by The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Clothing Through American History 1900 to the Present (pdf)
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ART AND ENTERTAINMENT
Gibson’s vision indicated a young woman who
was sturdy, self-reliant, and knew what she wanted.
Although not openly advocating any political or
social causes, the Gibson girl would engage in sports,
ride a bicycle without a chaperone, and might, on
occasion, engage in some mild form of strenuous ac-
tivity. She did not faint, nor did she change her
behavior to appeal to men. Women tried to model
themselves after Gibson’s ideal, and men wanted to
marry them.
Not all art was intent at presenting life in a posi-
tive, romantic manner. Perhaps because 1900 was
seen as the beginning of a new millennium and the
United States was growing past its isolationist stages
and branching out into world politics, but in the
1900s, American artists started reconsidering what
‘ art’ was. Many of the young artists at the time saw
little point in producing the fantasized illustrations of
life that had been painted for centuries. They wanted
to bring more realism to their work, hence the con-
cept of ‘‘realism.’’
A Gibson girl in
Part of the new trend was a result of finally having artists who were
shirtwaist and picture
trained in the United States. During the nineteenth century, most artists
hat, c. 1910. [Library
went to Europe to learn the styles of the European masters. After the
of Congress]
Civil War, many families could not afford to send children to Europe.
The economic depressions and the horrors of the war impressed the artis-
tic youth of this country. They began to see what really existed. By the
end of the nineteenth century, artists were painting scenes of their area of
the country. Homer Winslow, from New England, painted dramatic
ocean scenes. Frederick Remington put the lives of common cowboys,
horses, and cattle on canvas. The younger artists were starting to chal-
lenge the way art had been done for decades, if not centuries.
One of the first art movements in New York to challenge the status
quo was a group of artists referred to as the Ash Can school. They
painted scenes of life as it really existed on the streets of New York.
Major museums and art critics deplored this art, but the artists insisted
that it was real and that art should reflect life as it was, not as the artist
wanted it to be. For the first year or two, no one was willing to allow
such artists to display their work, so the artists joined forces and created
their own studios and galleries that would display the more realistic
scenes of life.
The 1900s
57
The century also saw the rudimentary beginnings of mass photography.
The first Kodak camera had been introduced in 1888, and professional and
talented amateur photographers had been taking portraits and pictures of
scenery for years. Frank Brownell developed a small camera called the
‘‘Brownie’ for George Eastman in 1900. This camera cost $1 and was inex-
pensive enough that most Americans could buy one, making photography,
for the first time, something that anyone could do (Chakravorti 2003).
The Brownie, by the way, was not named after its developer. George
Eastman was aware that children read books about elves and children,
and there was a character called ‘‘Brownie’’ that was popular at that time.
Eastman thought that, if the camera had a name that children would like,
it might catch on, and he was correct.
Architects were able to take advantage of some of the era’s new tech-
nology to ‘ solve’’ some of the big problems of the cities. People kept
flocking to the cities in hopes of finding work or in hopes of finding a
better life. They needed someplace to live and work. The skyscraper was
born to house offices, but it also could be used to house people. The new
technique of creating steel beams that were strong and light would allow
buildings to be built higher than anyone could have dreamed.
The motto ‘‘form follows function’ became a trademark of early
American architects such as Frank Lloyd Wright and Louis Sullivan. Nei-
ther man saw a point to the useless details and ornamentation on many
older buildings. Sullivan’s work stressed the function and the structure of
the building itself. Wright considered Sullivan a master in the field, but
Wright was able to construct buildings that looked as if they were grown
from the area around them. Both men would have major impacts on
American architecture in later decades.
LITERATURE AND MUSIC
Horatio Alger, a poor writer who found a successful formula, was a popu-
lar author for boys’ novels at the turn of the century. The plots of the sto-
ries all concerned young boys who had origins in poverty. The boys leave
their family to seek fortunes elsewhere. These children did not earn their
fortunes, but they were unfailingly polite and good role models for any
young boy. They became wealthy simply because they would do some-
thing quickly and save someone or something, and then they would be
rewarded for their bravery and quick thinking. Alger wanted to demon-
strate to his readers that somehow, their virtuous behavior would be
rewarded. In the world that Alger created in his books, boys who did not
follow the rules tended to be evil or have troubles their entire lives.
