' spit, Quand 11 (art uo'Lr, Sur la Lruilorr, VJ Christ nu: yeux dom. Qu‘as moi-t pour nons. Chaufl‘ la terre ous- Qu'on [zit leurs Imus. Pierreuses. Troileuses. A's marchem I' 50111 Quand il fail mir, Sur la tronoir. The Street Walkers . Th sel clL lTlL 160 These older prostitutes are unsuccessfully attempting to fend for them— selves. Depicted with a gaunt face and body, the main one is shown clutching desperately at the well-fed passerby. In actuality, Steinlen must have associated darkness with prostitutes, as depicted in Figures 61 and 62, and yet another print, Figure 63. Like the woman in Figure 61, the crafty arch-backed woman with the pointed ears who is eyeing us has feline features. Like a cat, she may be cornered but she has not given up. Cate and Gill recount Steinlen's love for cats and a correlation in his depictions of cats and women, with his alley cats and prostitutes sharing common qualities.16 Steinlen's use of the term 'filles' instead of 'femmes' is related to the familiar usage of filles as being also interpreted as a term for prostitutes. The main concern of this chapter is Uzanne's description of the middle—class clandestine prostitute because depictions of these women illustrate the extent to which printmakers were reinterpreting the theme of prostitution. The unregistered prostitute (interchangeably called the clandestine prostitute or fille insoumise) constituted the main part of middle—class prostitution. As these prostitutes appeared respectable and were seen everywhere (hotels, restaurants, sh0ps, railway stations, the Louvre, the Luxembourg, theatres, cafe-concerts, and in pseudo— shops, private bars, or arranged rooms) 17 the question of whether the intent of the artist was the depiction of respectability or prostitution can often be guessed only by a reference to the types of places where a respectable woman would not be seen and sometimes by reference to the type of people the artist depicted. These slight modifications were quite obviously contrasts, however, to depictions such as the painting 161 Figure 63. The’ophile Steinlen. Dispute de Filles. Lithograph, 1895. 162 included as Figure 12 in Chapter II and printmakers elaborated on the activities which these women participated in which were assumed to be unacceptable for respectable women. Although Cate and Gill mention that Steinlen was the only artist to depict the theme of 'pimps and prostitutes lolling about the Parisian fortress walls,‘ the male in one print by Legrand (Figure 64) almost seems to be a type which Legrand might have borrowed from Steinlen to represent a pimp. The men have similar unbuttoned loose jackets with upturned collars and berets although Legrand has substituted a pipe for the cigarette. With his legs arranged similarly to Steinlen's 'Goldbricker,' he seems to be blocking passage to his 'property;' only until proper arrangements have been made, of course. Legrand used this type in another bar scene which included a ballerina. Although Legrand may not have meant this man or the man with the young ballerina to be pimps, the title, Sportsman, connotes some sort of sport or game, possibly that of 'womanizing.' Even though these women are much more fashionable than Steinlen's, respectable women probably did not frequent bars around the turn of the century. Respectable women began to be taken to restaurants by the turn of the century, but they most likely did not go without their husbands or escorts, as the woman has in the print by Jean Forain, 1852-1931 (Figure 65) . This pretty, fashionable young woman seems to be weighing the pros and cons of either an empty plate or the favors of the 'upright' well-fed man next to her. Her empty table with the plate pushed to the side is contrasted to his table with 163 Drypoint. Sportsman. S 3.8.x». it Louis Legrand. Figure 64. b0 58' to 164 bottles and his plate placed in front of him, in preparation to being served. The title of another print by Forain (Figure 66] must refer to one of the 'arranged' rooms which clandestine prostitutes used. It is difficult to tell whether the women are dressing or undressing. They appear to be in a chemise and a corset. Maybe the elaborate hat was the woman's payment. Legrand titled one of his prints depicting prostitutes, Digestion (Figure 67). The title implies satire or humor, with several possibilities being suggested: (1) in contrast to the satisfied man leaning back smoking a cigar, the woman is having trouble digesting what is expected of her in return for her meal, or (2) she is an arranged finale, similar to a good cigar, that is provided as the finishing touch to a good meal. Although her rather loose, flowing clothes seem to be rather suggestive, the theme of this print is less blatant than an earlier print (Figure 68). The blonde in this print in her state of undress and attention to her companion /customer more nearly suggests an arranged room. Rather strangely, Legrand included a second woman, properly dressed and tossing a salad. What could be a better example of the satire on bourgeois decadence! These private bars must have interested Legrand because he executed another one in 1911 (Figure 69). In this print, the three foreground figures must be entertainers and the row of figures in mid—ground also entertainers, with the spectators shown at the top. There seem to be both men and women in the audience. The two women, who are resting before their performance, have casually crossed their legs, revealing their shoes, tights, and legs. It appears that the performer is in the act of removing her hat. 165 . . ' L " 3 - ‘~ ‘ - 1t;"‘°.‘1~ . . . . ._ ' xx Figure 65. Jean Forain. Au Restaurant. Lithograph. Figure 66. Jean Forain. Le Cabinet Particulier. Lithograph. .oEF .chmZom pcm HEOQTCQ .Cofimoma .Ucmcmmfi £304 .3 8:9”. 166 452 dcrmsqm Lo_oU .mcsodsom .3 9.39m .23 .E_oo_>c__o ocm Esmsom .mcEBm .3 6:39.. 230.. .3 83me /\rl ,. ,HRVT- law} _ 168 . Y 7...... i ,, . / th 169 What else constitutes the performance Legrand has left for us to guess. Of course, the lone woman in an elaborate hat in a print by Forain (Figure 70) would immediately have been classified as a prostitute, since ladies were not taken to gambling or billiard houses. Continuing the tradition of separate spheres for good and bad women, "Billiards and gambling at cards were fashionable pastimes for dandies 18 Villon executed a more and the lorettes who accompanied them.‘l interesting print showing a prostitute engaged in a card game (Figure 71). Although she is evidently killing time by playing cards, her outfit consisting of a hat and lingerie seems to be a rather strange combination. Her dog appears to know that her customer has arrived. Of course, her hat could merely mean that she has just arrived home or is shortly leaving, but the print might also be a spoof on women who think that a hat could automatically place one in a particular class. The print, Tout Paris, and Uzanne's description of the mutual envy of the courtesan and the married lady for the other's type of liberation illustrate the difficulty of distinguishing what type of woman was being depicted in some prints at the end of the nine teenth century. Although it is debatable whether prostitution was a means of liberation, one attraction of the profession was the h0pe of obtaining an immediate large sum of money easily, and therefore becoming liberated from the necessity of working at that profession.19 One can assume that the public interpreted prints depicting employed women in the late nineteenth century as having connotations of prostitution because reports by people such as Commenge were 170 Figure 70. Jean Forain. A la Table de Jeu. Etching. 171 Figure 71. Jacques Villon. Les Cartes. Color aquatint, 1903. 172 publicly known. There was even a pamphlet published, Guide rose, which listed the pseudo—shops or café's where the employed women were provided for prostitution.20 Additionally, however, the print tradition of interchanging the classifications of prostitution and employed women was popular in the early part of the nineteenth century. These prints appeared in Physiologies of social types. Louis Huart, in his Physiologje de la Grisette, described the grisette as: "A young girl of sixteen to thirty years old who works all week, and has fun on Sundays. Her job: she would be a seamstress, a florist, a glovemaker, a milliner.” Charles Philipon, one of the early depicters of grisettes, illustrated this ”hard work most working class girls endured in Paris and the great temptation to use their good looks as a way to some easy money." As early as 1830, prints depicting laundresses might be titled Grisettes. One modiste (milliner) print, 1829, in a suite titles Les Tentations du diable (The Temptations of the Devil) is captioned 'Nous sommes bien betes de travailler, c'est bon pour les laiderons!‘ (We're really stupid to work like this, it's all right for the ugly ones!) In 1857, Gavarni included this caption for his print La Blanchisseuse (The Laundress]: "Est-ce que les carabiners seraient des farceurs?" (Could the employers be deceivers?)21 A number of other inferences were drawn which classified seemingly respectable subjects into scenes depicting prostitutes. Besides the questionable pseudo-shops, private bars, and arranged rooms, Uzanne mentioned a number of areas in Paris which were con— 22 sidered favorite areas for clandestine prostitutes. Depictions of 173 unescorted women in these areas would therefore have been assumed to be depictions of prostitutes. Of course, prints depicting women at known houses of procuresses were depictions of prostitutes. Beatrice Farwell notes that the bourgeois—appearing fashionable women in prints of the 18305—19405 at band concerts in the Tuileries, race tracks, and the rue de Longchamp were actually meant to be inter- preted as prostitutes. In addition, depictions of picnics on the Seine, especially at Asniéres, possibly represented prostitutes.23 One could probably assume that prints depicting fashionably dressed women by rivers and lakes, especially if accompanied by their daughters, such as Robbe depicted, represented respectable women. However, as nineteenth century France seems to have been so pre- occupied with the preservation of separate spheres for 'bad' and 'good' women, one is tempted to question every print, no matter how innocent or respectable it appears. The danger, of course, is getting completely carried away with far—fetched guesses. Farwell's inter- pretation of early nineteenth century prints depicting women picnick- ing on the Seine, however, might lead one to assume that those popular prints might have been prototypes for Robbe to follow in his depictions of 'not-so—respectable' women by rivers and lakes, such as Figures 72 and 73. The charming young woman in Figure 72 may be just crossing the stream but respectable women probably would not be shown sprawled out on a bank as in Figure 73. Of course, the women in Figure 73 have not abandoned respectable behavior to the extent that the partially dressed woman has in Figure 74. The title Springtime implies an awakening or birth in some aspect. She 174 Figure 72. Manuel Robbe. Le Ruisseau. Color aquatint and drypoint, c. 1900. Figure 73. Manuel Robbe. Soir d'Ete. Color aquatint and etching, c. 1906. 175 Figure 74. Manuel Robbe. Le Printemps. Color aquatint and etching, c. 1902. Figure 75. Soir Amical. Color aquatint and etching, 1905. 176 also appears to be looking at someone. Although the bathing party depicted in Figure 75 might have been an arranged entertainment at a private estate, as suggested by the 'fountains,' it might instead be a depiction of lesbians, a subject which although popular at the time, has not been included in this paper. Two prints by Legrand (figures 76 and 77), which were mentioned in comparison to his bicycling print (Figure 44 in Chapter IV), show young girls, unchaperoned by their mothers, relaxing by the seaside. Legrand, like Chahine, however, had realized that prostitution began at an early age. The intent of Figures 76 and 77 was probably close to the intent of Figures 73 and 74. A similar composition to Figure 73 can be seen in Figure 76, as well as in Figure 74 compared to Figure 77. The young girl in Figure 77, who is sprawled out like the woman in Figure 74, reveals bare legs in contrast to the woman's frilly pantaloons. Even if that was not the intent of these depictions, the bourgeois public would have viewed unchaperoned girls, as they had unchaperoned bicyclists, as engaging in inappropriate activities. Like Chahine's young girl, however, they are young and appealing in their be—ribboned youthful outfits which were made complete by large straw hats with ribbons. Uzanne also mentioned a type of high-class clandestine prostitution, arranged by procuresses and keepers of maisons de rendez-vous, which actively sought respectable married middle-class women who had spent beyond their husbands' means. This rumor of prostitution by middle-class women was confirmed in a recent survey.2Ll As the main customers of clandestine prostitutes were married men25 177 .82 Eadie pcm 9:55 .885; < 6:28.. 223 .E 83mm (3558 .33. N S liil...rH.lr\..Hi.ri\.i i I‘ll . .3. \Tfii \\\ Q I it I]! . . . l i .RN. 0L3®_u_ rlrrllllllr .8283 233 3 .33 .E_oq>c__o UCm .mcEBw #53291 {52 5 up pcom < 178 179 and even respectable married women resorted to prostitution, this is an ironic twist to Proudhon's theory of separate spheres. Uzanne even noted that one libertine rake estimated that one—third to forty percent of the unchaperoned young women "along the boulevards . of Paris . . . are adventuresses . . . those whose bearing is modest, whose manner is virtuous, and whose composure is all but middle-class."26 Apparently, if one can believe Uzanne's libertine rake, even the bourgeois wives who were expected to get out of the house to shop and be objects of display ran the danger of being mistaken for one of those adventuresses. Robbe's deliberate juxta- position of one woman in the foreground to a group of women in the near distance in Figure 78 seems to encourage one to contrast the two types of women which one might meet on the boulevards in early twentieth—century Paris. Although the foreground woman seems to be more flamboyantly dressed; as has been mentioned, there was a fierce competition between respectable and not—so—respectable women in the battle for the lead in fashion—setting. Like the Tout Paris poster, one cannot tell the two types of women apart. Early nineteenth~century printmakers of 'popular images' had responded to their public's demand for images which depicted the different aspects of the ‘irreplaceable' demi-monde. She was alternately a cute working—girl, a lithographic pin—up girl, and an evil temptress. However, one of these printmakers, Gavarni, expanded the theme of prostitution in the 18505 in his series, Les Lorette vieillies, which depicted the ultimate outcome of ‘fading beauties.‘ Farwell includes in her introduction the following Figure 78. 180 Manuel Robbe . Femmes sur les Boulevards. Color aquatint and drypoint, c. 1906. :3,“ 181 development of the concept of modern life depiction. Journals such as La Caricature and Le Charivari which contained lithographs illustrating political subjects were successful. After censorship increased, Le Charivari and the artists connected with this journal These popular turned to 'satirical commentary on society in general.’ illustrations also began to be issued as albums such as Gavarni's Les Lorettes and de Beaumont's Les Jolies femmes de Paris. These albums as well as the Physiologies of social types (18305—18405) and the nine- volume Les Francais peints par eux-mémes (The French Painted by Themselves), 1840-1842, documented the urban realities of common visual experience. In pictures as in words, the French people 'en masse' enjoyed Urban types from milliners to rag— seeing themselves. . . . are lovingly described; the entertainment of pickers . . . crowds and the small pleasures of happy mothers in the comfortable French 'intérieur' offer a myth of contentment belied only by the soCial probing of Daumier and the later Gavarni. But above all, 'Ia Parisienne,’ the adorable, mythical woman of every man's dreams, is found in every role. .27 Although these popular commercial images were not 'acknowledged by the world of high art,I they provided examples for Courbet, Manet, and Degas' races, the ballet, the bathing women, the milliners and laundresses, and above all the erotic monotypes. . . . Neither Degas' elitism nor his reputed misogyny was sufficient to prevent his undeniablelink with the popular that was shared with all of those at odds with the pre- tensions of Salon painting. . It is naive to suppose that Degas was unaware of Gavarni's and Beaumont's 'rats' behind the scenes at the Ope’ra, since they appeared every day in Le Charivari. . ‘Thus we see in Impressionist painting . . . all purged by Impressionist color and sun- light of their evil and erotic connotations to be sure, but essentially the same repertory as that of the commercial lithographer of a generation earlier. Political change and the example of Courbet had urged upon young artists 182 the rejection of older elitist standards and the embracing of the popular for its value as an emblem of republicanism or of a stance even farther to the left. . It was probably not for love of 'the people' that these creators took the paths they did, . It was in the name of creative freedom from stifling convention, in the name of real rather than counterfeit emotions, and in recognition of a permanently altered world that these artists spoke, by making art out of the trash discarded or disdained by the society in whose interests it was made.28 Although Farwell describes the early popular images as appealing to the masses, illustrations which had erotic connotations were also popular in newspapers which appealed to the respectable upper classes. With its original sub-title, "'the elegant life, topics of the day, fantasies, travel, theatre, music, fine arts, sport and fashion;' it [La Vie Parisienne] attempted to provide mild relaxation for those with too much Ieisure.’l Unless husbands censored the newspaper before their wives saw it, these women read and saw illustrated women's fashions and the latest gossip as well as the 29 depictions of the included topics dealt with in 'a titillating way.