The New Woman Illustrator and Cartoonist in Britain, c. 1870-1914

Abstract

This thesis is a study of the professionalisation of women illustrators and cartoonists in late nineteenth and early twentieth-century Britain, which considers their relationship to the socio-political and cultural phenomenon of the New Woman. I argue that the New Woman was more than a discursive phenomenon, with many creative fields beyond writing allowing women to gain economic independence and shape the New Woman with their lives and work. Illustration and cartooning were critical to developing women’s professionalism as their commercial nature blurred the gendered division typically exemplified in painting and sculpture. The Victorian demand for anything visual, technological innovation in engraving and printing, and the rise of popular publishing opened doors to anyone with the ability to draw and the savvy know-how to navigate a crowded and competitive market. Thus, women artists and designers of all kinds turning to these commercial fields were more equal to their male colleagues and successfully established careers. I acknowledge that not all women illustrators and cartoonists of this period would have seen themselves as New Women. Though none of the women illustrators and cartoonists in this study directly discussed the New Woman by name, many of these women did embrace attributions of the early feminist movement in all its varied guises. Drawing on a broad range of previously under-researched archival and visual material, this study presents an original feminist story about women’s professional illustration and cartooning. This study addresses the New Woman as a slippery label for women illustrators and cartoonists living and working between 1870 and 1914, followed by case studies of women illustrators and cartoonists such as Florence Claxton, Marie Duval, Ethel Reed, Pamela Colman Smith, Mabel Dearmer, Jessie Marion King, and Florence Harrison. Through these findings, I will show the many genres, movements, and styles women illustrators and cartoonists embraced, reinterrogating and expanding our knowledge of the New Woman, the woman professional, and the divide between high and low cultural production.