Princeton art exhibit explores feminism and the politics of clothing

Curated by library collections specialists April C. Armstrong and Emma Paradies, a new exhibition has opened at Princeton University Seeley G. Mudd Manuscript Library entitled, “Fashion, Feminism, and Fear: Clothing and Power in the 19th Century.”

The exhibition features late 19th and early 20th century cartoons satirizing women’s fashion at a time when the “New Woman” began to wear pants and enter traditionally masculine spheres.

Most of the cartoons showcased are from 1895-1896, by William H. Walker. From 1894 to 1922, Walker contributed to formative American magazines like Life, quickly becoming its leading editorial cartoonist.

Walker’s fashion-focused political cartoons captured the era’s zeitgeist implying that women were unfit for the new freedoms they sought. Walker created doz