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The Lady and the Library Loafer: Gender and Public Space in Victorian America Abigail A Connecticut College Digital Commons @ Connecticut College Architectural Studies Faculty Publications Art History and Architectural Studies Winter 1996 The Lady and the Library Loafer: Gender and Public Space in Victorian America Abigail A. Van Slyck Connecticut College, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.conncoll.edu/archfacpub Part of the Architectural History and Criticism Commons, and the Library and Information Science Commons Recommended Citation Van Slyck, Abilgail, A. "The Lady and the Library Loafer: Gender and Public Space in Victorian America" Winterthur Portfolio 31, No. 4 (Winter, 1996): 221-242. This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Art History and Architectural Studies at Digital Commons @ Connecticut College. It has been accepted for inclusion in Architectural Studies Faculty Publications by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons @ Connecticut College. For more information, please contact [email protected]. The views expressed in this paper are solely those of the author. The Lady and the Library Loafer: Gender and Public Space in Victorian America Keywords gender issues, interior design, public libraries, architecture, space Comments Source: Winterthur Portfolio, Vol. 31, No. 4, Gendered Spaces and Aesthetics (Winter, 1996),pp. 221-242 Published by: The nivU ersity of Chicago Press on behalf of the Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum,Inc. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1215236 ©1996 by The eH nry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum, Inc. All rights reserved. This article is available at Digital Commons @ Connecticut College: http://digitalcommons.conncoll.edu/archfacpub/1 The Lady and the Library Loafer: Gender and Public Space in Victorian America Author(s): Abigail A. van Slyck Reviewed work(s): Source: Winterthur Portfolio, Vol. 31, No. 4, Gendered Spaces and Aesthetics (Winter, 1996), pp. 221-242 Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of the Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum, Inc. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1215236 . Accessed: 20/12/2012 11:52 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. The University of Chicago Press and Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum, Inc. are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Winterthur Portfolio. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded on Thu, 20 Dec 2012 11:52:42 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions The Lady and the LibraryLoafer Gender and Public Space in VictorianAmerica AbigailA. Van Slyck ROOMS reservedexclusively for phor of the separate spheres as a way of under- READINGthe use of women were once a common standing the organization of the actual, physical featureof public librariesbuilt during the spaces of the Victorian world.' last quarter of the nineteenth centuryin the United States,England, and manyparts of the Britishempire. Small rooms stocked withfashion Rethinkingthe Separate Spheres magazines and communicating directlywith the women's toilet, these facilities were relatively The concept of the separate spheres has been short-lived, particularly in the United States, central to the studyof gender and space in Victo- where they abruptly disappeared in the early rian culture throughout the Anglo-American years of the twentieth century. Yet the ladies' world. The phrase initiallywas coined to describe reading room was often considered an absolute a highly gendered view of human interestsand necessityfor encouraging respectable women to aptitudes, one that associated men withpublic af- venture into the public library. Recovering the fairs and women with private,family life. Yet the circumstances of the proliferation, and subse- word spherewas itselfhighly suggestive. It called to quent decline, of ladies' reading rooms offers mind a literal space as well as a figurativeone and much to current considerations of the intersec- encouraged scholars of material culture to con- tion between Victorian gender ideology and the sider how the Victorian gender systemaffected design and use of space. Specifically,this recovery urban and suburban design, architecture, inte- provides a useful means for assessing the meta- rior decoration, and material objects of all kinds. The impact on the field was nothing short of rev- Abigail A. Van Slyckis associate professorin the College of olutionary,particularly in redeeming the domes- Architectureat the Universityof Arizona. tic realm and women's activitiestherein fromthe The author extends her thanksto a number of colleagues margins of architecturalhistory and in acknowl- whose and considered comments have penetratingquestions edging their important role in some helped in the process of expanding and clarifyingthis interpreta- expressing tion of the ladies' readingroom, especially Kasey Grier, Kathleen of the most deeply held cultural values of nine- James, and the many scholars who attended the session "Gen- teenth-centurysociety.2 dered Space and Aesthetics"at the AmericanStudies Association conferencein November 1995. She is also verygrateful to the 1 It is difficultto summarizethe fullextent of the ladies' read- many people who have helped uncover photographicimages of ing room phenomenon, since these facilitiesare routinelyig- ladies' readingrooms and other evidence of the materialculture nored in libraryhistory. However, primary documents reveal that of this elusive room type.Those to whom particularthanks are of the 18 public librariesbuilt in New Zealand withCarnegie owed include: Ken Breisch,who is alwaysready to share his exper- 8 funds included ladies' reading rooms when theyopened in the tise on Americanlibrary history; Marilyn P. Ryan of the Hackley earlytwentieth century, while 22 public librariesin Great Britain Public Library,Muskegon, Michigan; Nancy Gillfillanof the included such facilities in the 189os. "Women's Reading Dixon Public Libraryin Illinois;Jean Shrierof the Peoria Public Rooms," TheLibrary 4 (1892): Io8-11. Library;Patricia A. Blackettof the BuffaloPublic Library;and Mi- chael Ruffingof the Cleveland Public Library. 2 For a discussionof the use of thisconcept in women's his- tory,see Linda K. Kerber, "Separate Spheres, Female Worlds, ?1996 by The Henry Francis du Pont WinterthurMuseum, Woman's Place: The Rhetoric of Women's History,"Journal of Inc. All rights reserved. oo84-0416/96 / 310o4-0002oooz$3.oo AmericanHistory 75, no. 1 (June 1988): 9-39. Thanks to scholars This content downloaded on Thu, 20 Dec 2012 11:52:42 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 22 2 WinterthurPortfolio 3 :4 Yet, in many respects,the concept of the sepa- vided into "turfs" that "belonged" (at least in rate spheres,with its dualistic opposition between practice) to distinctclass, sex, and age groups. In public areas and private,domestic realms, is too short,neither "public" nor "domestic" were mo- simplisticto provide a full explanation of Victo- nolithic categories in the Victorian world.3 rian space. Afterall, many of the building types Our understanding of the relationship be- invented in the late nineteenth centuryfit neatly tween gender and space in the nineteenth cen- into neither category. College dormitories, turyis furthercompromised by the tendency on nurses' residences, settlement houses, commer- the part of twentieth-centuryscholars to interpret cially run single-roomoccupancy hotels, philan- the separate spheres somewhat too literally-to thropicallysupported worker hostels, and other talk about women only in conjunction with the residential structureswere domestic in function home, to discuss men only in conjunction with but were not privatein the sense of housing a sin- the urban sites in which theyworked and social- gle nuclear family.Large in size, institutionalin ized. Such a literal interpretationof the separate character,and oftenurban in setting,these build- spheres is doubly problematic. On one hand, it ings seem more closely connected withthe public risksnaturalizing and universalizinga gender ide- sphere than with the private,single-family house. ology that tended to be class- and race-specific. Likewise, the "public realm" was composed of a On the other hand, it distortsthe historicalreality range of spaces that varied substantiallyboth in of the lives of those white, middle-classmen and their architecturalcharacter and in their explicit women who did embrace Victorian gender roles. and implicit admission policies. Private clubs Even the busiest of businessmen were regular in- were class- and gender-specific corners of the habitants of the domestic realm; indeed, ac- public realm, closed to all but a finite roster of cording to Victorian ideology, one of the home's dues-paying members. Restaurants and saloons most importantfunctions was to provide respite were more open but still required an outlay of and relaxation for the husband and fatherwho cash in the form of a purchase. The payment of had braved the cityon behalf of his wifeand chil- a fee was also required of anyone wanting to at- dren. Recent studies have also begun to look in tend a baseball game or to take
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