‘ Manet, as one of the first Salon artists to deal with modern urban actualities in their totality, must have taken into account this aware- ness of modern life even by respectable women. Less surprising then is his hope that these same Salon-goers would accept these depictions as paintings of high art. The large and ever increasing number of various types of Dart-time prostitutes in late nineteenth century Paris was matched by arge numbers of varied types of prints depicting them. Print— makers illustrated society's belief that to maintain the accepted riteria of separate spheres in the bourgeois milieu, prostitutes were # j 183 needed, not 'Bluestockings.’ Although printmakers also continued the tradition of the early popular images by depicting prostitutes as cute but evil, printmakers such as Chahine, Legrand, and Steinlen, following Gavarni's example, also depicted the prostitute as a by- product of late nineteenth century stratified society. These artists, in their feeling that art must relate to modern life, produced prints for their shock value and in some cases to illustrate the need for social reform. The blurring of the appearances of respectable and not-so-respectable women was also recorded by printmakers in another type of print. A number of printmakers seem to have preferred to represent prostitutes in daily activities similar to those of respectable Similar to Degas' 'intimate glimpses' are Robbe‘s and married women. Toulouse-Lautrec's women who are shown attending to their toilette. Weisberg credits this increased concentration on prostitutes to the fact that they continued to increase in number during the nineteenth century. Since prostitutes supplied an ever—available supply of models for artists, their world is one which artists might get to know and also be in a position to note that prostitutes were now available for a large number of the middle-class instead of just for the aristo- :rats as in the Second Empire. These prostitutes were different. These women of the streets came from homes where the had been unable to adapt to urban life. The life of the common prostitute was recorded as a pathetic existence . . . nurtured by an urban society unwilling or unable to deveIOp other means of providing a living for many young woman . 30 Rooted in the reality of the urban scene, artists selected the theme of prostitution as an alternative to the imaginary woman used to create dreams of escape or to 184 entice members of the middle class to purchase new objects. The prostitute became a constant reminder to compassionate artists that the emancipation of women was a long and arduous task which would not be accomplished without changing traditional attitudes toward women. . . . Print- makers who, on the one hand, responded to the new fashions of the decade—-with pictures of elegant women in new settings--contrasted this view with the presence of the urban prostitute in order to show society in flux. To printmakers, the prostitute became in essence, a symbolic figure reflecting the restricted opportunities for women to achieve personal emancipation, as suggested in the literature and the advertising of this venal era.31 Toulouse-Lautrec's women, of course, were all performers or prostitutes. Three of his prints (Figures 79-81) are from his Elles series, a series of ten lithographs with a frontispiece: The Elles, save one, are occupants of various Paris brothels, where Lautrec took up residence from time to time between 1892 and 1895. He acquaints us uncritically with the domestic routines of his intimates. We see them at ease, resting, grooming, washing, dressing. There is little hint of a sordid environment or their seamier tasks. . Yvette Guilbert once asked Lautrec frankly whether he lived in a house of prostitution to hide from his creditors. He burst out laughing and replied that he lived in a brothel in order to 'comprehend prostitution and . . . to understand the sentimental anguish of the poor creatures, servants of Love. He was their friend, their adviser, their consoler, never their judge.‘ (Yvette Guilbert, Chanson de ma Vie.) As Jean Adhémar has written, 'the notion that the fille is a woman like any other, and that her life is very simpTeT was very dear to Lautrec. He insisted on the point at length in conversations with friends, and he came back to it at every opportunity. The title alone of the Elles suite nicely conveys his conception, for in the literature of the times the word Elles connotes all women; for him woman thus embodies the ones that he pictures here. When he entered the fashionable world, at a dance on the rue de la Faisanderie for example, he said to a friend: 'My friend, being here is like being in a brothel .'3 Arwas notes that he spent time at the brothels because he detected in prostitutes "feelings and sensitivities he believed 'honest' women lacked.“33 Although the women in Figures 80—81 are depicted as Figure 79. Figure 80. Figure 81. 185 Henri de Toulouse—Lautrec. Color lithograph, 1896. Hen ri de Toulouse—Lautrec . Color lithograph, 1896. Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. Color lithograph, 1896. Femme au Corset, Femme qui se Peigne. Femme au Tub. 186 Figure 79 Figure 80 Figure 81 187 engaged in ordinary activities, the male in Figure 79, of course, would be interpreted as being a client. Lautrec's 'ordinary women' are not even particularly attractive. The public would have known that Lautrec was trying to show that prostitutes were just ordinary women who practiced an unfortunate profession; with Robbe, they might have been undecided. After all, he also portrayed fashionable women and even his wife, as Helleu had. Some of his prints of partially clothed women have titles which suggest that the subject was that of artists' models or semi-nudes. Others which depict women at their toilette could have been either wives or prostitutes, making of them creatures of love, which kept them in their 'natural' place. Robbe portrayed his women more attractively than Lautrec did and often in a greater state of undress. He seemed to have had a bottom fetish. Although his depiction of an 'elle' (Figure 82) might have been inspired by Lautrec's 'elles' (Figure 83), instead of being a playful wife, is probably his 'clever' interpretation of a prostitute. One almost wonders if Robbe was setting up comparisons between bourgeois wives and prostitutes. Figure 84 is a traditional type of print depicting a prostitute being visited by a client. However, six years later he depicted a similar looking woman in a similar pose (Figure 85) without a client and therefore ambiguous in its classification of the type of woman represented. Of course he also executed prints which we would automatically classify as that of prostitutes, such as Figure 86. 188 Figure 82. Manuel Robbe. Nu 5e Coiffant. Color aquatint and drypoint, c. 1906. Figure 83. Manuel Robbe. La Bibliothecaire. Color aquatint and drypoint, 1906. 189 2 8 e r. U .mu F 3 8 e r U .9 F 190 Figure 84. Manuel Robbe. Visite Matinale. COKN‘aquatkfi and euflfing, 1901. Figure 85. Manuel Robbe. Petit Miroir. Color aquatint and drypoint, c. 1907. 191 Figure 86. Manuel Robbe. Femme au repos. Etching. 192 It has also been suggested that these artists objectively depicted the life of prostitutes because they wished to illustrate the need for reform. Although Manet's apparent rejection of separate spheres may have been based on his belief that art should be true to modern life rather than a belief that his paintings would aid in social reform, his paintings could have been a powerful example for later artists to follow. Anne Coffin Hanson suggests that although Manet chose to depict his model Victorine boldly confronting spectators in De’jeuner sur l'herbe to illustrate "those elements in the real world which propriety dictated were to be kept out of public sight" or a "flaunting of public morals," he was just as concerned with another type of separate sphere. "What better answer to the double standard which allowed the warm appreciation of the Salon _V__e_n_u_s_ but banned the mention of an ankle from polite conversation, than to make a picture which would ask the spectator if he even dared to look?"34 Zola acknowledged that Manet was well aware of the conditions of young working girls and that he chose to illustrate it when he painted Olympia. In 1866-67, Zola wrote of this awareness: "Manet asked himself, why lie, why not tell the truth; he makes us recognize Olympia, that girl of our day whom you meet on the sidewalks and 35 who hugs her thin shoulders in a scanty shawl of faded wool." Various artists were mentioned in Chapter II, The Bourgeois Woman, who were handled by the major dealers in prints for the middle class. Of these artists, only Helleu dealt exclusively with the fashionable elite. Robbe, Chahine, and Villon seem to have been following the tradition of Manet in being interested in all types of 193 people to be found in modern Paris. Some of the artists mentioned seem to have purposely excluded the upper classes from their art. These artists, in addition to being handled by respectable dealers, subscribed to anarchist or socialist views and submitted work to publications which were anarchist, socialist, radical, or which had strong proletarian views. These artists included lbels, Steinlen, Toulouse—Lautrec, Forain, Vallotton, Luce, and Willette.36 The conscious effort by these artists, to represent the con- temporary lower class and therefore aid in social improvement by pointing out the failures which had accompanied progress, was a continuance from the late eighteenth century of the recognition by some critics that art was to serve a new purpose. As the number of social treatises and statistical studies increased by mid-nineteenth century, this need was recognized by some people as increasingly important. After 1885, some art changed from merely recording and illustrating the conditions of the masses to guiding the masses. With this social radicalism, the artist became a political activist, his art propaganda or social protest; message becoming one of the require- ments of his art.37 Theophile Thore advocated an 'art for man—~an art of images that imbued the worker with a sense of honest labor and dignity.I Popular journals sponsored by radical editors advocated that the artist, like the worker, was a victim of capitalist society, and that the artist should join the movement of revolt on the side of the pro- letariat. In 1886, Gustave Kahn wrote about the stagnant state of contemporary French society in which the bourgeoisie blocked all that 194 was new in art and ideas. In the 18905, syndicalists, anarchists, and socialists variously stated that 'the artist had been forced to choose between becoming a lackey of bourgeoise society and a victim of it.| They felt the need to bring the proletariat in contact with art. Many artists, feeling themselves victims of society, began to identify with the working class. Both groups illustrated that in the late nineteenth century strong anti-bourgeois feelings coexisted with bourgeois ideals. These artists, who often worked as illustrators out of necessity as well as political leanings, were provided with the inexpensive medium of lithography which also provided their public with 'pictures of some sort.'38 In 1881, after France passed a law granting freedom of press, magazines and newspapers were expected to interpret contemporary life, both the conditions of the common man and the injustices of the bourgeoisie. Artists began to variously criticize the status quo, satarize the decadence of the bourgeois, or illustrate calls to revolt and visions of the future.39 The aim of the moderate feminists and selected printmakers was to demonstrate that there were not well—defined separate spheres for respectable and not—so-respectable women. Liberation for all women involved a re-evaluation of the traditional expectations imposed on respectable behavior. The question of whether these depictions were of prostitutes or not reveals that women's mobility had increased so that the savory and unsavory mingled in the streets, shops, and vacation spots with a new and fascinatingly modern sense of the unsure. This allowed images to often be read in two ways—~as a 195 charming fashion plate of modern life or to the worldly a piquant subterfuge. Of course, artists probably also found that the new types of women who could not be easily classified were more interest- ing. Even being not particularly attractive could hold a certain charm, or at least some reality. In addition to printmakers present- ing the theme of prostitutes in a more sympathetic and enlightened vein, they began to document the increasing acceptance of performers and ;,working women as respectable (which may not seem to us to be obvious depictions of morally corrupt women). The inclusion in this chapter of some prints as being images of prostitutes is for the purpose of illustrating how the late nineteenth-early twentieth century public would have viewed these images in the light of earlier popular images and late nineteenth-early twentieth century research and reports. However, as the public seemed to be slowly changing its perceptions regarding respectability, prints depicting performers and working women have been included in Chapters VII and VIII instead of this chapter, even though these women often had to resort to prostitution as a possible supplemental means of employment. CHAPTER VI: NOTES 1McMillan, Housewife or Harlot, p. 21. 2lbid., pp. 21—22; Uzanne, Modern Parisienne, p. 196; and Zeldin, Ambition and Love, pp. 307—308. 3"In the 18505 it was estimated that London had about 24,000 prostitutes but Paris, with almost half the population, was said to have 34,000.“ Zeldin, Ambition and Love, p. 307. In Paris, between 1878 and 1887, 6,842 non-registered prostitutes were arrested. McMillan, Housewife or Harlot, p. 22. ”In the years 1871—1903, some 155,000 women registered as prostitutes [over 4,000/year] but the police arrested 725,000 others [over 20,000/year] suspected of prostitution.” Zeldin, Ambition and Love, p. 308. In the 18905, there was a table published which indicated that there were c. 15,000 non—registered prostitutes practicing in 'hétels garnis,I c. 2,000 in shops, c. 20,000 in rooms of their own, and c. 3,000 at public balls and 'cafes—chatants' (c. 40,000 total). In the early twentieth century, it was estimated that there were c. 60,000 non—registered prostitutes. Uzanne, Modern Parisienne, pp. 189-208. ”Zeldin, Ambition and Love, pp. 307—308. 5McMillan, Housewife or Harlot, pp. 22—25. 6|bid., p. 89. 7|bid., p. 88. 8McMillan, Housewife or Harlot, pp. 22-25; and Uzanne, Modern Parisienne, pp. 194-195, 201. 9Gabriel P. Weisberg, ”Manet and Modern Paris,” Art News 82(6) (Summer 1983): 117. 10Arwas, Belle Epoque, p. 72. HJacques Villon (Chicago: R. S. Johnson International, 1978), . 22. p 196 197 12 Uzanne, Modern Parisienne, pp. 88, 191—192. 13McMillan, Housewife or Harlot, pp. 21—22, 68—69. 1 4Uzanne, Modern Parisienne, pp. 209-215. 15ibid., pp. 177-188. 16 . . Cate and Gill, Steinlen, pp. 36-38, 72-74, 85-87, 134. 17Uzanne, Modern Parisienne, pp. 189-208. 18Farwell, The Cult of Images, p. 65. 19Uzanne, Modern Parisienne, pp. 192-193. 20Zeldin, Ambition and Love, p. 309. 21Farwell, The Cult of Images, pp. 54, 103. 22Uzanne, Modern Parisienne, pp. 180—186, 205. 23Farwell, The Cult of Images, pp. 67, 74, 76. quzanne, Modern Parisienne, pp. 189—208; and Zeldin, Ambition and Love, p. 309. 25Uzanne, Modern Parisienne, p. 191. 26lbid., pp. 199—200. 27Farwell, The Cult of Images, pp. 7-12, 101—128. 28rpid., pp. 13—15. 29Zeldin, Taste and Corruption, p. 369. 3OWeisberg, Images of Women, pp. 21—22, 31—32. 31ibid., p. 32. ’3 3“ “Theodore B. Donson and Marvel M. Griepp, Great Lithographs by Toulouse— Lautrec (New York: Dover Publications, Inc. 1982), p. xiv. 33Arwas, Belle Epoque, p. 92. 3“Anne Coffin Hanson, Manet and the Modern Tradition (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1977), pp. 94-95. 35ibid., p. 100. 36Eugenia W. Herbert, The Artist and Social Reform (New Haven: Yalle University Press, 1961), pp. 182-195; and Gabriel P. Weisberg, Social Concern and the Worker: French Prints from 1830— 1910 (Salt Lake City: Utah Museum of Fine Arts, 1973), pp. 31—32. 37 Weisberg, The Realist Tradition, pp. 1—7; and Weisberg, Social Concern and the Worker, p. 31. 38Weisberg, Social Concern and the Worker, p. 13; and Herbert, The Artist and Social Reform, pp. 23—25, 66, 104. 