English, Department of
Date of this Version
Spring 4-20-2016
Citation
O'Neal, Natalie B. "'In the Land of Tomorrow': Representations of the New Woman in the Pre-Suffrage Era." MA thesis. University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2016. Web.
Abstract
This digital anthology explores feminism in selected short fiction by women writers from the 1911 run of the popular women’s magazines Woman’s Home Companion, Ladies’ Home Journal, and The Farmer’s Wife. This fiction furthered the women’s rights movement by allowing women to imagine a world similar to their own with a heroine who voiced their desires and enacted change. Rather than the more experimental, inaccessible literature of avant garde high modernist writers consumed by the upper class, popular fiction reached a wider, middle class audience and was more effective at producing a progressive zeitgeist following the stilted Victorian era. These stories—by writers such as Zona Gale and Maude Radford Warren—reflect their era, a time characterized by the clashing of progressive gender roles and traditional values. These stories depict the pre-war New Woman—a character who pushes the boundaries of her limited independence—as she engages themes such as pro-suffrage, marriage, and work. “In the Land of Tomorrow” can be found online in its entirety at: www.inthelandoftomorrow.com.
Included in
American Literature Commons, American Material Culture Commons, American Popular Culture Commons, Critical and Cultural Studies Commons, Digital Humanities Commons, Fiction Commons, History of Gender Commons, Modern Literature Commons, Publishing Commons, Women's History Commons, Women's Studies Commons
Comments
A THESIS Presented to the Faculty of The Graduate College at the University of Nebraska In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of Master of Arts, Major: English, Under the Supervision of Professor Amanda Gailey. Lincoln, NE: May, 2016
Copyright (c) 2016 Natalie B. O'Neal