Gibson Girl
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The Gibson Girl was the personification of a feminine ideal as portrayed in the satirical pen and ink illustrated stories created by illustrator Charles Dana Gibson during a 20-year period spanning the late nineteenth and early twentieth century in the United States.
Some people argue that the "Gibson Girl" was the first national standard for feminine beauty. For the next two decades, Gibson's fictional images were extremely popular.[1] There was merchandising of "saucers, ashtrays, tablecloths, pillow covers, chair covers, souvenir spoons, screens, fans, umbrella stands",[2] all bearing her image.
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[edit] The Image
The Gibson Girl was tall, slender yet with ample bosom, hips and bottom in the S-curve torso shape achieved by wearing a swan-bill corset. The images of her epitomized the late nineteenth and early 20th-century Western preoccupation with statuesque, youthful features, and ephemeral beauty. Her neck was thin and her hair piled high upon her head in the contemporary bouffant, pompadour, and chignon ("waterfall of curls") fashions. The tall, narrow-waisted ideal feminine figure was portrayed as multi-faceted, at ease and fashionable. Gibson depicted her as an equal and sometimes teasing companion to men.[3] Many models posed for Gibson Girl-style illustrations, including Gibson's wife, Irene Langhorne (who may have been the original model, and was a sister of Nancy Astor, Viscountess Astor) and Evelyn Nesbit. The most famous Gibson Girl was probably the Belgian-American stage actress, Camille Clifford, whose high coiffure and long, elegant gowns wrapped around her hourglass figure and tightly corseted wasp waist defined the style.[4]
Among Gibson Girl illustrators were Howard Chandler Christy whose work celebrating American "beauties" was similar to Gibson's and Harry G. Peter, who was most famous for his art on Wonder Woman comics.
The Gibson Girl personified beauty, limited independence, personal fulfillment (she was depicted attending college and vying for a good mate, but she was never depicted as part of a suffrage march), and American national prestige. By the outbreak of World War I, changing fashions caused the Gibson Girl to lose favor. Women of the World War I era favored a practical, more masculine suit, compatible with war work, over the elegant dresses, bustle gowns, shirtwaists, and terraced, shorter skirts favored by the Gibson Girl.
[edit] Survival radio
A USAAF survival radio transmitter carried by World War II aircraft on over-water operations was named the 'Gibson Girl' because of its 'hour-glass' shape. It included a fold-up/down metal frame box kite for which the flying line was an aerial wire. A hand-crank generator provided power for the distress radio signal. When the user was seated in an inflatable life boat, the 'Gibson Girl' shape of the radio allowed it to be held stationary, between the legs and above the knees, while the generator handle was turned. The distress signal, in Morse code, was produced automatically as the handle was turned.[5]
[edit] References
- ^ "Bookishness: The Gibson Girl". Life XXIV (620): 312–313. November 15 1894. http://books.google.com/books?id=bB0AAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA312. Retrieved 2009-07-27. "Mr. Gibson has a great responsibility on his shoulders, and if he once fully realizes it, it will keep him awake nights. I wonder if he knows that there are thousands of American girls, from Oshkosh to Key West, who are trying to live up to the standard of his girls.".
- ^ Charles Dana Gibson and the Gibson Girls
- ^ American Beauties
- ^ "Why Do They Call Me A Gibson Girl? Miss Camille Clifford Singing The Song Which Reached Miss Edna May's Heart". The Bystander XII (149): 83. October 10 1906. http://books.google.com/books?id=yvERAAAAYAAJ&pg=PT32. Retrieved 2009-07-27.
- ^ Wireless for the Warrior
[edit] Further reading
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Gibson Girl |
- Patterson, Martha H. Beyond the Gibson Girl: Reimagining the American New Woman, 1895-1915. University of Illinois Press, 2005.
- Patterson, Martha H. The American New Woman Revisited: 1894-1930. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2008.
- Pollard, Percival (June 1897). "Sundry "American Girls" In Black-And-White". The Book Buyer: A Review And Record Of Current Literature XIV (5): 474–478. http://books.google.com/books?id=_0QDAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA474. Retrieved 2009-07-27.