39Cate and Gill, Steinlen, p. 11; Herbert, The Artist and Social Reform, pp. 189—195; and Weisberg, Social Concern and the Worker, p. 31. CHAPTER VII ARTISTS, BLUESTOCKI NGS, AND WOMEN OF THE THEATRE During the second half of the nineteenth century, women who were in the arts had to combat the concept of separate spheres in several respects. Artists and bluestockings were classified as rebelling against Rousseau's concept of woman's 'natural state' while women of the theatre combated Proudhon's concept of women being either 'housewives or harlots.I In addition to relying on Uzanne's book, Modern Parisienne, for a description of men's reactions to women entering men's 'separate spheres' of activity, I have borrowed the titles of two of his chapters for the title of this chapter. Uzanne's whole book, however, is a perfect representation of Rousseau's eighteenth century concept of women's natural state. His preoccupation with feminine spheres, is illustrated in his chapter, Sporting and Strong-— Minded Women: "But in considering masculine women where is one to end? We begin with Mme. Dieulafoy and finish with the sage-femme” (fn. 40, Chapter IV). As mentioned previously in the areas of legal status and education, the concept of domesticity as woman's natural state was partially a reaction to earlier women's spheres of activity: According to the Goncourt brothers, the chroniclers of 18th— century womanhood, an over—intellectualized monstr05ity developed in the 18th century among certain women. of the upper classes. EXcessively concerned with the actIVIty of 199 200 the mind, they became disenchanted with real life; their letters speak frequently of an enervating ennui. . . . The Goncourts attributed this zealous pursuit of the intellect to a spiritual void; love, passion, and the joys of motherhood were prescribed by Rousseau to fill this void and bring women to their 'natural state.’ In actuality, there were two opposing forces at work in the women of the upper classes during the 18th century——the refined artificiality of the salons and the voracious pursuit of knowledge, neither of which, according to many male writers of the period, was the 'natural state of women.’ . . The salon concept in France emerged gradually during the 17th century, reaching its height in the 18th. The aim of the first powerful salon, the Salon Bleu of Madamede Rambouillet in the 17th century, was to civilize a raw society. By the time of the salons' demise during the Revolution [1748], 'manners, and their by—product, arti— ficiality, reigned supreme.’ . . . Usually in her forties and not necessarily beautiful, well-educated, or exceptionally wealthy . . . the hostess of a salon was judged successful if she had 'cleverness, taste, and charm,’ and an ability to create an environment in which her guests could relax with music and food and exchange ideas on philosophy, art, literature, and politics. . . . According to the Goncourts, 'Woman was the governing principle, the directing reason and the commanding voice of the 18th century . . . yet when her guests were gone she resumed the traditional role of subservience to her husband. Toward the end of the [18th] century the ideas of Rousseau began to take hold among the women of the salons. Due to his influence, a barrage of literature and art by male propagandists began to convince women of their innate need for domesticity instead of intellectual pursuits. Coupled with the [1789] Revolution itself, Rousseau' 5 philosophy helped topple salon society. Writing nostalgically of this period in her 1835 memoirs, Madame Vigee- Lebrun could say that . . . 'The women reigned then; the Revolution dethroned them.l The romanticism of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, which spurned the intellectuality of the Age of Reason, was an anti—urban, anti— civilization attitude that urged men and women to go back to nature and to their natural state of being. In Emile (1762), Rousseau set forth his philosophy of educa— tion: . . . to educate her in the same way as a man is to make her less of a woman and still interior to man.”1 A few women artists had been accorded some official privileges since the seventeenth century. The Académie Royale de Peinture et de 201 Sculpture, which had been founded in 1648, elected its first woman to the Academy in 1663, the wife of the sculptor Giraidon. In 1770 the decision was made to limit membership to four women to prevent the Academy from being 'overrun' by females. Women were never offered the kind of, training granted to men. They could not study at the. Ecole des Beaux—Arts [until the 18905] or work from the nude model, and they were unable to compete for the Prix de Rome until the end of the 19th century. . . . During the Revolution the Academy was abolished, but when its doors reopened under David's directorship, more women submitted paintings for exhibition than ever before. The Salon of 1808 had 46 women among the 311 exhibitors and was mockingly called the Salon des Dames; by mid-century there were a third as many women artists as men. However, no women were awarded the prestigious Legion of Honor until the last years of the century. The inability to study the live nude model led women artists to perfect the so-called minor forms of painting: portraiture, still—life, floral and animal pieces, and intimate genre scenes. According to Robert Rosenblum, 'such painstaking craftsmanship and unpretentious subject matter seemed particularly appropriate to what the early 19th century viewed as the proper domain for women artists, whose numbers, especially in David's studio, increased at a startling rate around 1800.I They rarely painted large historical, religious, or allegorical canvases because these were usually commissioned by Church or State from Prix de Rome winners, and women were prohibited from following this route to success.2 However, as in the case of women pursuing higher education, women continued to study art even though they were excluded from prestigious male facilities. Male artists continued to accept women as students in their studios. Uzanne viewed the practice of art by the majority of respectable women, men's 'chosen companions,' as one of the acceptable 'accomplishments' on 'drawing room graces.‘3 A few excelled, however, such as Berthe Morisot and Mary Cassatt, whose first paintings that were sent to the Salon were accepted, 1864 and 1872, respectively. Although this honor was one of the ultimate honors granted to artists in the sphere of high art and women in the male 202 sphere, both of these artists were not willing to accept what society viewed as the traditional pursuit of artists. They, like the Impressionist group, refused to compromise to the dictates of the Salon in the search for their own version of truth and reality. Both became associated with the Impressionist group and were highly regarded by the members. The public's reactions to their paintings were mixed, but no more hostile than to the male members of the group. Favorable note was made of their concentration on domestic scenes; critics also began commenting on their bold technique and modeling. Although avant garde art critics expected these female artists to* follow the same standards as progressive male artists were following (bold instead of sentimental renditions of domestic scenes and feminine charm without affectation), the mothers of Morisot and Cassatt were still worried about their proper daughters' unmarried states, which the public must have viewed as unnatural. Morisot's mother wrote to her other daughter in the early 18705, before Berthe's marriage, that "Everyone thinks that it is better to marry, even making some concessions, than to remain independent in a position that is not really one." (Of course, Berthe had not attained financial independence at this time.) Cassatt's mother wrote to her son that "After all a woman who is not married is lucky if she has a decided love for work of any kind and the more absorbing it is the better."l'l Women as artists were depicted less than women as art patrons. As was mentioned in Chapter II, it is unclear whether Robbe was depicting women as art patrons or artists in several prints. Degas, however, represented Mary Cassatt in her role of artist, both in a 203 painting and a print (Figure 6). Represented as much like the perfect lady as Helleu's lady in Figure 5, Cassatt, however, is study- ing Etruscan art instead of Watteau's frilly, coquettes. Art critics had noted that Cassatt's art was different from most women's art and Degas seems to have been illustrating this. Degas is also said to have described Cassatt's early paintings as . . . "real. Most women paint pictures as though they were trimming hats. Not you."5 Although in 1904 Cassatt was honored by the French govern— ment by being made a Chevalier of the Legion of Honor, Uzanne was still unsure in 1912 whether women could actually completely compete with male artists. Even though he carefully clarified that he included opinions of others which were not necessarily his, he made it clear that he was in partial agreement. Included are his often contradictory statements regarding women artists. Although he noted that various critics differed in their assessment of women's intellectual faculties, he concluded: All, however, are agreed that from the earliest times to the present, no great work has been signed by a woman's name. In the fine arts, no immortal picture or statue has been produced by a woman. . . . [Uzanne in response to D'Aurevilly's statement that literary originality is a sign of virility responds that ] It must be conceded that history bears out this statement. . . . One might mention . . . Rosa Bonheur and Mme. Lebrun in art. But do they draw us up to the heights as do . . . Michelangelo? What is the reason of this absolute lack of genius properly so called among women? [In contrast to Uzanne's citing Legouvé's opinion that women are natural artists because they are impressionable, he also cited M. Cesare Lombroso who] described the difference between genius and talent, and denies genius to women. [because of their] insensibility [and their lack of] invention. . . . In short, her imitative sense is highly developed. Now the gift of imitation develops at the expense of originality, which is one of the characteristics of genius. . Her organism in spending so much vital force on the 204 perpetuation of the race has not sufficient strength left to attain to the muscular and nervous development to which man owes his organic and psychic superiority. For these reasons, genius is rarely found in women, and when found it is less intense than the genius of man. The curious and paradoxical physiologist even goes so far as to- say that there are no women of genius, and that if they manifest it, it is by some trick of nature, in the sense that they are men. This extreme view, although crude, touches on a great truth. . One of the conditions of genius is solitude. great men have been solitary spirits. Women cannot live alone. In the highest form of art they express them— selves with feeling, delicacy, subtlety, and ingenuity, but rarely with originality. In painting, especially they do not meet with violent opposition they endured in former times. One may even say that they are too much in favour, too much encouraged by the pride and ambition of their families, for they threaten to become a veritable plague [still echoing the 1770 Academy's reason for limiting female membership], a fearful confusion, and a terrifying stream of mediocrity. . . There are at present in Paris about fifty young women painters of real talent, whose pastels, water colour portraits, miniatures, landscapes, and pretty sentimental allegories, show sufficient vigour and delicate talent. . Many women dis— tinguish themselves in flower painting, in genre, in still life, in miniatures. They never excel in landscape! cannot say.6 Most Why, one Notice that Uzanne lists landscape painting as a talent but does not include landscape painting as part of the work of women who distinguish themselves. His opinion sounds like an echo of Lombroso‘s distinction between talent and genius. And he made this statement despite the fact that Morisot's early landscapes were accepted by the Salon. Similar to the way Uzanne contrasted frustrated women artists to men‘s chosen companions is the way he contrasted women authors to the 'true' women. In contrast to the woman author, the ‘true' woman who men wanted should have ”some of the qualities of a cat by the fireside, and be caressing, sleepy, purring and voluptuous.”7 205 Uzanne's sometimes undeclared but always underlying belief that women's natural state was different from men also extended to literary women. He concluded his discussion of the unrecognized frustrated female artist with reference to her sex and talent. "She is a terribly tedious person, for she forgets her sex and her natural qualities, and affects airs of superiority, which are justified neither by her natural talent nor her acquired dexterity."8 He began his discussion of literary women in the same vein: The similar fault of 'Ia femme de lettres de petite marque' in her grotesque assumption of masculine airs, not seeing that she is losing the advantages nature has given her. One might say with some reason that literary work deforms the usual nature of a woman just as physical labour deforms the body. . Of these 3500 scribblers how many have real talent? If this question is asked, one replies, 'All of theml'9 He included Barbey d'Aurevilly‘s description of literary women, which he said contained no 'prejudice or abuse': Women who write are no longer women . they are men (at least in their own estimation) and failures at that. They are Bluestockings, and the Bluestocking is masculine; and they have all, more or less, denied their sex. Even their vanity is not feminine. . And they [men] — have allowed it - they have done worse — they have accepted it. . [However] the pretentious and unsexed Bluestocking is not original. . Look at the style . . and you will find the man . . the 'Iiaison' of the moment.10 The public tended to use the derogatory term 'bluestocking' as a synonym for feminists, educated women, and women authors. Uzanne noted that these bluestockings still existed: "who seem to exist to perpetuate the ancient and almost forgotten type of Bluestocking. They are the unutterable failures, the ambitious gossips, who have vowed an implacable hatred for men, who make the most outrageous 206 11 claims." However, he approved of the new type of literary woman who utilized her talent in her natural separate sphere. The gentle Bluestockings of modern days who arrive at notoriety may be called Pink or Mauve Stockings. The colour of the others is almost faded, washed out, and they exert far less tyranny over their surroundings. Thos women who have socialist and humanitarian sympa- thies utilize their feminine qualities in writing on social questions. They have no right to the approbrious title. They have not relinquished their womanhood; on the contrary they make noble use of it, in the service of the weak and the disinherited. They are modest, and have none of the pretensions of the woman of letters. . . . The modern woman author is emancipated. She has found in the fashionable papers of the times a field in which she can develop her psychological studies, and give play to her analytical grace, her coquetry of petticoat philosophy, with no attempt at disguising her sex. . . . Gradually the type and name of Bluestocking will disappear with the disabilities which this hybrid and anti—pathetic creature endured for so long, and the woman author equipped for her work, hard—working, quiet and collected, with a con- cise, nervous style, will make herself known, and cease to be an abnormal creature. She will know how to find her vocation, not in competition with men, but in a sphere of her own, side by side with his. She will have her own mission, her special ambitions, her papers, her society, and her academies. . . . They must not be vain, however, and must remember the remarkable law formulated by a skillful psychologist: 'The development of the psychic life is in inverse ratio to the development of the sexual life.‘12 Although Uzanne accepted d'Aurevilly's description of Blue- stockings as "women who were too much preoccupied with intellectual things to attend to their dress, and who wore stockings like common scholars, "13 these English women were actually women quite similar to the early nineteenth century French salon patrons. The original women, following Mrs. Montagu's example, were upper class women who possessed both the 'accomplishments' of their [class and learning. ”Merely using their education as a diversion, they made no demands for changes in the social structure." As a result of their drawing 207 room entertainments and meetings with literary people, however, English women gained the right to read and write books and display their knowledge.14 The popular artists of late nineteenth/early twentieth century France do not seem to have been interested in depicting the literary woman even though they could have used an English poster for inspiration (Figure 87). Although the serious young woman with glasses and plain hair is swamped by pamphlets she is studying and/ or writing, she is not represented as some kind of third sex, just as a young woman in a plain long dress with short sleeves, ornamented only with a white scarf. Her intention is merely to use knowledge as a key even though she is somewhat of a rebel against bourgeois standards because she is smoking a cigarette. Robbe, again, seems to have been the only artist to possibly have been interested in depicting literary women (Figure 88). Although he depicted women reading a novel several times, this woman has a whole stack of pamphlets she is studying. However, Robbe has been careful to include evidence of her continuing interest in feminine pleasures, such as the flower, even though she is not the attractive type he depicted in the majority of his prints. Despite the fact that women authors were not of a type that printmakers chose to depict, the public would have been aware of these women. Uzanne had included a breakdown of these 3500 'scribblers': 2800 wrote novels or books for children, 200 wrote about education, 350 wrote poetry, and the remainder (150) 'imitated the others.