Bicycles, Bangs, and Bloomers

The so-called "e;New Woman"e;-that determined and free-wheeling figure in "e;rational"e; dress, demanding education, suffrage, and a career-was a frequent target for humorists in the popular press of the late nineteenth century. She invariably stood in contrast to the "e;womanly woman,"e; a traditional figure bound to domestic concerns and a stereotype away from which many women were inexorably mo...