Women in the 19C United States of America: The Decorative Gardens of American Robert Lewis Reid (1862-1939)

Monday, September 26, 2022

The Decorative Gardens of American Robert Lewis Reid (1862-1939)

I promise this is the last posting of romantic, decorative American Impressionists who focused on painting women in gardens. Robert Lewis Reid (1862-1939), was born in Massachusetts. He attended the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston; in 1884 he moved to New York to study at the Art Students League, and a year later he went to Paris to study at the Julian Academy, returning to New York in 1889.

Robert Lewis Reid (1862-1939), Woman on a Porch with Flowers

Robert Lewis Reid (1862-1939), The Yellow Flower, The Artist's Wife in the Garden

Robert Lewis Reid (1862-1939), The White Parasol

Robert Lewis Reid (1862-1939), Tending the Garden

Robert Lewis Reid (1862-1939), Pond Lilies

Robert Lewis Reid (1862-1939), Fleur de Lis, 1895–1900

Robert Lewis Reid (1862-1939), Reverie.

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.”