1. Women’s Literature
Post-Civil War
1870-1910

2. WHAT DO THESE 3 WOMEN
HAVE IN COMMON?

3. Women writers in the
th century made
late 19
waves
Just like Lady Gaga, Michelle Obama, and
Snooki…

4. The end of the Civil War, the
country’s rapid expansion, and
growth of industry were reflected
by new voices –
WOMEN’S
VOICES.

5. According to a popular book
of etiquette in 1880…
“The power of a woman is in her
refinement, gentleness, and elegance; it is
she who makes etiquette and it is she who
preserves the order and decency of
society.”

6. According to the quotation, it is
women who keep society decent,
and they do so by being refined,
gentle, and elegant. The quotation
suggests that
women were expected to
take a generally passive
role, not to display
active leadership.

7. Women who asserted and expressed
themselves were told that their behavior
was unnatural.
Women with this sort of “unnatural
behavior” were considered as “hysterical.”

8. A NEW ROLE FOR WOMEN
• The movement to give women the
right to vote was reemerging after
the Civil War.
• Women were growing impatient, not
just for the vote, but to have a larger
voice in every aspect of
public life, from politics
to literature.

9. A NEW ROLE FOR WOMEN
• One important factor in the growth of the
women’s movement was the spread of
university education among women.
• Newspaper headlines warned against the
dangers of a woman’s higher education.
“Are We Destroying Woman’s Beauty?”
Headline from 1896 New York Journal

10. BREAKTHROUGH
WOMEN WRITERS
Kate Chopin
Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Edith Wharton

11. BREAKTHROUGH WOMEN WRITERS
LITTLE FEMALE WEAPONS
The women of the 19th
Century faced
overwhelming obstacles;
however, they fought
back.
When the weapon was a
pen, the impact could be
revolutionary.

12. BREAKTHROUGH WOMEN WRITERS
Kate Chopin
• Wrote fiction that articulates the frustrations of
generations of women confined to a sort of extended
childhood by the men in their lives.
• Her 1899 risqué novel, The Awakening,
portrayed woman’s hidden passions.
– Story of a housewife’s sexual and artistic
awakening, complete with an adulterous
affair and suicide as a last , desperate act
of freedom.
– Reviewers claimed the novel was immoral.

13. BREAKTHROUGH WOMEN WRITERS
Charlotte Perkins Gilman
• Fleeing a repressive marriage, Gilman moved
from the East Coast to California, where she
wrote and spoke out on behalf of women’s
rights and against male domination.
• Most famous short story is
“The Yellow Wallpaper”
– About a women writer who, as treatment
for her “nervous condition,” is forbidden
to write.

14. BREAKTHROUGH WOMEN WRITERS
Edith Wharton
• Used her writing to criticize
the stifling small-mindedness
of upper-class society.
• Made her own escape by
running off to Paris, only to
have her marriage fall apart.

15. Homework Time!

16. Quotes by Edith Wharton
• "Half the trouble in life is caused by pretending there isn't any."
• “After all, one knows one's weak points so well, that it's rather bewildering to have the
critics overlook them and invent others.”
• “Beware of monotony; it’s the mother of all deadly sins.”
• “I don’t know if I should care for a man who made life easy; I should want someone who
made life interesting.
• “If only we'd stop trying to be happy we could have a pretty good time.”
• “If she was faintly aware of fresh difficulties ahead, she was sure of her ability to meet
them: it was characteristic of her to feel that the only problems she could not solve were
those with which she was familiar.”
• “No insect hangs its nest on threads as frail as those which will sustain the weight of
human vanity.”
• “She was not accustomed to taste the joys of solitude except in company.”
• “The air of ideas is the only air worth breathing.”
• “The only way not to think about money is to have a great deal of it.”
• “There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.”
• “True originality consists not in a new manner but in a new vision.”

17. Edith Wharton Assignment
INSTRUCTIONS:
Review the list of quotes by Edith Wharton.
Choose one and write an analysis paragraph.
1. The first sentence should include the following:
“Edith Wharton once said...."
2. The second sentence should be a funnel sentence and
state your opinion on whether or not the statement is
logical, true, or accurate.
3. The remainder of the paragraph should include an
interpretation of the quote, examples either proving it
or disproving it, and additional commentary.