New Exhibition Focuses on 19th century Cartoons Satirizing Women's Fashion
The American Family by William H. Walker, December 1895
A new exhibition at Princeton University Library showcases late 19th and early 20th century cartoons satirizing women’s fashion at a time when the 'New Woman' began to wear trousers, tailored jackets, and sportswear, and enter traditionally masculine spheres.
The majority of the cartoons in Fashion, Feminism, and Fear: Clothing and Power in the 19th Century are from 1895 to 1896 and by William H. Walker (1871-1938). Walker contributed frequently to formative American magazines like Life from 1894 to 1922, becoming its leading editorial cartoonist.
His fashion-focused political cartoons for Life captured the deep-seated anxieties of the era, implying that women were unfit for the new freedoms they sought. Walker created dozens of illustrations commenting on the 'women in pants' phenomenon.
The exhibition is open to the public in the Seeley G. Mudd Manuscript Library and runs through April 2026.
