Gibson Girl Research Paper

The Gibson Girls were personifications of the feminine ideal in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. They represented an optimistic, morally inclined, and traditional society post Victorian Era. From fashion to culture and beyond, much can be taken from the Gibson Girl drawings. These “women” reveal a tremendous amount about the social perceptions of femininity and the place of a woman in Society during the early 20's. The Gibson Girl was the pen and ink creation of illustrator Charles Dana Gibson. Gibson started drawing at a very young age as a way to pass the time during a period of illness in his childhood. He got recognition as an esteemed artist when he was only twelve years old, and began his career in art and illustration
In a book titled, Unruly tongue: identity and voice in American women's writing, 1850-1930, writer Martha J. Cutter describes the Gibson Girl as “pure, noble, and passive-- defendable but not a defender... although she may have the voice of the New Woman, she does not use it to break with a historically constrained vision of women's speech”. This idea is supported once more by Martha Kennedy as she reveals that the Gibson Girl never “seriously challenged the patriarchal tradition...”. Even Charles Gibson himself made this evident, as the title of one of his Gibson Girl Illustrations, shown below, is “Not Worrying About Her Rights”. The Gibson Girl believes and supports her rights, but does nothing to defend them. This piece of the Gibson personality gives insight to the apparent ideal female personality of the time; beautiful, intelligent, and informed... but undeniably passive and un-feminist. As stated in an article on associatedcontent.com, The Gibson Girl “would never be as bold as to be a part of the suffrage movement...” She was “progressive in that she was allowed to think, but she was not allowed to act upon her thoughts or lobby for social change”