It’s not often that you find women representing the old and new years. This wonderful image showed up in my Flickr feed from the Library of Congress. It comes from the satirical magazine, Puck, which often featured drawings of comely young ladies. This is my first glimpse of a depiction of an older woman. Here she represents all the problems of the past, including “Bryanism,” (the philosophy of William Jennings Bryan) and Hard Times.
Bicycles were very much the emblem of the New Woman at the end of the nineteenth century, and here we see such a woman in all her independence. Although she doesn’t have on a divided skirt, hers is short enough that it doesn’t get in the way of the wheels. She wears a jaunty hat and a contented look, sprinkling flowers behind her as she rides.
The older woman, by contrast, is witch like. Dressed all in black, she wears an old fashioned bonnet. Her gloomy dress might also have a bustle, another out-of-style element. The long skirt looks not only uncomfortable but dangerous. Pursued by storms, she rides out into desolation. It’s interesting, though, that she is also on a bike. Apparently in Puck’s view not even the old could avoid modern forms of transportation.
The picture is actually quite racy for 1898. That skirt is short enough to not only reveal (gasp) ankles but also (horrors!) stocking garters.
Those naughty bicycles have a lot to answer for…
Yes, Ms. New Year’s skirt is very shocking. Probably drafty too!
Ceci
Wheels of Change by Sue Macy (subtitle: How Women Rode the Bicycle to Freedom (With a Few Flat Tires Along the Way) is a very accessible history of the bicycle’s contribution to women’s independence. There was concern in some (male) quarters that allowing women to pedal through the countryside would lead to Terrible Things. One of my heroines, Frances Willard, wrote How I Learned to Ride a Bicycle, which she did at age 53 (1892).