Women in the 19C United States of America: 19C Women Playing Tennis

Saturday, August 14, 2021

19C Women Playing Tennis

Otto Henry Bacher (American painter, 1856–1909) Portrait of Mary Holland

George Goodwin Kilburne (English painter, 1839-1924) A Game of Tennis

Francis Sydney Muschamp (British artist, 1851-1929) A Game of Tennis

John Lavery (Irish painter, 1856-1941) A Game of Tennis

Leopold Franz Kowalski (French painter, 1856-1931) A Game of Tennis

John Strickland Goodall (British artist, 1908–1996) A Game of Tennis

Horace Henry Cauty (English genre painter, 1846-1909) The Tennis Match

Arthur Hacker (English Pre-Raphaelite painter, 1858-1919) The Artist's Sister 1882

John Strickland Goodall (British artist, 1908–1996) A Game of Tennis

Max Liebermann (German Impressionist Painter, 1847-1935) Tennis Player by the Sea

Tom Simpson (British artist, 1877-1964) The Tennis Party

John Strickland Goodall (British artist, 1908–1996) A Game of Tennis

James Wallace (British artist, 1872-1911) A Game of Tennis in Battersea Park

Max Liebermann (German Impressionist Painter, 1847-1935) Tennis Court with Players

Samuel John Peploe (Scotland artist, 1871-1935) Game of Tennis, Luxembourg Gardens, c 1906

Tom Simpson (British artist, 1877-1964) Edwardians at Tennis

Tom Simpson (British artist, 1877-1964) The Tennis Party, c 1930s

John Lavery (Irish painter, 1856-1941) Tennis

Edith Hayllar (British Painter, 1860-1948) After Tennis

About this blog

In colonial America, men were considered superior to woman in all ways. In a strict patriarchal hierarchy, men controlled not only wealth & political power but also how their children were raised, religious questions, & all matters of right & wrong.

In the early part of the 19Cy, however, many Americans experienced a revolution in gender. The doctrine of “separate spheres” maintained that woman’s sphere was the world of privacy, family, & morality while man’s sphere was the public world -– economic striving, political maneuvering, & social competition. But women were interested in equality.

In 1848, New York passed the Married Woman’s Property Act. Now a woman wasn’t automatically liable for her husband’s debts; she could enter contracts on her own; she could collect rents or receive an inheritance in her own right; she could file a lawsuit on her own behalf. She became for economic purposes, an individual. By 1900, every state has passed legislation modeled after this, granting married women some control over their property and earnings.

In 1870 after the Civi War, the 15th Amendment was ratified, saying, “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.” African-Americans could vote, but women could not.

But it was not until 1920, that the 19th Amendment was ratified granting women the right to vote. “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.”