‘ These women, evidently with their natural 'talents,’ had .4. . 1.: Tar. _ Ev/ WOMAN I §7 éydney Grundy- h } Figure 87. Albert Morrow. The New Woman. I ' Color lithograph, 1897. 209 Figure 88. Manuel Robbe. Femme au Bouquet. Color aquatint and drypoint, c. 1907. 210 accepted their special spheres. Uzanne might even have accorded a touch of 'genius' to the 1500 who belonged to the Sociéte’ des Gens de Lettres and the 50 who belonged to the Société des Auteurs drama— tiques. Of the 237 who wrote for newapapers, Uzanne excluded the 220 who wrote for fashion papers as not being of any interest because they were not actual journalists.1S These 220 women, although accepted, definitely were not to be considered as approaching the male sphere of intellectuality. As has been mentioned, the remainder were to be ridiculed if they attempted to deal with other than social reform for, what the public defined as, the 'weak and the dis— inherited.l Besides male French critics classifying bluestockings as 'unclean,‘ 'pretentious,‘ 'unpleasant,‘ and 'nuisances,' they further implied that they were promiscuous. Uzanne included d'Aurevilly's conclusion that finished works by female authors were actually the product of the man who was their 'liaison of the moment,l George Sand specifically. George Sand (1804—1876), who was linked with the Saint— Simonian's sexual theories, lived an emancipated life by supporting herself with her writing, living apart from her husband, and having 16 liaisons and illegitimate children. Balzac, in La Muse du De’part- ment, 1843, ranked her and her followers as the true despised blue— stocking: "George Sand has created 'Sandism' . . . a form of sentimental leprosy which has ruined many women . . . the woman who succumbs to this disease . . . is what one might call a blue— 17 stocking of the heart.” 211 The main complaint about female artists and literary women was that they had left their natural state and had attempted to enter the male sphere. Although promiscuity was also attached to these women as a means of deterring respectable women from entering the fields as professionals, women of the theatre were not urged to leave their profession; they were just classified as a different type of woman, closer to Proudhons's prostitute in classification than the housewife. The supposed appeal of this profession, like prostitution, was that of independence, and the labeling of these two groups, as well as literary women, as 'independent' or 'emancipated' women implied that these women did not conform with the bourgeois ideal of the type of woman who men chose for wives. Farwell notes the same sort of early interchange of terms and images depicting prostitutes with actresses and ballet dancers as with working women. At rehearsals and performances, the presence of dandies (patrons) indicates the exchange of favors for the use of influence and money to further the female's career. The public expected women of the theatre to lead 'irregular' lives, and due to the training and capital required to 'arrive,I this was often necessary.18 The actress, "As she has no private means and must appear beauti— fully dressed on the stage, although on a small salary, she has, like the workgirl, the clerk, and so many others, to remember that she is a woman, and must supply the deficits of her purse by making use of 19 her sex." Her apprenticeship began at the Rue du Faubourg Poissonnie‘re at the corner of the Rue Bergere and continued through 212 passing the Conservatoire examinations. At the lower levels of bourgeois decency, she appeared in cafe-concerts as a singer, or less frequently, as a reciter. Her salary ranged from 100 francs per month to 600 francs per night for a season of sixty days. The pro— fessional dancer of the public ball, the chahut dancer, who per— formed at the Moulin Rouge, Jardin de Paris or Bullier's, earned 200 francs per month.20 Villon depicted one of the unnamed paid dancers at the Moulin Rouge (Figure 89). Although middle and upper class men came to watch these performers, the print depicts the performer as segregated from the spectators. Even though she wears a hat and voluminous dress like the other women, she must be ready to dance. The glimpse of legs, even if covered by tights, created quite a sensation. By the turn of the century, the men's companions could either have been their wives or not-so-respectable women. Lautrec was able to immortalize many of the famous female performers as a result of com— missions he received for posters. He depicted the whole range: the decadent Goulue (Figure 90), Jane Avril doing the chahut (Figure 91), and in more 'dramatic' performances (Figure 92), and dramatic actresses (Figure 93). His depictions of performers, which included their names, illustrated the fame and independence of these women in contrast to Villon's depiction of an anonymous 'loose' woman. During the Second Empire, no respectable woman, except Princess Mathilde (Napoleon lll's first cousin) would 'receive' an actress or singer. Although aristocracy openly flaunted their theatri- cal mistresses, an anonymous author wrote in Life in Paris before the Figure 89. 213 :; j ‘1’. ~ -_“i1i‘ v . ix... ; . fl 1.} ‘ .V ‘1 H‘ . fl ’ Jacques Villon. La Danseuse au Moulin Rouge. Color lithograph, 1899. 214 Figure 90. Henri de Toulouse—Lautrec. La Goulue au Moulin Rouge. Color lithograph. Figure 91. Henri de Toulouse—Lautrec. Jane Avril. Color lithograph, 1893. Figure 90 Figure 91 Figure 92. 216 Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. Color lithograph, 1899. Jane Avril. s: Figure 93. 217 Henri de Toulouse—Lautrec. A l'Opera: Madam Caron dans Faust. Lithograph, 1894. ’1‘“...— 7a 218 War and during the Sei_g_e, that: ”No public women whatever are admitted into good French company. . . . Once 'upon the boards,’ . . . no matter how irreproachable their character may be, they can never be received by women of character and condition, except in their pro- fessional capacity." This began to change, however, after Adelina Patti married Marquis de Caux.21 The mixing of classes at Tuileries balls and masked balls resulted in marriages between theatrical stars and German nobility as early as 1850, with theatrical stars being increasingly sought after for marriage.22 This change amongst the nobility also spread to the bourgeois. By the early twentieth century, Uzanne noted that “Many actresses . . . now affect respectability, marry and live like good bourgeoises, and are excellent mothers. . during the last few years at the Opéra and elsewhere, theatrical life has become more moral, more middle-class. Actresses and dancers are now very respectable."23 Jean—Francois Raffa'e'lli, 1850—1924, depicted these respectable, ordinary, bourgeois actresses, dressed in demure morning dresses with hair simply dressed, packing for their tour (Figure 94) and performing in plays, dressed just like the bourgeois wives would have dressed to attend the performance (Figure 95). Uzanne noted, however, that "Morals gained by this transformation, but art is often the loser." Although he gave no further explanation why art was the loser, his next statement, "popular imagination likes to credit these pretty women with a thousand adventures,"2q seems to conclude that some of the effective- ness of performances was lost when the public realized that the female performers were merely respectable 'bourgeois' wives and mothers. 219 ' “‘“lllilllllii. ‘Ia—"7" K i G... i: :- , . .1 . .. o . h” L ‘ I. 'e.‘, {7; _' ~ . . , if ;_ .fifi‘} . T'f-Al‘ -. .3; . ' - . . . ._ ' 141352724ng ‘ immisflrrflffl‘ Lennie.” " sfififi‘flflafi ._.<~->i".~s{il . it; s. . Jean—Francois Raffaelli. L'Actrice en Voyage. Figure 94. Color drypoint, 1898. 220 “11. -.5e: {.3 I‘QNWKwage lgfia _ h O-‘i‘. LJActHce en Scene. —Francois Raffaeni. Jean Figure 95. Cokw‘drypohTL 1898. 221 Although Uzanne also mentioned various circus and street performers, he attached bourgeois respectability to only one--the former scandalous circus rider. James Tissot (1836-1902) depicted these circus riders in a print in 1885 (Figure 96). Although a number of Tissot's prints depict his long—time mistress or English women, the series which this print is a part of is La femme. a Paris. The series contained fifteen paintings depicting the 'chic Parisienne,‘ from the different social classes of duchess to grisette, 'encountered if by chance at their various occupations and amusements.‘ He intended to reproduce all of these paintings as prints but only five were executed. Although the overall theme seems to be intended to have been that of the delightful, charming Parisienne no matter what her ambitions might have been, Wentworth mentions that two of the paintings in the series, Les femmes de sport (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston], and L'acrobate (unlocated) were found "deficient as representations of the 'parisienne."'25 (Uzanne also noted that the acrobat was excluded from the bourgeois sphere: "the woman acrobat, even the most seductive, . . . balanced on her rope before thousands of admiring spectators, has not the fascination of the rider, nor her elegance, and scarcely ever receives a proposal of marriage, even from men one may call second-rate. This is because the acrobats are what they look like: common creatures, with rudimentary minds."26) Uzanne cited M. Louis de Neuville's conclusion that the "circus rider has taken the place of the actress and singer in the hearts of the public.”27 His answer to why this profession became 'ennobled' was that, "Perhaps the kindness of the Empress of Austria for Elisa Loisset and Figure 96. 222 James Tissot. Ces Dames des Chars a I'Hippodrome. Etching and drypoint, 1885 pi" 223 her taste for riding," was the explanation.28 This explanation reflects the public's connection of this performer with the aristocratic gentlewoman rider, and with possibly an unspoken reference to the more interesting courtesan rider. Out of context, however, Uzanne's description of the circus rider might just as well be a description of any female rider: . . . dressed in her well—fitting habit, her silk hat correctly worn, . . She enters modestly and quietly; above all she is absolutely correct. . . . The woman, weak yet compelling—-such is the secret of her success. She represents the triumph of skill and the power of will over force—-qualities eminently feminine. . . . But she is one of those whom one must marry. 29 Uzanne attempted to convince readers that, despite the temptation to submit to a patron because of the great financial requirements of the theatrical profession, there were also actresses who were viewed as 'good bourgeoises.‘ Despite the fact that his treatment of the various performers was only accorded a part of one chapter in his book, and therefore had to be brief, his statement that young ballerina dancers also became more respectable by the twentieth century is even less convincing in light of his rather complete description of why ballerinas also resorted to prostitution. The term 'rat,' as a synonym for the young ballet chorus girl, is attributed to Nestor Roqueplan's coining of it in Les Francais peints par eux-memes, 1840—1842: One finds her only near the rue Lepelletier, at the Royal Academy of music, or on the rue Richer, or at dancing class; she exists only there; you will search in vain for a 'rat' any— where else on the globe; Paris possesses three things for which all other capitals envy her: the gamin, the grisette, and the 'rat.l The 'rat' is a gamin of the theatre, who has all the faults of a street gamin minus the good qualities, and who, like the latter, was born of the July Revolution.30 Farwell supplies the following description for these early nineteenth century ballerinas: "The age of a 'rat' ranges from eight to fourteen or 224 fifteen years and at sixteen she is already considered old. Beyond that, success is possible through the theatre or the influence of a wealthy dandy."31 Uzanne noted the disappearance of this "wild, undisciplined little pupil of the dancing school, who indulged in all kinds of clandestine love-affairs in elegant society.”32 He described the current directors of the dancing schools who taught the seven—nine year old ballerinas as men who ”know from head to foot (especially as to foot) this child who receives gratuitous education. Nothing is expected of her in return but sufficient fame and success to shed a little extra lustre over the 'alma ., 33 mater' that taught her all she knows. Closely following this statement, however, he stated that: The dancer generally belongs to the poorest class, is placed in her profession by her parents, who know quite well its diffi— culties and dangers. As sooner or later their 'baby' is almost bound to take the downward path, they prefer the known and tolerated disorders of the theatre to those of the workshop. In the former she will make use of her sex amongst distin- guished people, while in the latter she would be sunk in poverty and the lowest forms of vice.34 Teichel represented these mid—nineteenth century rats (Figure 97) in a popular illustration which the public must have found quite entertaining. These ballerinas appear to be in their teens. Degas, who painted ballerinas over a period of more than thirty years, both rehearsing and performing, showed them in their younger years also. The printmaker, Legrand, who depicted young girls as well as women at private bars, produced a number of individual aquatints, drawings and pastels, as well as two major albums of ballerinas after completing a series on the can can. Unlike Degas, however, he never depicted an actual performance. The first series, Les Petites du Ballet, 1893, con— sists of thirteen aquatints and a cover: Figure 97. 225 Teichel. Uri Chambrée de Rats,_ Lithograph, 1851. 226 These showed the evolution of the would—be ballerinas, from timid arrival for the first lesson accompanied by a black-clad mother [Figure 98]; through familiarity, companionship and hard exercise; to putting on and taking off their tutus and an appearance in a scene from an imaginary ballet.35 The second series, La Petite Class, 1908, consists of twelve large plates and a cover: dealing this time with the actual performers, from the very young girl wiser in the ways of stage-door johnnies than her years [Figure 99], to the rehearsal rooms, the girls unwinding before a performance, flirting [Figure 100], going to class, becoming a prima ballerina and, at last, making an entrance on stage.36 Late nineteenth-century artists seem to have been more interested in showing the long ordeal and circumstances which ballerinas experienced through their ten-year career rather than just their 'amusing' behavior with dandies. Whether Legrand meant these series to be social commen— tary or satire on the decadence of the bourgeois at the expense of young working-class girls, he did provide a visual documentation of Uzanne's description of the young ballerina. At the time of their entry, their mothers are shown as their 'protectors.' (Several other printmakers also included the old black-clad mother with her young ballerina daughter.) By the second series, however, they have new protectors. Although Legrand expanded the earlier theme of the rat-dandy relation- ship, the man in Figure 100 is a duplicate of the dandy in Figure 97. As mentioned in Chapter VI, the man in Figure 99 could either be her pimp or an arranged client. in addition to artists and social commenta— tors beginning to describe prostitution as being a 'profession' which society forced upon women was their recognition, however, that prostitu— tion often began in a girl's childhood years despite regulations banning minors from maisons closes. Legrand's depictions of the ballet as being 227 Figure 98. Louis Legrand. Premiere legon. Drypoint and aquatint, 1893. 228 irfifi'sfl I Hgfissn .. “ "fin". .. Figure 99. Louis Legrand. Private Bar. Drypoint and aquatint, 1905. Figure 100. Louis Legrand. Petite Marcheuse. Drypoint, etching, and aquatint, 1908. 230 'the lesser of two evils' echoed Chahine's depiction of the promenoire as possibly also being the 'lesser of two evils.’ Viewed as professions, the fields of art, literature, and the theatre were probably perceived as more attractive alternatives for women than other employment. At least these professions offered to women the chance of success and financial independence. Any woman who left her 'natural domestic state,‘ however, ran the risk of being called a third sex or promiscuous. Artists avoided depicting female artists and literary women as they had in the case of feminists and educated women. The term 'bluestocking' was a catch—all phrase to describe any of these women. This type of woman was a threat to men's separate spheres besides not offering an especially new or interesting subject to artists. Women of the theatre were not a threat to men’s separate spheres. They were an essential section of French society, even though the past relegation to Proudhon's separate sphere of 'harlot' was not forgotten. These women, however, like prostitutes, were observed to be a type of woman who could be depicted in various ways, with often an underlying promiscuous connotation which could often be related to reality, and therefore, modernity. These women, like prostitutes, were an attractive part of Parisian life, even though they were often relegated to the edge of society, like the prostitute and the artist. The special rapport which existed therefore was similar to that of the prostitute and the artist. Besides Toulouse—Lautrec eulogizing individual performers, artistic probing began to illustrate shared traits with bourgeois women and a need for social reform. CHAPTER VI 1: NOTES 1 . . . Elas Honig Fine, Women and Art (Allanheid and Schram: Montclair, N.J., 1978), pp. 40—41. 