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Girls too had their stories. Many of them were presented as melodra-
mas on a local stage. Frequently, a young girl would be engaged in some
kind of dispute with a very wealthy woman. The wealthy women were of-
ten portrayed as thoughtless and frequently unscrupulous. The wealthy
woman would be doing everything she could to maintain the wealth of
her family and to continue living a life of what many called ‘ conspicuous
consumption.’’ The poor young girl might be nothing in the rich woman’s
eye, but the plot to the story was obviously meant to demonstrate that the
poor girl was a better person than the rich one. As in Horatio Alger’s sto-
ries, the poor young girl would be rewarded for her virtue by the end of
the story, much like the ending of the Cinderella story. What was rarely
discussed, however, was whether or not the young girl married her rich
husband and then became a conspicuous member of the idle rich.
Much of the popular literature reflected the ideals of the times. Some
of the best known novels of the late 1800s, stories such as Tolstoy’s Anna
Karenina or Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the d’Urbervilles, reflected stories of
women who, for a variety of reasons, left their husbands for another man.
These fictional women might have some weeks or months of happiness,
but, invariably, they met disaster. The idea was clear: a woman’s place was
with her husband and children.
People who did not live a ‘ proper life’’ were also the subject of the
many pamphlets and stories that reformers made popular. As the world
started changing, many groups banded together to do something about<
br />
that change. Women who joined the Women’s Christian Temperance
Union advocated stories that would demonstrate how someone could start
out on the ‘‘right path,’’ become confused and misguided by ‘ demon rum’
or another form of alcohol, and then learn that following the footsteps of
one’s forebears was the path to happiness. Many stories were also written
in which the hero or heroine would be tempted but never gave into the
temptations. Many such stories were aimed at young people. Edgar Rice
Burroughs’ stories about Tarzan preached the virtues of ignoring the fancy
trappings of the city life and living a simple life.
One subtle shift, however, was taking place in literature. At the begin-
ning of the nineteenth century, stories ended with the marriage. The main
characters had met, overcome their obstacles, and ‘ lived happily ever af-
ter’ in conjugal bliss. By the beginning of the nineteenth century, how-
ever, stories began with the marriage and then discussed issues related to
family life. Although the idea that a woman could leave her husband was
not a totally acceptable behavior, the literature was beginning to reflect
the reality that married life was not the ‘ happily ever after’ that everyone
wanted marriage to be.
The 1900s
59
Literature was changing in others ways as well. Because the population
was more urbanized, stories were focusing on people and the new experi-
ences that the city provided. Many heroines would experiment with single
life and a variety of jobs and men. Women in literature were becoming
less inhibited, and many people did not like it. A variety of attempts were
made to censor some of the new literature; many communities developed
some sort of ‘ anti-vice’’ committee in an attempt to ensure that youths
were not led astray. The attempts to destroy material deemed improper
only made it more popular.
Newspapers and magazines, although not exactly ‘ literature,’’ became
a popular form of storytelling. Generally, newspapers told the news. Then
Ida M. Tarbell and Lincoln Steffens wrote what might be called
‘ exposes.’’ Ida Tarbell documented John D. Rockefeller and his Standard
Oil Company. Steffens started writing about the poverty and the prob-
lems of city living. Originally, these were intended to be simply stories,
but the public reaction was overwhelming. Editors learned that people
would pay to buy anything with a scandalous or sensational story to it.
Editors started hiring people to write more such stories, called ‘ muck-
raking’’ by President Roosevelt, simply to boost circulation.
One such ‘ muckraking’’ story was The Jungle, written in 1906 by
Upton Sinclair. The story discussed some of the ‘ evils’’ of the industrial-
ized cities. Its hero wanted to destroy the capitalist system, so most edi-
tors would not publish it. Sinclair found a socialist newspaper, The Appeal
to Reason, that ran the story, and Sinclair’s novel became popular. When it
was published in book form, even President Roosevelt was supposed to
have a copy. The book, along with some of the other newspaper and mag-
azine stories, started changing people’s minds about living conditions in
the cities. Some believe the book’s popularity caused Congress to pass
laws that would prohibit some of the excesses of the greedier industrial-
ists. This kind of legislation would have been unthinkable even ten years
earlier.
Books were not the only commodity that people considered censoring.
Music was becoming ‘ evil.’’ Perhaps not the music itself, but the fact that
much music encouraged young people to dance and the way they danced
was horrifying to many adults. Some of the popular tunes during the pe-
riod 1900 1909 were ‘‘In the Good Old Summertime’’ and ‘‘Give My
Regards to Broadway.’’ Rags, such as ‘Alexander’s Ragtime Band’ by Irv-
ing Berlin, became popular. Other dances, such as the tango, became very
popular in dance halls before WWI.
