American Girl Becomes American Woman: A Fortunate Fall?

Susan Glaspell was at once blessed and cursed by her birth year. In 1876, America was celebrating its centennial, and, as Martha Banta reminds us, the American Girl became a main symbol for the succeeding three decades. While these “girls” in the popular press, advertisements, and art were packaged as important and strong, their strength did not arise from themselves, but from their combination with the principles of their culture. Importantly, it is an iconography of girls, not women, as befits the American worship of youth. When the appealingly bold girl becomes a wise and challenging...

Susan Glaspell was at once blessed and cursed by her birth year. In 1876, America was celebrating its centennial, and, as Martha Banta reminds us, the American Girl became a main symbol for the succeeding three decades. While these “girls” in the popular press, advertisements, and art were packaged as important and strong, their strength did not arise from themselves, but from their combination with the principles of their culture. Importantly, it is an iconography of girls, not women, as befits the American worship of youth. When the appealingly bold girl becomes a wise and challenging woman, she is no longer the icon on the Liberty dime but the caricature of the threatening has-been, the smothering mother. Susan Glaspell’s life is a notable example of such recognition and plights for American women from 1876 to 1948.