2ibid., p. 43. 3 . . Uzanne, Modern Pari5ienne, pp. 216, 225. ”Fine, Women and Art, pp. 123—135. 5ibid., p. 130. 6Uzanne, Modern Parisienne, pp. 125-132. 7ibid., p. 141. 8Uzanne, Modern Parisienne, p. 133. 9ibid. 10ipid., pp. 134-137. 11lipid, pp. 137—139. 12lbid., pp. 137—143. 13ipid., p. 134. 14Fine, Women and Art, pp. 63—64. 15Uzanne, Modern Parisienne, p. 133. 16Parturier and Armingeat, Daumier, pp. 13, 17—18; and Zeldin, Ambition and Love, p. 352. 17Parturier and Armingeat, Daumier, PP~ 13, 126- 231 232 18Uzanne, Modern Parisienne, pp. 144—158. 19ibid. 20ipid. 21Joanna Richardon, La Vie Parisienne, 1852—1870 (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1971), p. 67. 22Fischel and Von Boehn, Modes and Manners, pp. 150—152. 23Uzanne, Modern Parisienne, pp. 146-147, 152. qubid” pp. 146-147. 25Michael Justin Wentworth, James Tissot (Minneapolis: The Minneapolis Institute of Arts, 1978), pp. 300—325. 2("Uzanne, Modern Parisienne, p. 155. 27ibid., p. 154. 28ipid. 29ipid., p. 155. 30Farwell, Cult of Images, p. 65. 31ipid. 3'2Uzanne, Modern Parisienne, p. 153. 33iipid. 34lbid., p. 154. 35Arwas, Belle Epoque, p. 30. 36iipid. CHAPTER Vlll EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITIES FOR WOMEN The change from an earlier family economy to an economy which produced goods outside of the home had freed bourgeois women from the hearth. This change also provided opportunities for working—class women to be reimbursed for their labor. Although these women often worked outside the home out of the necessity of providing supplemental income for their families, their husbands viewed the type of work which was available to them as making them 'the most exploited victim of the capitalist system.‘1 The necessity of also having to resort to prostitution for supplemental income formed part of the rationale for describing these women as the most exploited. The term 'de’classe' developed to distinguish working-class women from women of leisure. Originally, Theodore Barriere had coined the term in 1853 in his play Les Filles de marbre to describe the demi-monde, "the world which begins where the legal wife ends and finishes where the mistress begins."2 Auguste Chirac, in La Revue Socialiste, March 1888, repeated the need voiced by the Socialist Worker's Congress of 1879: like the aristocratic [bourgeois] wife, the wife of the proletariat (the déclassé) had the right to remain at home. The term was later used by the novelist Daniel Lesueur in 1900 to summarize the bourgeois opposition to the female labor force: the bourgeois lady who did not 233 234 work was contrasted to the woman who worked ('le travail de la femme la déclassé').3 Coexisting with the 'facts' that bourgeois women did not work and that often the women who did work were of necessity also prosti— tutes, however, was the fact that by the turn of the century 20.2 percent of the nonagricuitural working women were 'respectably' married. This proportion was approximately twice as high as in Britain. In some occupations, the proportion of married to single women was quite a bit higher. This phenomenon was a result of French demographic factors. The French population contained a higher proportion of married women than in Britain” and the decline in the French birthrate was greater than in other countries.5 This greater decline in the birthrate allowed the French woman a greater opportunity to work because it decreased her reproductive years to allow her to seek employment earlier.6 These statistics would be even higher if the concept of union Iibre is taken into account. E. Buret, 1840, wrote about the immorality of the union libre. As early as 1826 the Society of St. Francois-Regis was established to encourage legal unions of the working class and the legitimation of their children. Eighty percent of the cohabiting couples contacted by the Society con— verted their unions into 'legai' unions. Rather than regarding these unions as a 'flouting of bourgeois conventions' or the 'proletariat's historical mission to be the vanguard of a sexual revolution,‘ a more valid interpretation relates simply to economics. As noted earlier, many couples simply could not afford the cost of a legal ceremony. More importantly, besides the fact that pre-marital sex was not 235 regarded as an antisocial act, as theft was, and that it was not equated with professional prostitution by the proletariat, these unions libres were classified as respectable by the involved families if they involved a 'family meal to consecrate the establishment of a new household.’7 France also had a higher total percentage of its women 'at work' than most European countries.8 The percent of the active French population classified as working women (excluding prostitution) increased from 28 percent (2,768,000) in 1860 to 37 percent (7,694,000) in 1906. In 1900, approximately 40 percent of the French women worked outside the home compared to about 68 percent of the men. In 1906, of the 37 percent who worked, 43.3 percent worked in agri- culture, 32.7 percent in industry, 10.1 percent in domestic service, and 13.9 percent in commerce (shops and banks), liberal professions, and administrative services.9 The textile industry accounted for the \ largest number of the industrial workers, and shops the largest number of the last classification.10 These percentages of working women approximate the percentages of total workers, both male and ‘ female, in the various fields.11 Many married women with children were forced to seek employ— ment where the least separation existed between the home and the workplace. These jobs required unskilled and intermittent employees. Both the printmakers of the fashionable bourgeois and the proletariat recorded their conditions and the public‘s awareness of the need for social legislation. Chahine depicted the chiffonier (rag—picker), who 236 was of the lowest social stratum (Figure 101). These women are sort— ing through rags, looking for items of value to sell. Their shack is depicted as barely bigger than the women. The distant mansion is possibly where they obtained there wares, the wealthy's discards. Higher up in the social stratum was the street—hawker. Both Chahine and Vallotton depicted her (Figures 102-103). Chahine depicted the streethawker in a 'picturesque' fine art print as a bundled—up old woman pushing her heavily laden cart down a wintry street where people are gathered. As she had no permanent stall, she had to keep moving until some customer noticed an item he/she wanted. Vallotton, however, illustrated the difficulty of pursuing this work for an illustrated radical journal. The lone hawker with her empty cart has been accosted by three policemen for breaking some rule. The fine will probably severely reduce her day's earnings. Street—hawkers, estimated at 6,000 in Paris in 1912, were authorized and regulated by the police. They were required to wear an identification badge and were not allowed to stop, even to serve customers. Chahine and Vallotton depicted average street—hawkers. Street—hawkers ranged from the very poor who might not even be able to afford a basket for their small amount of goods to the jolly toy—hawkers in parks. A wide variety of outside merchants, who could rent places for their stalls, could also have been seen. Alexandre—Gabriel Decamps, 1803—1860, depicted an old vegetable vendor (Figure 104) who could not afford a stall to attract customers and protect herself from the weather. Robbe depicted a more successful vendor in a protected stall in a market at Montmarte, surrounded by customers (Figure 105). 237 Figure 101. Edgar Chahine. Campement de Chiffonniers. Etching, aquatint and drypoint, 1900. I 4 Jim's: r 526'? . J’ag-‘W r- , "fl m—«MA’ ’ Figure 102. Edgar Chahine. La Marchande des Quatre Saisons. Etching, aquatint, and drypoint, 1900. 238 I. Assiette an Beurre game; CHATiME “NS F VALLO‘I’TON Figure 103. Felix Vallotton. Crimes et Chétiments. Lithograph, 1902. 239 Figure 104. Alexandre~Gabriel Decamps. Marchande de légumes assise, Entourée de paniers. Lithograph. Figure 105. Manuel Robbe. Marche a Montmarte. Color aquatint and etching, 1901. 240 The most successful and colorful vendors were the newspaper and . . . 12 cheese vendors, who were more likely to have middle—class customers. L'lllustration, 1909, included an illustration which depicted one of these fashionable couples shopping at an outside market (Figures 106—107) . - Although the government hired few women, women filled posi- tions at the lower rungs, starting with street sweepers. Next in status were clerks of tobacco shops. Of all the positions mentioned to this point, the lay staff of hospitals, also under government control, were the only positions filled by women which provided wages suffi- cient to solely support a woman. These positions ranged from the ward maid through that of the probationer and superintendent, who was recruited from the probationers and was required to pass a competitive examination .13 Auguste-Louis Lepére, 1849-1918, and Steinlen depicted another unskilled occupation which women with children chose; that of laundress, ironer, or starcher (Figures 108—112). In the 18705, over 12,000 women derived their income from employment as washer- women. In 1912 there were 98,000 laundresses, ironers, and starchers in Paris and the suburbs. In the cities, as well as in the country, washerwomen were a common sight, washing clothes at streams and then lugging them back in large baskets. Although the wages were low, it was a way to supplement the family income. The theme of toiling, sweating ironers and trudging washerwomen, often accompanied by their children, was a continuance in the tradition of Millet, Daumier, Degas, Bonvin, Ribot, and Caillebotte. The trudging Figure 106. Jour du marché. L'lllustration, 1909. 242 Figure 107. Jour du marche’. L'lllustration, 1909. 243 Figure 108. Auguste—Louis Lepere. Blanchisseuses. Color softground etching and aquatint, 1893. Figure 109. 244 The’ophile Steinlen. Oil on canvas. The Laundresses _ 245 Figure 110. The’ophile Steinlen. Housewife and Children Returning from the Laundry House. Etching, 1899. Figure 111. Theophile Steinlen. Blanchisseuses reportant l'Ouvrage. Color drypoint, aquatint and etching, 1898. 247 Figure 112. Théophile Steinlen. Blanchisseuse. Etching and aquatint, 1898. i, 248 washerwomen, carrying their heavy packs, was a common theme used in the nineteenth century to illustrate women's toil and poverty. As depicted in Figures 108—110, these women were just 'beasts of burden' like the peasant field workers.”l Steinlen, however, also depicted the women who were employed as laundresses as pretty lively young women (Figure 111), like he did in the case of prostitutes. Steinlen seems to have been torn between depicting the working-class woman as young, lively, and attractive or depicting her as worn out from her heavy labor. Like Uzanne, he could not resist describing the working-class woman as one of the colorful Parisian types. Graphic illustration of the exploitation of the working-class woman as a social theme can be seen in his prints depicting older washerwomen and prostitutes. But when young, these working—class women can be seen to represent the same aspirations and hopes as held by the bourgeois. Although the poverty of these young women is therefore represented in a quaint or picturesque way, and therefore a type of print which both working-class and bourgeois 'patrons' might view with favor, for the sake of reality and social protest, prostitutes and older washerwomen could not be treated in this manner. Steinlen's trottins and midinettes are a reflection of Uzanne's 'dear little trottins who are a very pleasant feature of the Paris streets.‘ His laundry women are depicted like the two types which Uzanne described: The woman who washes is on the lowest rung of this ladder, and her work is of the roughest and most menial description. . . . The wash-house, where she nearly breaks her back rinsing and beating the heavy clothes, is a large shed, open to every wind that blows. . . . The ironers and clear-starchers are clean, coquettish, and often 249 really pretty, and almost all of them (strange to say) have pretty hands. . . . 'filles de semaine' . . . is the term for the attractive creatures one meets on the street, in coquettishly short skirts, carrying their baskets of linen. . . They remain in their business till about forty, and then disappear—~heaven knows where! They are worn out with long hours of standing.15 As trade union leaders emphasized that their goal was for their wives to be able to stay at home like bourgeois wives, Steinlen might have intended to depict that his young laundresses were just as attractive and interesting as young bourgeoise women (Figure 111). Figure 112 could be a representation of the intermediate stage, however, when the laundress, still relatively young, has begun to be weighed down by her daily burden. Or more simply, Figure 111 could just be a representation of the more fortunate type, early in her career, who delivered finished laundry to her wealthy, generous customers. She too, however, will bow under the weight after carrying the heavy baskets for a period of time. The improvement in the road and railroad systems in the second half of the nineteenth century was accompanied by an 'exodus to the city.’16 The unskilled peasant women who migrated to the cities filled another early occupation for women, that of domestic service. The number of domestic servants in Paris increased from 100,000 in 1866 to 206,000 in 1906 (11 percent of the population), with the major part of the profession being natives from the provinces. Uzanne noted that "The Parisian girl does not take kindly to domestic ll17 service. She is too independent . Although at the top of the domestic hierarchy, the wages were high enough for women to be 250 self-sufficient and even save enough to retire, the work was hard and employers viewed their servants as inferior beings.18 A report published in 1934, Bulletin de la statisque générale de la France, listed the monthly price of food and lodging in 1911 as 70 francs per month, as compared to daily wages for single men and women of 4.61 francs and 2.29 francs, respectively. Basing wages on a six-day week, for the average man, food and lodging used about five-eights of his wages while the average woman was not able to pay for food and lodging. A study conducted by the Board of Trade indicated that in 1909, 8.6-14.5 percent of the total family income was supplied by the nearly 20 percent of married women who worked. 19 None of the previously mentioned female workers made enough to even pay for food and lodging with the exception of the laundress (barely) and the hospital staff. The top hierarchy of the domestic service, that of cook and lady's maid (at a wage of 40 to 80 francs per month), considering that room and board was supplied, earned enough to aspire to retiring to the provinces and owning a small inn or small business, therefore becoming petty bourgeois. Even the general servant whoearned 35 to 40 francs per month could aspire to retiring and owning a farm since she was also provided with room and board. At the bottom of the social and financial hierarchy was the charwoman (femme de ménage) who was married to a worker and was hired by a bachelor who could not afford any other servant, but was not poor enough to not be able to afford a charwoman.20 Outside the ordinary hierarchy of the domestic servants were several curious types of servants: the lady's or gentleman's companion, 251 the daily governess, and the wet nurse. The companion was described by Uzanne as "a passive victim of family ruin, widowhood, or neglect studious and literary, a sort of faded bluestocking." Like the other servants she received room and board, but was paid only 4—15 louis per month. Her independence and/or respectability was achieved by being remembered in her employer's will or by marrying her employer. The daily governess was recruited from young girls who had passed their examinations. She was recruited as a 'suitable' person to educate little girls. Uzanne described her as "generally the daughter of an honest artisan, who has strained every nerve to educate his daughter above her class, and thinks he has succeeded wonderfully in elevating her to a career which ought to place her on a level with the Ieisured classes. The usual result is that the poor girl belongs to no class at all." As a result of the comprehensive education of women and the large number of diplomas awarded in the early twentieth century, many women listed themselves as unemployed 21 governesses. In contrast to the aspiring bourgeois companion and govern— ness was the wet-nurse, who was the highest paid domestic servant. Uzanne noted, however, that "The other servants despise her. Their self—respect makes them contemptuous of a woman who sells her life in that fashion. But they are jealous of her, because she does nothing and is well fed." The high wage, however, of 80—120 francs per month encouraged women from the provinces to seek this employ— ment. Women from some provinces could build a house after three nourritures (3—9 years). This occupation was viewed by peasants as 252 a lucrative and expected profession for both married nursing mothers and unwed mothers.2 The employers' low esteem for their domestic servants was evidently a reflection of the general public's estimation of these women. The combination of being relatively well—paid (and being the only group who was provided food and lodging) and rather sequestered at their employer's house did not result in them being a visible type of woman who was exploited. Printmakers could not depict them as beasts of burden like the laundresses. Commentators reported favorably on the young trottins, however, who added 'color' to the Paris streets with their 'coquettish' manners, and printmakers depicted these young women who were employed as errand girls or assistants to dressmakers or milliners. Chahine and Steinlen followed the tradition of Deveria and Gavarni in depicting these young workers as fashionable and pretty (Figures 113-114). Richard Ranft included in his depiction of trottins (Figure 115) a curious remarque which might refer to their often necessary resort to prostitution, with the mice having a similar function as the term 'rats' which described young ballerinas. Vallotton and Steinlen depicted them also as victims of male advances in Figures 116-117. Vallotton was more explicit than Ranft in his reference to the public's assumption that trottins were susceptible to offers of prostitution (Figure 116] by including this type of young working woman in an image with the caption 'La Voulez-Vous Cette Belle Broche?’ for his series Crimes et Chatiments. Although Steinlen also acknowledged the threat of solicitation which trottins faced in a Figure 113. Edgar Chahine. Les Trotteuses. Color softground etching, aquatint, and etching, 1907. .oo? JEOQEU L200 . .ce_c_e.m EEQOEF .e: 8:9; mcwmemmeQ mcso> weer; Loop mEC. 9.5.330 254 255 Figure 115. Richard Ranft. Trottins. Etching, 1894. 256 Jamiemumdu’fzd'wm.’ Figure 116. Félix Vallotton. La Voulez—Vous Cette Belle Broche? Color lithograph, 1901. .03: .cdmcmocuE L060 .wzm mu #5::on ozcdowc... K: 959m mica .tzcxxuoo 31...: ¢z_.3¢uz¢ .58 s e . nil I. 257 258 large poster executed for Charles Verneau's printing shop (Figure 117), his young trottin appears to be no more susceptible to the unwanted attention than the bourgeois woman, laundress, or mother. Even though she is more fashionably dressed than Vallotton's trottin she is likewise guarded by an older employee or employer. All of the women meet on equal footing, self-assured in their various roles. Chahine (Figure 113) and Steinlen (Figure 114) seem to have been more interested in depicting the joy which women felt in their inde— pendence than Deveria's and Gavarni's emphasis on the natural component of prostitution. Of course, their salaries were often not sufficient to support themselves and the earlier popular tradition was not forgotten, especially the connotation of the titles. Although the term ’grisette' originally referred to young working women who preferred liaisons with law and medical students, it developed into referring merely to female workers. It was used interchangeably with the laundress, trottin, and midinette, with all the terms implying prostitution. The term 'trottin' was also used more specifically as a definition for the young errand girls who worked for dressmakers or milliners and the term 'midinette' specifically as a definition for the Parisian dressmaker. After an 'apprenticeship' as a trottin, these young women either became milliners, demi-mondes, or entered the theatre. Commentators reported favorably about these colorful young women. These workers tried to dress fashionably and were often seen at the midday luncheon hour in groups, arm in arm, just like Chahine and Steinlen depicted them. Without the titles, these women could be mistaken for bourgeois women of leisure out shopping, 259 especially Figures 113 and 115. The term 'midinette' derived from their observed habit of suddenly rushing out at midday to escape, for a short time, their imprisonment in I'gilded cages . . . at midday the cage door is opened and out they fly gaily, to take their short and frugal meal in the cheapest and most promiscuous places." They could either hurriedly eat carried lunches or eat in a cheap restaurant. This gave them time to take a stroll. The Restaurant Bibliotheque provided wholesome meals at low prices and also lent books. Although these young women might earn up to 100 francs per month and aspire to a position as department head which might pay over 1500 francs per month, taking into account seasonal employment, the average needlewoman's salary was 90 francs per month and of course no lodging and food was provided, as in the case of domestic servants.23 Even though these young women were not of the bourgeois class, they must have been found to be just as attractive and interesting. In Figure 113, Chahine contrasted the 'fashionable' young workers to a fashionable escorted bourgeois or upper—class woman. The workers, although fashionably dressed, are shown in the more tailored outfit which would have been more apprOpriate for work. Their skirts have also been shortened to just above the tips of their shoes. Although another print by Chahine (Figure 118) is labeled 'midinette' and therefore was explicitly classified as a depiction of a working woman, Weisberg classifies her as basically a depiction of a prostitute.zl4 Although this inference could have been implicit, Chahine might have had another purpose in mind, that of showing the shared preoccupa— tions by both the bourgeois woman of leisure and the young working Figure 118. 260 Edgar Chahine. Midinette. Softground etching, etching, and drypoint, 1904. 261 woman. Uzanne described the clever manager of a small income, a typical class of bourgeois woman, as one, however, who "cannot economise on her corsets, as no dress will look well over ill—fitting ones. . . . The same applies to the bootmaker. Economies in shoes are false economies. If a woman attends to these details she always 25 Chahine's 'midinette' is showing these boots, as proud looks well.‘' of them as her bourgeois counterpart would be. A better choice for the classification of prostitute would be Chahine's woman in Figure 119. Although she is also only displaying her boots, the bourgeois status symbol, she is not dressed in an outfit which young working women usually wore. She is also the woman who Chahine included in Le Promenoir (Figure 57). Of the nearly two-and—a-half million female industrial workers in 1906, about one—and-one—half million were classified as factory workers. Domestic—based industry, another type of employment where the least separation existed between the home and workplace, supplied 250,000 jobs in Paris and 750,000 in the provinces at the turn of the century. In Paris, compared to the approximately 6000 street-hawkers, 98,000 washerwomen, and 200,000 domestic servants, there were about 135,000 factory workers. The Industrial Revolution was slow in spreading to the clothing (textile) industry; as late as 1906, domestic industry supplied a sizable amount of the production in the textile industry. The expansion of large department stores and their increased urban sales of textile products necessitated a continued demand for domestic industry until factory capabilities could satisfy the increased demand. The sewing machine also made 262 Figure 119. Edgar Chahine. Les Chaussettes. Aquatint and drypoint, 1903. Figure 119 264 it possible for textile products to be manufactured at home. Factory owners and employers also might have considered the economic implications of the new protective legislation that was passed in the 18905 which conerned women working in factories, and therefore con— tinued to rely on domestic industry.26 The textile industry was the first industry which women 27 From the beginning of the nineteenth entered outside the home. century, the introduction of spinning and weaving machinery into factories in France allowed women to be employed at tasks which, because of the great physical strength that was required prior to the introduction of the new machinery, were performed only by men. The demands of the early Industrial Revolution, which required increased accumulation of capital in heavy machinery, outweighed concerns for humane surroundings, minimum wages, and shorter working hours. The increased demand for factory workers was met by women who were willing to work for lower wages than men.28 Although these were the women who social critics and trade union leaders classified as the group they felt were the most exploited and also the group which legislation could be applied to, printmakers, for some reason, chose not to depict them. Weisberg's explanation might contain part of the answer: Cautiously conservative in theme (even when experimental in composition), printmakers seldom transcended the ambiva- lent attitudes toward women that dominated many sections of French society. . . . In retrospect, images of women heightened the dilemma of a society questioning its origins and traditions. Since many of these prints were fanCiful or imaginary, they place in perspective the dichotomy between reality and illusion which printmakers cultivated throughout this one—hundred—year period. . Although women were 265 moving into new areas of work, the image of woman during the 1890's was still largely the concern of men. Artists often refused to recognize that women were making their mark in commerce and created posters which capitalized on the standard themes of woman as either lascivious playmates or fragile, helpless objects. These were curious misinterpretations of reality, possibly caused by an over- reaction to the emergence of women as heads of department stores and manufacturies. Man therefore compensated by considering women only in the way that they had tradi- tionally appeared. It was difficult for most men to accept the changing position of women as directors of business, a role they felt was a threat to the normalization of French life.29 Although one might agree that printmakers were merely behind—the- times by choosing not to study the conditions of the new employment opportunities for women in factories when they had before them the highly visible laundresses as a traditional theme to depict exploited working-class women, a more accurate answer might be that the factory workers would not have been as effective an example. After all, for the sake of realism, printmakers might have had to include female department heads who had progressed upward from the begin- ning factory workers. This would have illustrated the opportunities available for educated or skilled self-sufficient women. Trade union members, although aware of the deplorable conditions, and even acknowledging that a continuance of the appalling conditions the pro- letarian woman faced illustrated the conditions which the Socialists wished to make evident in their class struggle, were unsure whether their goal should be that of improving the working conditions or keeping their women by the hearth, away from the factory conditions. Social critics had expressed concern as early as the first half of the nineteenth century about the textile factories in the north and east 266 of France. Michelet and Jules Simon felt that the solution was to keep women away from the factories. Michelet regarded the conditions as a "profanation of the feminine ideal of the wife and mother . . and denounced the very term 'ouvriere' as an impious and sordid word." Jules Simon suggested that a woman who worked "ceased to be a woman,”30 (like the bluestocking). Although the proletarian man might have hoped that his wife or daughter did not have to work in factories, these women chose to, out of either necessity or a desire for financial remuneration for their labors. These women, who Uzanne classified in the group with baker's assistants, laundresses, florists, needlewomen, dressmakers, errand—girls, and milliners, earned on the average 54 francs per month for a 10—hour day, 6—day week, because of the often seasonal nature of their work. Textile workers are condemned to the worst form of labour. Physical strength almost equal to men's is required of them, and their work demands sustained attention. . . . These poor women are dirty, neglected, debauched, treated like dogs by their masters and overseers, ill-fed, and insuffi— ciently paid. . . . They generally die before they reach the age of fifty. Between twelve and one o'clock in the afternoon, on the outlying boulevards at Montparnasse, Montrouge, and Grennelle, or near Belleville and Vincennes, these poor women are to be found at dinner, miserably dressed, a handkerchief round their necks, shivering in their thin, ill—fitting clothes. They sit in silence, drinking their soup out of bowls, unwrapping their portion of cold meat, and washing down the miserable meal with water from the nearest fountain. The most degraded go to the nearest eating-house, and for the price of a drink are allowed to sit at a table, where they can eat the unsavoury scraps they bring with them, or the remains of yesterday' 5 meal. . . They loaf back to the factory with a heavy depressed air. 31 These women, therefore, did not add to the color of the Parisian boulevards like the midinettes did. Printmakers did not depict them, ll. 267 not even Steinlen. They continued, however, to seek employment in the factories which manufactured goods for the bourgeois woman. French businessmen urged their industries to produce garments (textiles) and objects of exquisite quality to enrich the elegance of their women. 'Every department of art bore witness to (women's) charms and beauty and . inspired the industrial and artistic revival of the nation. For them (womeng, costumiers worked, and masons built, and poets sang.’ 2 Legislation began to be passed at mid—century to attempt to regulate the conditions of women and children in factories. Although a law in 1848 limited the work—day to twelve hours in large—scale industry, inadequate means of enforcement and lack of penalties for violation resulted in the law being ineffective. A law in 1892 which limited the number of hours per day women and children aged sixteen to eighteen could work to eleven and required one day off per week and a law of 1900 which limited the number of hours worked daily to ten for all workers if women and children were employed there also proved ineffective.33 Workers obtained an eight-hour working day and a 48—hour working week in 1919 although general application of the law was slow in some trades. The law was not adequately adopted until 1936.314 The CGT (Confederation Géne’rale du Travail) began campaigning for the 'English week'—-Saturday and Sunday free—- before 1912.35 Poor though these conditions were for urban working women, conditions could be worse for theipeasants. Wever discusses the various perceptions which peasants had of the better possibilities in the city. Specifically, the possibilities which existed were fixed and fewer hours of easier work, definite holidays, higher pay, and more obtainable medical help.36 268 Male trade union members opposed proletarian women working because they themselves wished to provide for their wives as the bourgeois did and this they hoped to accomplish by campaigning for the concept of a 'living family wage.l Even more serious than their wives' wages threatening the adoption of this concept was the pro- letarian women's willingness to work for lower wages than men demanded. Proudhon, as an early socialist and proponent of social equality, demanded that men be paid what their labor was worth. He recognized, however, that unemployed workers feared female competition for jobs at wages below what men considered sufficient.32 Besides observing that female industrial workers were willing to work for lower wages, male trade union members had seen the efforts of women to form worker organizations. Various feminists had organized trade unions for female workers or dealt with the issue, even though combinations of workers in industry were illegal until 1884. In 1848, Jeanne Deroin and Pauline Roland founded the first——the Association des lnstituteurs et lnstitutrices Feminists Socialistes. Also in 1848, dressmakers, embroiderers, and milliners had tried to form organiza— tions. Even though in industry women's wages had been approxi— mately half of men's wages since 1848, male printers struck in the 18605 because women were being hired below their syndical (trade union) rate. As a result of this situation, the Federation du Livre did not approve equal pay for women or even their employment in the industry until 1910, although even then local branches refused to follow the new resolutions. In the Commune march, female clothing 269 workers and washerwomen demanded the right to employment and a living wage.38 When trade unions began admitting women as members in the 18705, they favored mixed associations of men and women in contrast to the Christian Socialists who favored separate trade unions for men and women. By 1898, however, the CGT had changed its stance to that of separate spheres for men and women. At its Fourth Congress it passed resolutions favoring campaigns to recruit female members. However, they wished to separate men and women into respective spheres to reduce competition between them. They also passed a resolution in1898 favoring equal pay for spinsters and widows. It was not until 1935 that they advocated equal pay for all women. As late as 1936, however, collective bargaining agreements fixed women's wages 13-15 percent below men's. Equal pay for women was made official in 1946.39 The Socialist, Pelletier, noted that the socialists' proclamation in favor of equality of the sexes was merely theoretical: females comprised only three percent of the socialist party membership, with two-thirds of these women being wives of male members. The small number of women who joined trade unions can be explained by their actual segregation into separate spheres of occupation and male trade union members' belief that they should continue to be concentrated in separate spheres. Their employment tended to be more transitory than men's and they changed employment more often. Largely con— fined to unskilled jobs, they were easily replaced by employers and were, therefore, more vulnerable to their pressures. Also, the women 270 who worked in small workshops, home industries as piece—rate workers, and domestic service were more difficult to organize.40 Proletarian fathers might choose to provide training for their daughters so that they could become day dressmakers, thereby avoid— ing the dangers of factory work. This group of women was comprised of young widows, orphans of fairly good class, or daughters of factory workers. As these women worked for the lower middle class, however, they could hope to earn no more than factory workers.