One of the greatest sins of the music was that it made people move;
they might wiggle and then move other parts of their bodies, and the
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movements were seen as suggestive. Many people thought the new music
would give youths ‘ ideas’’ that they would not have otherwise. Many tried
to ban dance halls and the music played in them, but the music was too
popular. Adults who were working in or outside the home could not fol-
low their children everywhere.
Even if people did not go to dance halls, many people wanted to play
the music. Sheet music was popular and easy to obtain. Sheet music had
been a popular medium for spreading music across the population. Then
came the phonograph. In New York City, an area referred to as ‘ Tin Pan
Alley’ started producing phonograph records that would allow anyone
who did not play an instrument to play music at home. In the next several
years, the phonograph led to the decline of the popularity of sheet music.
THEATER AND MOVIES
People in urban areas were able to easily visit live theater. People in the
rural areas might be able to put on some shows of their own for a special
occasion, such as the Fourth of July, but many people looked forward to
traveling shows, such as the circus or a traveling theater troupe. Some of
the actors from large metropolitan areas such as New York would travel to
smaller urban areas and give live performances. Very rural areas or areas
that had some reason to limit entertainment, such as very mountainous
regions, rarely had such opportunities. Many acts were Shakespearean
plays or varieties that were popular in a particular region of the county.
American theater is closely connected to Broadway, in New York City.
Madison Square Theater had been built in 1887, but new theaters were
being built after 1900. It was in these theaters that George M. Cohan,
Jerome Kern, George Bernard Shaw, and Henrik Ibsen presented their
plays to the American public. Some, such as Ibsen’s Camille and Doll
House, had to be modified so that they could pass the censors, but audien-
ces loved them. Americans also became enamored with an odd tale of
crocodiles and alarm clocks and boys who never grew up when Peter Pan
first appeared in 1905.
In 1901, Sarah Bernhardt, the famous French actress, appeared in
Hamlet, playing the title role. Perhaps because the play was in French, it
was not liked by American audiences. As a result of the poor reception
from Americans, Bernhardt said she would not return to America, but the
popular star could not stay away from the lucrative American theater and
returned to the United States in 1906. Other young actors learned their
craft on the Broadway stage. Many, such as the Barrymore family and
Helen Hayes, would later become big stars in motion pictures.
The 1910s
61
Because towns and cities acquired electricity, penny arcades proliferated
and presented nickelodeons. For pocket change, people could view a variety
o
f topics, depending on what was allowed in their communities. Topics
could range from pictures of boats to flowers to girls climbing apple trees.
They were usually short pieces of entertainment, but there were many of
them and they were different from anything anyone had seen.
Before WWI, Broadway theaters developed three types of productions:
light comedy, operettas, and vaudeville. Some of the operettas, such as
Babes in Toyland, Naughty Marietta, The Merry Widow, and The Wizard of
Oz, later found themselves in new incarnations as Hollywood movies.
Victor Herbert, a classically trained musician, was so pleased with the suc-
cess of Babes in Toyland in 1903 that he produced some form of the pro-
duction almost every year after that until he died in 1924.
T H E
1910S
ART MOVEMENTS
Cubism was a style that was increasingly noticed after 1910. Many of the
cubists, including Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, and Juan Gris, were
European, but increasing numbers of Americans adopted the style because
they felt that something needed to replace the idealized, representative art
of the past century. Cubism involved deconstructing the objects in an
image, flattening them into two-dimensional, geometric parts, analyzing
them, and reassembling them at randomly intersecting angles. The style
was ridiculed in print and cartoonists enjoyed making fun of the style, but
it continued to grow despite the antagonism of the press and many art
critics.
Realistic forms of painting were as popular as abstract ones. In 1916,
an editor of The Saturday Evening Post met a young man who wanted to
paint a cover for the magazine. The editor was positively impressed and
Norman Rockwell painted the first of many Post covers, and a beloved
American trademark was born.
Another popular artist who did not follow the trend of abstraction
was James McNeil Whistler. He was an American artist who lived most
of his life in Europe, usually London or Paris. His work was realistic, but
he preferred using gray and black in his paintings to demonstrate the
interplay of light and dark, as well as form. His Arrangement in Grey and
Black is probably his most famous work, possibly one of the most famous
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works by any American artist, although few people recognize it by the