Women in the 19C United States of America: Paintings by John Singer Sargent (1856

Thursday, July 14, 2022

Paintings by John Singer Sargent (1856 - 1925)

Sometime in the fall of 1986, I went up to the Whitney Museum, in New York City, to see an exhibit of John Singer Sargent’s (1856 - 1925) work. I had seen his paintings here & there before; but this was a huge exhibition, & it was breathtaking. Here were the parasols, the fans, the gardens, & the women by the river. These are paintings I remember seeing then, sort of an indelible memory.

Alice Runnels James (Mrs. William lames), 1921

Catherine Vlasto, 1897

Group with Parasols (A Siesta), c. 1908-11

Jane de Glehn in Corfu (In the Garden, Corfu)

Lady Agnew of Lochnaw, c. 1892-93

Millicent, Duchess of Sutherland, 1904

Miss Elsie Palmer, 1889-90

Miss Helen Dunham, 1892

Mrs. Carl Meyer and Her Children, 1896

Reading, 1911

Simplon Pass. The Tease, 1911

The Brook, 1907

The Fountain, Villa Torlonia, Frascati Italy; 1907

The Sketchers, 1914

Violet Sargent (1870-1955) Fishing 1889.

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.”