The Newberry Seminar on Technology, Politics, and Culture
Co-Sponsored by the University of Illinois at Chicago, Roosevelt University, Illinois Institute of Technology, and Northwestern University
Friday, February 27, from 3:30pm to 5:00pm
"Women of Steel: Gender, the Railroad, and Cultural Change, 1870-1900"
Amy G. Richter, Clark University
This paper explores the social experience and cultural representation of women railroad passengers during the second half of the nineteenth century. Its focus is the "New Women" and "American Girls" as they were depicted in fiction, journalism, and advertising copy. By documenting how writers celebrated white women as public actors fit for the rails, one can better understand how the social and cultural changes that the railroad posed reshaped gender identities - confounding the Victorial ideal of separate spheres while reconciling the new technology with familiar qualities of Victorial womanhood.
Scholl Center seminars present scholars' works-in-progress. All papers are pre-circulated. If you plan to attend, you may receive a paper by contacting Ginger Shulick at scholl@newberry.org, or 312.255.3524.
We encourage faculty members to call the seminar to the attention of graduate students.
The full schedule for this and other Scholl Center seminars is available online at
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