The Women’s World’s Fair and ‘The Modern Temper’

Lynn Dumenil’s piece “The Modern Temper” directly touches upon and reflects notions of the Women’s World’s Fair that made the event so important and impactful. Specifically, the third chapter titled ‘The New Woman’ handles many themes of women employment, empowerment and independence, all of which were highly emphasized during the Women’s World’s Fair. The Fair, which took place in April of 1925 and continued annually until 1928, gave women a platform to network and exhibit opportunities available to them in the public and professional spectrum beyond what was traditionally known. This fair also aided in the transition women began to face from the private and domestic sphere to the public sphere, this notion is also emphasized within Dumenil’s book, however she points out that this transition began in the late 1890s and significantly grew in the 1910’s and 1920’s due to a variety of different reasons. The ‘modest’ transition into the public sphere, along with the increase in women attending university, as well as the rejection of traditional women’s Victorian clothing all led to the eventual development of what is now referred to as ‘the new woman.’  This movement of new women was also emphasized by the suffragists movement, interestingly enough many women felt that their ‘superior morality’ would place them above the influence of corruption within politics, and would eventually lead to reform.

 The most important notion that the author points out, which can be applied universally is “…like men, men constituted a heterogeneous group divided by race, class, ethnicity, and cultural values, whose diversity testified to the increasingly pluralistic nature of society.” I think this emphasizes the fact that although women as a whole were seen as minority within the public sphere and although they began to gain some independence throughout the decade, that there was still a large population of women, who were of African American, Hispanic and European-immigrant descent who were still greatly discriminated against within not only the public sphere and work, but also in women’s achievements as a whole.

This chapter about the ‘new woman’ is generally broken up into a couple sections, each section demonstrating places in which women began to populate. The most relative section of this chapter, for this topic at least, would be the section titled ‘The New Woman and Work,’ which gives a very detailed account, including statistics, of the reality the working women in the 1920’s. whenever topics such as the Women’s World’s Fair, or topics of women suffrage or other women’s achievements are spoken of in history books, they’re often romanticized. The realities of the working women are often brushed over in order to present a more progressive era. Although there were some improvements in the number of working women at the time, it should be noted that “… there was a large wage differential between men and women: women earned 42 to 63 percent of males salesmen’s salaries. In neither sales nor office work could marry women expect to support themselves in a comfortable manner.” This percentage was even greater for minority women including African Americans, Hispanics, and even those of European immigrants. The jobs women took up were often held to a lower status, due to the fact that they were feminized, were seen as less skillful than men and were obviously paid much less. Many women also worked within the same sectors, education, domestic services, nursing and social work. Although the Women’s World’s Fair presented more opportunities for women in the public sphere, it should be duly noted that these opportunities were most likely most applicable to the education white women who attended the fair.

An interesting notion that author points out is how the women’s work life was presented within the media. The increase in women working between 1900-1930 can, in part, be a result of the representation working women gained within the media. Often when women were portrayed as working in the media, they were presented as doing very simple jobs, but more importantly the media presented the workplace as being an environment in which women would be able to meet their husbands. As the years went on, and working women in media became a natural sight, they media began reflecting the realties of working women’s lives. Representing the mundane, and repetitiveness of their lives.

Overall Dumenil’s chapter reflected many themes and ideas that my initial research presents. However, I do think that this chapter grounded by perspective of the topic, pointing out the discrimination that minority women faced during this so-called ‘time of progression.’ I also think that it changed my thinking of how the ‘new woman’ and working woman were presented within the media and how they were accepted by society as a whole.