“ By 1900, however, opportunities were introduced which provided respectable jobs for working-class and bourgeois women, unemployed governesses, and female relatives of male employees in large depart— ment stores and couturier shops. Vallotton depicted these women (Figure 120). These busy respectable women, all in their proper out— fits, are represented as just ordinary women who were needed to sell the ready—made merchandise of the store to bourgeois customers. Although the wages were not necessarily higher than that of the factory worker (40-200 francs per month) or the hours shorter; the work, though hard, was undoubtedly performed in more pleasant surroundings. These women, like the midinettes, could be seen meet— ing for lunch or even a drink in the evening. Clerks had Sunday off unless Monday was a sale day or they worked in a provisions shop. Although these clerks could not aspire to succeeding retiring owners as the apprentice—type workers in small shops had been able to do in the past and therefore more securely establishing themselves as bourgeois by the fact that they were tradespeople, the connotation of promiscuity was not attached to the clerk positions. The mannequins 271 .rmwF #320003 88622 3 \l .coto__m> xzwm 52 23$ . NEW—ODE (A 272 in high-class establishments, however, were often sought after as clandestine prostitutes. The cashier-clerk-manager position, sought after by 'ladies in reduced circumstances,‘ paid 100-250 francs per month and these women often married the manager. The female employee at the highest rung, that of forewoman, earned, with her salary and share of the profits, about 250-835 francs per month. Like several of the domestic servant group, she dreamed of retiring to the country. At her salary, she was one of the few types of female workers who could comfortably support herself and even adopt the male bourgeois dream of retiring and becoming part of the leisure class.Ll2 These must have been some of the women Weisberg mentions who men felt were a 'threat to the normalization of French Iife.‘ Of course, at these salaries, men started competing with women for the same jobs and replacing them in some cases, as Vallotton illustrated in Figure 4. Continuing in an older tradition, however, was the working woman who helped her husband in the small family business or even operated her own business. Uzanne included several interesting character sketches of these borderline bourgeois who were 'charming and gracious' Parisian shopkeepers. The baker . . . is a first—rate woman of business, preparing to be a first-rate bourgeoise when the time comes to retire. She leads her husband, the flour man, who is always white and gentle, by the nose. The confectioner is quite a fine lady. She deals in luxury and is almost at the top of the shopkeeping hierarchy. . . . When she has made her fortune she intends to have a country house at Boissy- Saint—Léger or Vésinet. . . . Her husband, a grave, quiet man, is never seen at her shop. . . . The corset-maker . makes her fortune quickly. Towards fifty she retires 273 to the country with Monsieur, frequently a journalist or a superior clerk in a shop, who, though he has made no figure in his own business, retires also on a fortune—— made by his wife. [He noted, however, that these women changed as they became successful.] The charming and gracious Parisian shopkeeper, as she rises towards eminence in her trade, loses in simplicity and spontaneity. . . . Her life hardens her; while her only interest, the passion for making money, sours and embitters a nature naturally good and affectionate.‘'3 Uzanne seemed to feel it was necessary to end his various chapters dealing with sports, education, and shopkeepers with the warning about what would happen if women pursued these interests to the point of forgetting what their natural state was. Uzanne must have placed the milliner (modiste) at the top of the shopkeeping hierarchy, just above the confectioner. In addition to depicting clerks in a millinery shop (Figure 120) Vallotton also depicted another milliner (Figure 121). It is unclear whether Vallotton meant this woman to be just a wrapper or counter clerk, thereby earning as low as 35 francs per month, or the owner of the shop. Although the first impression might be that she is the owner because of the presence of only her and the customer, her severe costume and hair—style are identical to those in Figure 120. Hermann Paul, 1864— 1940, also depicted women employed in the millinery profession, either as assistants or shop owners (Figure 122). These quaint middle—aged women are shown out for a stroll like the colorful young trottins or midinettes, instead of in shops. Lautrec exhibited a more varied interest in the different aspects of the millinery trade. One print (Figure 123) is similar in ambiguity to Vallotton's and Paul's prints (Figure 121-122), although Lautrec's modiste is a better example of Le Chapeau vert . 6 9 00 4 .h 7 nw 2 0r t .19 00 “h aH. VI rl .mm do FC Figure 121. s 4 $9 doo _ 01 M , h .0. .. Mam . 5 Diw 7 h 2 nt n“ 8 mr rm 80 HC Figure 122. 276 Figure 123. Henri de Toulouse—Lautrec. Lithograph, 1893. Figure 124. Henri de Toulouse—Lautrec. Lithograph, 1893. La Modiste. Le Petit T rottin . Figure 123 Figure 124 h; s... Ill 278 these women who 'helped set the pace with their own hair styles and dress' and operated shops which were patronized by wealthy clients. The hats in Figures 121, 123, and 125 also seem to be more individual- ized and fanciful than the hats in Figure 120. Of course he also depicted the origin of many of these millinery shop owners, that of trottins, in Figure 124. The title and the presence of the man implies promiscuity. In Figure 125, however, he depicted a specific success“ ful milliner, who owned her own shop. Her hair and blouse are as much works of inspiration as the hats she has created. This is the woman who Uzanne described as not a workwoman; she is a poet. One cannot compare a hat with a corset, which must be a production of calculation and patience. . . . The hat is a product of the imagination-- a work of art, a poem of taste. . . . Milliners are charming girls, gay and careless, who have been born with the voca— tion, the gift of combining what is pretty. . . . They feel vaguely that they are the aristocracy of women's trades. There are milliners by business and milliners by necessity. The first have been 'trottins,‘ and have seen all sides of the business. . . . Thanks, perhaps, to the generosity of a lover, they have been able to open a shop at twenty-five or thirty years of age, either by buying a 'clientéle' or starting a business on the chance of making a connection for themselves. The second class are young women who have lost their money, and who, having plenty of confidence in their taste, boldly set up for themselves either at home or in some modestly conspicuous shop. . . . The milliner ought to be young; a woman in the forties and fifties can hardly attain to the graces of this calling. After she is forty she retires with her savings to the faubourgs near Fontenay- aux~Rose5 or Lilas."”l Of course, Lautrec, never one to flatter, depicted his milliner close to the 'retirement age,I like Paul had. These nearly 8000 tradeswomen could expect to earn up to; 250 francs per month, the highest wages of any of these employed women except for the forewomen in large 279 Figure 125. Henri de Toulouse—Lautrec. Mme. Le Marguoin, Milliner. Lithograph, 1900. 5 280 department stores. Lautrec, then, seems to be the artist who came closest to representing women as capable of entering the male sphere of commerce. Uzanne concluded his chapter, Tradeswomen and Shop— keepers, however, by stating that: Women belonging to the larger ones [shOps] take no part in their husbands' businesses. . . . Their business in life is to demonstrate, by their power of spending, the prosperity of their husbands. . . . They are consequently outside our picture, which is only concerned with the real workers, those who play a daily part themselves in their special businesses.”5 Uzanne chose to ignore the fact that women were increasingly involving themselves in the male's 'separate sphere' and proving that their 'natural state' was not that different from men's. Two specific examples of women running a business after their husbands' deaths are those of Mme. Boucicaut who became president of Bon Marché and Mme. Cadart who supported printmaking publications shortly after her husband's death.”6 Uzanne, as a friend and chronicler of various artists' lives and works, surely would have known about Mme. Cadart. He, as well as printmakers, evidently could not conceive of these women as being of any interest or value to the establishment. Although the bourgois tended to include in the definition of their class the criteria that their wives did not work, at home or outside, a careful reading of Uzanne's Modern Parisienne, Laver's Manners and Morals, and especially McMillan's Housewife or Harlot, reveals that bourgeois daughters began to work in the late nineteenth century. Educated women had found employment as governesses or school teachers since the early nineteenth century, although these jobs often paid little. Equal pay for women in the teaching profession 281 was finally accepted in 1927.47 Beginning in the 18705, however, women increasingly entered employment at the Central Telegraphique, Postal Savings Banks, and the telephone company. An early illustra— tion depicts these employed middle-class women in elaborate trained dresses (Figure 126). Female employment in the postal services was introduced during the Ancien Re’gime but abolished after the Revolu- tion. In 1866, Euge’nie, for the first time since the Revolution, reintroduced the employment of women in the public service in tele- graph offices. By 1906, 22 percent of the employees in the Journal des Postes, Te’légraphes and Téléphones were women. However, these jobs were often restricted to female relatives of male employees. By the 18905, as men still married relatively late, trained women began to take advantage of the new opportunities for female bourgeois employment as clerks, short—hand typists, cashiers, telephonists, and secretaries in offices, industry, government, stores, banks, credit houses, railway companies, and post-offices. The impetus for female opportunities in these new fields was the adoption of the typewriter by business. The women who quickly responded to this new oppor— tunity for independence were the same type of young women who hoped to improve their condition with training but ended up competing for governess positions; governesses out of employment, bourgeoises in poor circumstances, and girls who had lost their fortunes. The image chosen by the French firm Hortu, however, to advertise its products in England (Figure 127) is a representation of a lady in an ambiguous setting whose costume, although similar to the costumes Steinlen chose for his dressmakers (Figure 114), has been elaborated 282 WW irrr Figure 126. Telegraph Girls. Illustration, 1871. 283 Figure 127. Lucien Faure. The Empire Typewriter. Color lithograph, 1897. 284 upon with ruffled wrist bands and high collar. Even if we are to assume that the lady is in an office, the distinction is still present that this woman represents (for the French as well as the British) a white collar worker, not one of 'the Great Unwashed' as mentioned in Chapter III. Although early salaries might be as high as 300 francs per month for a 9—hour day, as the number of women who completed their training and applied for jobs increased, the oppor— tunities for comparatively high wages decreased. However, an Oppor- tunity did exist in this occupation, besides prostitution, to supplement income, that of taking work home.48 These young women, as well as female directors and owners of businesses, must also have been viewed as a 'threat to the normalization of French life.l The resulting financial independence of these young unmarried bourgeois women which offered the opportunity of attaining status without a dowry must have been viewed as a threat to the bourgeois arranged-marriage concept. This opportunity for higher wages which was also available to trained working—class women also negated the proletariat's demands for a 'living family wage' which was needed so that they could provide for their wives like the bourgeois had. The absence of prints depict— ing these young office workers is also natural since bourgeois fathers must have felt lacking in resources to the extent that their daughters had to work outside the home. Working-class fathers might also have rejected depictions of the new employment opportunities for their daughters for the same reason. These prints would also not have supported their campaign of depicting their daughters as being exploited by the bourgeois. 285 Economics contributed to the downfall of the criteria that bourgeois women did not work outside the home. The few early— nineteenth century employment opportunities for bourgeois women as teachers, governesses, and day-dressmakers paid no more than some of the jobs filled by unskilled working-class women, the women who were described as 'Ia declasse.l Governesses and day-dressmakers worked directly for middle or upper—class individuals and these employers were often not willing to pay them a 'living wage.’ The income from the new employment Opportunities for bourgeois women as clerk/managers and office—workers, as well as that of milliner, which allowed women to support themselves on their earnings, was not paid by one individual, but by a company or a number of indi— viduals. Female authors of early-twentieth century career books, however, still urged bourgeois daughters to take advantage of these new employment Opportunities only if absolutely necessary. Mme. Georges Regnal, in Comment la femme peuLgagner 5a vie, 1908, "while insisting on the obligation of every mother to prepare her daughter for a working life, observed nevertheless that society was still reluctant to allow women to live by the fruits of their own labour, "'49 which was the since customarily they were paid only 'pin money, same observation which Briquet made in reference to why women were often forced into prostitution, Chapter VI. However, the connotation of promiscuity does not seem to have been attached to the new employ- ment opportunities as it had been for traditional occupations. Of course, there would have been no earlier popular prints to have referred to. Late nineteenth century printmakers, therefore, did not 286 have the same opportunities to present these women either as quaint, colorful, or exploited like they had with the often impoverished women in traditional occupations. Mlle. T. Razous, in Guide pratique des femmes et des ’Leunes filles dans le choix d'une profession, 1910 still clung to the old view that only girls from families which had suffered a reverse of fortunes should have to go to work, though she could see that women married to men with incomes insufficient to let them live in the style to which they had been accustomed might also have to find a job to supplement the family income. Under normal circumstances, the proper place for a woman remained the home: 'The best, the healthiest, the most noble of situations is that of the woman as wife and mother, conscious of her duties towards her husband and children.'50 Woman's 'natural state' was still viewed as being the 'separate sphere' of wife and mother. Printmakers' depictions of employed women were, by and large, based upon early nineteenth—century popular prints. The titles and/ or connotations were intended to represent picturesque or colorful elements Of Parisian life on the streets, with Often implied elements of promiscuity. Even the purpose of illustrating the need for social reform was not a new function, even though later printmakers may have felt the need more keenly. Printmakers' images of working women were primarily images of working—class women even though the number of middle—class women working was increasing. Printmakers, in this aspect, were attempting to reinforce the concept of separate spheres for bourgeois ladies and working—class women. Printmakers were documenting the increasing inapplicability of this concept, how- ever, when they depicted employed working-class women as not being that different from bourgeois women of the leisure class, especially —f— 7 W 7 “- “HT—TM “T 287 when they depicted the women working in new occupations as being both working—class and bourgeois 'iadies.I In certain cases, Chahine and Steinlen even seem to be emphasizing the independence these working women felt rather than the earlier promiscuity which was attached to working women. The extent to which printmakers depicted women in 'professional' employment, however, did not extend past traditional areas, such as millinery or dressmaking. Women who were pursuing new Opportunities for professional employment, which threatened men's separate sphere, were ignored by printmakers. CHAPTER VIII: NOTES 1McMillan, Housewife or Harlot, pp. 14—15. 