Identify innovative contributions by women in the arts at the end of the 19th century through the modern period.

Discuss the persistence of gender ideology promoted in the “Victorian ideal” and its impact on women’s creativity. 3. Analyze ways women’s creativity was additionally marginalized by race, ethnicity, and/or class. 4. In addition, you will add (embed) multimedia to your paper to enhance our experience of women creating culture. Introduction Despite women challenging societal limitations and succeeding in every genre, the gender ideology that we saw in the “ideal lady” of the Renaissance persisted as the “Victorian Ideal” throughout the late 19th century. Essentially, roles defined by gender placed men and women in “separate spheres,” men in the world and women in the domestic sphere. Women who departed from the norm, especially creative women, were considered unfeminine and were often socially outcast. Simultaneously with these claims that creativity and intellectual thought were against “women’s nature,” women continued to make significant contributions to western culture. Clara Schumann and Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel, for example, performed and composed music throughout their lives though overshadowed by their famous husband and brother. Although Fanny and her brother Felix were both privileged to receive musical training, as Fanny became a woman, her father wrote her that “Music should be an accomplishment, an adornment, and never a career for women.” Clara, a brilliant performer, earned a reputation as a successful concert pianist for over 60 years while raising eight children and coping with her husband Robert’s mental illness, yet it is Robert Schumann, not Clara, who is recognized and whose music continues to be heard today. Added to these limitations on gender, pervasive racial discrimination limited opportunities for women of color. One talented woman, Edmonia Lewis, found the support she needed from American abolitionists, but it was her own ingenuity that took her to Rome to become the first important black sculptor. Lewis attended Oberlin College in Ohio, the first to admit black students, with abolitionist support, but she raised her own money by creating and selling sculptures to buy her passage to study in Rome. By 1866, just a few years after emancipation, Lewis was a working sculptor, even selling a bust of Henry Longfellow to the all-male Harvard University. Clearly, changes in women’s lives and creative expression were taking place and individual women defied the odds to make significant cultural contributions to western culture at the end of the 19th and the early 20th centuries. When post World War Modernism and its radical break from the past took hold, the force of women’s innovations in artistic work, new forms of expression, and radical lifestyles showed the “new women” had truly emerged. By 1915, though women still did not have the right to vote in America, Mina Loy’s radical “Feminist Manifesto” shocked the literary world, Virginia Woolf set out to “re-form” the novel, and Loie Fuller and Isadora Duncan danced freely on stages around the world. Required Resources (Do not use outside source) Article Richardson, M. (2016). Hiawatha in Rome: Edmonia Lewis and figures from Longfellow (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.. Antiques & Fine Art Magazine. Retrieved from http://antiquesandfineart.com/articles/article.cfm?request=191 • This article gives students some understanding of the importance of the contributions of Edmonia Lewis, whose work has been recently rediscovered. Lewis is considered to be the first black American to gain an international reputation as a sculptor. This article will assist students in discussions, journals, and the Final Paper as they develop ideas on intersectionality and women’s cultural contributions to society. Accessibility Statement does not exist. Privacy Policy (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site. Web Pages Smithsonian American Art Museum. (n.d.). Edmonia Lewis (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.. Retrieved from https://americanart.si.edu/artist/edmonia-lewis-2914 • This web page gives students some understanding of the importance of the contributions of Edmonia Lewis, early black woman sculptor. The contents of the site, biographical and with an online exhibition, will assist students in discussions, journals, and the Final Paper as they develop ideas on women’s cultural contributions to society. Accessibility Statement (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site. (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site. Privacy Policy (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site. University of Virginia Library. (n.d.) Gilman, Charlotte Perkins, 1860-1935, Herland (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.. Retrieved from http://web.archive.org/web/20080517102519/http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/public/GilHerl.html • In this utopian novel, Herland, noted American feminist Charlotte Perkins Gilman critiques the role of women in Western culture. By creating a culture populated only by women seen through a male perspective (the narrator), Gilman makes a statement on gender roles in American society in the early 20th century. • Website Zora Neale Hurston Digital Archive (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.. (http://chdr.cah.ucf.edu/hurstonarchive/) • This website gives students some understanding of the importance of the contributions of Zora Neale Hurston, as both a writer and a cultural preservationist. The site contains archival folklore, oral histories, and music from the oldest black municipality in the United States. Privacy Policy (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site. Web Pages BBC Radio 3. (2018). Celebrating women composers (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.. Retrieved from http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/4DdBrYwz6Bx58ct7MF9Xv9P/explore-and-learn-more-about-women-composers Beer, A. (2016, March 17). These women composers should be household names like Bach or Mozart (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.. Retrieved from https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/these-women-composers-should-be-household-names-bach-or-mozart-180958464/ Isadora Duncan International Institute. (n.d.). Biography of Isadora Duncan (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.. Retrieved from http://www.idii.org/isadora/ • This web page gives students some understanding of the legacy of Isadora Duncan as a performer and educator. It is a credible source adapted from Myth and Image in the Dance of Isadora Duncan, published by University of Michigan, Ann Arbor Press. The Library of Congress. (n.d.). Special presentation: Katherine Dunham timeline (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.. Retrieved from http://memory.loc.gov/diglib/ihas/html/dunham/dunham-timeline.html