2Richardson, La Vie Parisienne, p. 136. 3McMillan, Housewife or Harlot, p. 13. “Zeldin, Ambition and Love, p. 351; and McMillan, Housewife or Harlot, pp. 39—110. 5Another study conducted in 1913 by the Office du Travail supplied the following statistics: 50% of the Parisian seamstresses were married with 33% of the other 50% being widows or divorcees, and 52% of the artificial flower makers were married with 22% of the other 48% being widowed or divorced. In 1901, 112% of the French women aged 20—24 were married compared to 25% in Britain. In France the birthrate declined from 27.4/1000 in 1841—1850 to 22.2/1000 in 1891-1900 (a 19% decrease) compared to 32.6/1000 in 1841-1850 to 29.9/1000 in 1891-1900 (an 8% decrease) in Britain. McMillan, House- wife or Harlot, pp. 40—41; and Zeldin, Anxiety and Hypocrisy, p. 186. 6McMillan, Housewife or Harlot, pp. 37-41. 7McMillan, Housewife or Harlot, pp. 111—114; and Zeldin, Ambition and Love, p. 287. 8Zeldin, Ambition and Love, p. 351; and McMillan, Housewife or Harlot, p. 39. 9Zeldin, Anxiety and Hypocrisy, p. 209; McMillan, Housewife or Harlot, p. 2; CTark, The Position of Women in Contemporary France, pp. 16—38; and Zeldin, Ambition and Love, p. 351. 10Of the 32.7% in industry, 24.6% were in the textile industry and of the 13.9% in the last classification, 9.9% were in commerce, mainly shops (before 1914, 7% were in the liberal professions, which indicates that very few women were in the administrative services). Compared to the total number of workers in textile occupations, male 288 289 and female, women composed about 55—68% of the workers. In 1896, women in commerce comprised 35.6% of the commerce employees, up from 25.5% in 1866. In 1906, the most numerous age group for women in factories was under 20 years of age compared to 25—29 years of age for men. Women under 20 years of age constituted 39.13% of the female labor force in factories compared to men under 20 constituting 19.33% of the male labor force in factories. McMillan, Housewife or Harlot, pp. 38, 55~56; Clark, The Position of Women in Contemporary France, p. 38; and Price, An Economic History of Modern France, p. 236. 11Agricultural employment dropped in France from 1700 through 1896: 1700-~80%; 1830--70-73%;1856——51.3%; 1881-—l-I7.7%; 1896—-lIl-l.9%. Of the 52.3% nonagricultural workers in 1881, half were classified as industrial. In 1881, only 7.1% were classified as being in liberal professions and public service, 9.7% in commerce and banking, % in domestic service, and 1.7% in transportation. Price, An Economic History of Modern France, pp. 168-169. "— 12Uzanne, Modern Parisienne, pp. 90—99; and Weisberg, Images of Women, p. 26. 13Uzanne, Modern Parisienne, pp. 115—124. MWeisberg, Images of Women, pp. 25-26; and Weisberg, Social Concern and the Worker, pp. 13—14, 32—35. ”Uzanne, Modern Parisienne, pp. 69—73, 78. 16Weber, Peasants into Frenchmen, pp. 115, 284-286; and Clark, The Position of Women in Contemporary France, p. 27. 17Uzanne, Modern Parisienne, pp. 50—62; and Zeldin, Anxiety and Hypocrisy, p. 179. 18Uzanne, Modern Parisienne, pp. 50-62. 19McMillan, Housewife or Harlot, p. 40; and Clark, The Position of Women in Contemporary France, pp.38-39. 20Uzanne, Modern Parisienne, pp. 50-62. 21ibid. 290 22 . Uzanne, Modern Parisienne, pp. 52-62; Weber, Peasants Into Frenchmen, pp. 283—284, 542; and Duncan, "Happy Mm pp. 570-583. 23 . . Uzanne, Modern ParISIenne, pp. £13, 77—86; Cate and Gill, Steinlen, p. 85; and Farwell, Cult of Images, p. 103. 2”Weisberg, Images of Women, p. 32. 25Uzanne, Modern Parisienne, pp. 29-30. 26Clark, The Position of Women in Contemporary France, pp. 11-18; McMillan, Housewife or Harlot, pp. £11, 59-60; Price, An Economic History of Modern France, p. 168; and Uzanne, Modern Parisienne, p. 64. 27 pp. 11-12. Clark, The Position of Women in Contemporary France, 28lbid., pp. 11-15. 29Weisberg, Images of Women, pp. 26, 35. 3OMcMillan, Housewife or Harlot, p. 37. 31Uzanne, Modern Parisienne, pp. 63-67. 32Weisberg, Images of Women, p. 18. 33Clark, The Position of Women in Contemporary France, p. 17; and Zeldin, Politics and Anger, pp. 30£l—305. 3“Encyclopaedia Britannica, 29th ed. (1961), s.v. "France," by James Douglas Lambert. 35McMillan, Housewife or Harlot, p. 15. 36Weber, Peasants into Frenchmen, pp. 285-287, £183. 37Zeldon, Politics and Anger, pp. 94-96; and McMillan, Housewife or Harlot, pp. 14—15. 38Clark, The Position of Women in Contemporary France, p. 76; McMillan, Housewife or Harlot, pp. 2, 13—14, 79-84; and Zeldin, Ambition and Love, p. 359. 291 Clark, The Position of Women in Contemporary France, pp. 1£1-15, 76—77; McMillan, Housewife or Harlot, pp. 1£1—15, 35, 87; and Zeldin, Ambition and Love, pp. 346, 357-359. 40McMillan, Housewife or Harlot, p. 87; Edward Lucie—Smith and Celestine Dars, Work and Struggle, The Painter as Witness 1870-1914 (New York: Paddington Press Ltd., 1977), p. £17; Eleanor S. Reimer and John C. Fout, European Women, A Documentary History, 1789-1945 (New York: Schocker Books, 1980), pp. 18—19; and Clark, The Position of Women in Contemporary France, pp. 80-81. “Uzanne, Modern Parisienne, pp. 67—68. uzlbid” pp. 106—114; and Weisberg, Images of Women, p. 26. 43Uzanne, Modern Parisienne, pp. 100-105. “mid” pp. 103-104. L15 . _ lbld., pp. 88—89, 104 105. £16 Weisberg, Images of Women, p. £10. 47Zeldin, Ambition and Love, p. 359; and Weber, Peasants into Frenchmen, p. 317. 48McMilIan, Housewife or Harlot, pp. 55— 57; Uzanne, Modern Parisienne. pp 120— 12£1; and Fischel and Von Boehn, Modes and Manners, p. 100. 49McMillan, Housewife or Harlot, pp. 57—58. solbid. CHAPTER IX CONCLUSION The changing conditions which were forced upon France beginning in 1871 affected everyone. Although printmakers may have wished to emphasize either respectability, liberation, or a combination of the two concepts and different sectors of the public supported these various emphases, the concepts of respectability and liberation were actually related to the broader concept of separate spheres. Women were just one group to which this concept was applied and questioned. Respectability was merely a convenient term to use which would hopefully act as a deterrent to unacceptable behavior and printmakers responded to this concept. The question of separate spheres was probably further complicated because although France wanted to compete with other industrialized nations, she also wanted to preserve the parts of her past inheritance which she felt were valuable. The changing and often contradictory criteria which bourgeois men ascribed to reflected their perceptions of what condi— tions were necessary to meet France's goals. Although the working class contrasted their conditions to the bourgeois, they also wished to be able to provide for their wives like the bourgeois did. Artists themslves were torn between the separate spheres of the Salon and what they perceived as their search for truth. Printmakers, however, 292 293 were encouraged and sponsored by print dealers and journals, both of conservative and radical natures. This iconographical study of the social history of traditional and new roles available to urban French women during the 'Belle Epoque' years revealed the fact and fiction involved in printmakers' choices of subject matter. Their interpretations of situations reflected varied ends which they hoped to illustrate. Elements of respectability and liberation were emphasized in prints depicting both ladies of leisure and working-class women. The concept of separate spheres was both eulogized and questioned in regards to the differ- entiation its earlier application had attached to the 'natural states' of the following pairs: men/women, bourgeois ladies/working—class women, and respectable women/not—so—respectable women. While Manuel Robbe presented images of his ideal of the attractive bourgeois woman, he also seems to have been just as concerned with presenting images of not-so-respectable women who engaged in the same types of activity as respectable women and were virtually indistinguishable from these women. Edgar Chahine's images present less of a comparison between types of women than a cross section of all types of picturesque or exploited women. His types run the gamut from wealthy ostentatious women to young girls and women trapped by restrictive employment opportunities. His 'new' women are shown engaged in sports or smartly attired as young clothing or millinery workers. Printmakers' emphases on quaint or colorful types in the con- tinuance of the tradition of earlier popular prints and Physiologies, with often implied connotations of promiscuity, stressed traditional 294 roles assumed or allowed to women. Some printmakers, however, when depicting women in both traditional and new roles, began to probe and draw comparisons between women in general, noting that society had changed and strict separation into distinct spheres was no longer a reflection of the modern changing world. The increasing mingling of the classes presented examples to depict of the more interesting new woman who was less easily classified. The bourgeois woman of the hearth had become the visible bourgeois woman of the boulevards. Some of these women even began to take advantage of acceptable types of employment. Employment opportunities also improved for the working—class woman. Printmakers depicted the similarities of these women to each other as well as to not-so—respectable women instead of emphasizing the distinct separate sphere of the traditional courtesan. These images could serve as vehicles of both entertainment and social redress. Louis Legrand‘s prints, with their concentration on references to immorality, were often executed in an amusing or satirical vein even when the emphasis was on exploitation. Printmakers often avoided, however, depicting actual conditions of the various types of women because these conditions did not illustrate the ideal woman of the particular classes. Theophile Steinlen's images of women are not easy to classify. His working-class women are shown both as distinctively picturesque types or as examples of ideals not that different from bourgeois ideals. His women were depicted as taking advantage of the bicycle as a new means of transportation or of new opportunities in the clothing or millinery industry. He also presented less attractive images of exploited working~class women who were limited to 295 employment as either laundresses or prostitutes. Although these depictions may have represented aspirations or ideals instead of reality, they also illustrated a new type of woman taking advantage of new opportunities which would allow her to be an independent being. Depictions of the questioning of distinct separate spheres by printmakers, however, primarily concentrated on comparisons between respectable ladies of leisure, working-class women, and promiscuous women. The subject of women entering men's separate sphere was avoided by printmakers. Feminists, educated, artistic, and literary women, were not new subjects. They had been treated by earlier artists in a humorous or satirical fashion and then dismissed when they changed their image because they were no longer interesting. The continued demands by new types of women in these areas, and in the areas of middle-class and professional employment, however, definitely represented a threat and printmakers chose not to depict this threat. Although Henri de Toulouse—Lautrec is remembered as presenting a picture of his world of performers and prostitutes, he also is the printmaker who presented the most enlightened comparison of 'all women' and even examples of the actual independent employed businesswoman of the millinery industry. Of course, this field, in both the cases of trottins and shopowners, carried the taint of promiscuity. Other types of liberated women evidently were not viewed as interesting by printmakers in general because the aspect of promiscuity was less applicable and there was no tradition to draw upon for these new types of employed women. 296 Printmakers stressed both ideals and actual conditions depending on the message they attempted to stress. All of these often conflicting aspects resulted in printmakers presenting a fascinating combination of fact and fiction in their prints depicting the urban woman's roles in the years between the Franco—Prussian War and World War I in France. SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY 297 r... SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Arwas, Victor. Belle Epoque Posters and Graphics. New York: Rizzoli International Publications, lnc., 1978. Auspitz, Katherine. The Radical Bourgeoisie. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1982. Batterberry, Michael and Ariane. Fashion, The Mirror of History. New York: Greenwich House, 1982. Cate, Phillip Dennis, and Gill, Susan. Theophile Alexandre Steinlen. Salt Lake City: Gibbs M. Smith lnc., 1982. Cate, Phillip Dennis, and Hitchings, Sinclair Hamilton. The Color Revolution, Color Lithography in France 1890—1900. Santa Barbara and Salt Lake City: Peregrine Smith, lnc., 1978. Clark, Francis l. The Position of Women in Contemporary France. London: P. S. King 8 Son, Ltd., 1937. Donson, Theodore B., and Griepp, Marvel M. Great Lithographs by Toulouse—Lautrec. New York: Dover Publications, lnc., 1982. Duncan, Carol. "Happy Mothers and Other New Ideas in French Art.ll Art Bulletin LV, 1973. Encyclopaedia Brittanica. 14th ed. (1929), s.v. "Bicycle." By B. W. Best. Encyclopaedia Britannica. 29th ed. (1961), s.v. "France." By James Douglas Lambert. Farwell, Beatrice. The Cult of Images, Baudelaire and the 19th— Century Media Explosion. Santa Barbara: UCSB Art Museum, 1977. Fine, Elsa Honig. Women and Art. Montclair, N.J.: Allanheld and Schram, 1978. Fischel, Oskar, and Von Boehn, Max. Modes and Manners of the Nineteenth Century. Translated by M. Edwards. Vol. III. London: J. M. Dent 8 Co., 1909. 298 299 Hanson, Anne Coffin. Manet and the Modern Tradition. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1977. Hartman, Mary 5., and Banner, Lois, eds. Clio's Consciousness Raised. New York: Harper 8 Row, Publishers, 19711. Herbert, Eugenia W. The Artist and Social Reform. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1961. Holland, Vyvyan. Hand Coloured Fashion Plates 1770—1889. London: B. T. Batsford Ltd., 1955. Hunt, Morton M. The Natural History of Love. New York: Minerva Press, 1959. Jacques Villon. Chicago: R. W. Johnson International, 7 Julian, Philippe, and Vreeland, Diana. La Belle Epoque. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1982. Kemp, Tom. Economic Forces in French History. London: Dennis Dobson, 1971. Laver, James. Manners and Morals in the Age of Optimism, 18£18— 1914. New York: Harper 8 Row, Publishers, 1966. Laver, James. Modesty in Dress. London: William Heinemann Ltd., 1969. Laver, James. Taste and Fashion from the French Revolution until Today. New York: Dodd, Mead 8 Company, 1938. Lucie—Smith, Edward, and Dars, Celestine. Work and Struggle, The Painter as Witness, 1870—1919. New York: Paddington Press Ltd., 1977. Manuel Robbe 1872—1936. Chicago: Merrill Chase Galleries, 1979. de Marly, Diana. Worth, Father of Haute Couture. New York: Holmes 8 Meier Publishers, lnc., 1980. McMillan, James F. Housewife or Harlot: The Place of Women in French Society 1870—1940. New York: St. Martin‘s Press, 1981. Newton, Stella Mary. Health, Art 8 Reason. London: John Murray, 197£l. 300 Parturier, Francoise, and Armingeat, Jacqueline. Daumier, Lib Women (Bluestockings and Socialist Women). Translated by Howard Brabyn. Paris—New York: Leon Amiel Publisher, lnc., 1974. La Petite Reine. Paris: Musée de I'affiche. Price, Roger. An Economic History of Modern France, 1730—1914. London and Basingstoke: The Macmillan Press Ltd., 1981. Rediscovered Printmakers of the 19th Century. Chicago: Merrill Chase Galleries, 1978. Reimer, Eleanor S., and Fout, John C. European Women, A Docu- mentary History, 1789-1945. New York: Schocken Books, 1980. Richardson, Joanna. La Vie Parisienne, 1852—1870. London: Hamish Hamilton, 1971. Rudorff, Raymond. Belle Epoque, Paris in the Nineties. London: Hamish Hamilton, 1972. Uzanne, Octave. Fashion in Paris. Translated by Lady Mary Loyd. London: William Heinemann, 1901. Uzanne, Octave. The Modern Parisienne. London: William Heinemann, 1912. Weber, Eugen. Peasants into Frenchmen, The Modernization of Rural France, 1870—1919. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1976. Weisberg, Gabriel P. Images of Women: Printmakers in France from 1830-1930. Salt Lake City: Utah Museum of Fine Arts, 1977. Weisberg, Gabriel P. "Manet and Modern Paris." Art News 82(6); Summer 1983. Weisberg, Gabriel P. The Realist Tradition, French Painting and Drawing 1830—1900. Cleveland: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1980. Weisberg, Gabriel. Social Concern and the Worker: French Prints from 1830-1910. Salt Lake City: Utah Museum of Fine Arts, 1973. Wentworth, Michael Justin. James Tissot. Minneapolis: The Minneapolis Institute of Arts, 1978. Zeldin, Zeldin, Zeldin, Zeldin, Zeldin, 301 Theodore. France 1848—1945, Ambition and Love. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979. Theodore. France 18118—1945, Anxiety and Hypocrisy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981. Theodore. France 1848—1945, Intellect and Pride. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980. Theodore. France 1848—1945, Politics and Anger. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979. Theodore. France 1848—1905, Taste and Corruption. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980. 5 llIlllllllllllllllllIllllllllllllllllllllllllllll