Gibson Girl

The Gibson Girl: How she changed the American Image

     Charles Dana Gibson started out just a cartoon artist who drew a picture of a beautiful woman. Well little did Gibson know that this young woman inspired by Evelyn Nesbit would become the famous "Gibson Girl". The images of this so called Gibson Girl were published in Life, Collier's, Harper's weekly, and Scribner's. After all the publicity of these images, Gibson Girl became the woman that all American women aspired to be. An article in the New York Times called her the "dream of american femininity". She was tall, stylish, well-educated, artistic, and  athletic, she was Everything that women aspired to be, and she was the dream girl to every man.  

     Charles Gibson took his inspiration from, as I stated earlier, Evelyn Nesbit. She was discovered at the age of 16 and became the Gibson Girl. Some people believe that Gibson Girl was Gibson's wife or even his sister, but I believe that I was truthfully Evelyn to inspire the creation of the Gibson Girl.I believe so because when comparing an image of the Gibson Girl to Evelyn's features, they align almost perfectly. Evelyn became famous for her likeness to the Gibson Girl, making her as stated by an article on evelynnesbit.com,  "America's first bona-fide sex godess". She was the Marilyn Monroe of her time. 

      Gibson Girl wasn't entirely perfect though, she, like any other human being had problems. This is what made her realistic, she experienced love and loss, This is illustrated in Gibson's comic,"The Widow and her Friends"

Obviously based upon the drawing's title, She has lost her husband. She has fallen into depression. 

These men look at her as in she is a prize to be won, rather than a woman with a broken heart and great sadness.

Note that in image 2 she is "exercising" in a graveyard, perhaps after all she has been through she is visiting her husband.

6) You can see the unhappiness in her face as she is hated by other women
7) Gibson Girl was always shown as a well educated woman. 

After much distress and heartbreak, she finds where she is happy in spite of the troubles she has faced.

     As it can clearly be seen, Gibson Girl wasn't perfect, but every woman in the USA wanted to be just like her. They aspired to be the woman who every man wanted to have. The Gibson Girl was originally a "marketing tool", a way to get women to shop, she was a way to update women on the latest fashions and trends of the time. She then went from said marketing tool to an inspiration for women all over the country.

     

Sources:

PBS on Evelyn Nesbit
I used this source to find out more about Evelyn Nesbit

New York Times article on Gibson girl 

I used this source to read more about how the Gibson Girl was perceived in her own time

scalar,usc.edu on the Gibson Girl 

This was the source that sparked my interest in Evelyn Nesbit. After seeing this source, I began to do further research on Evelyn Nesbit.

Library of Congress 
This website helped me to find the different themes and characteristics of the Gibson Girl

Wikipedia on the Gibson Girl

I used this source to get initial and general information

Korn, Jerry, ed. "The Gibson Girl." This Fabulous Century 1900-1910. N.p.: Time, 1969. 183-91. Print. This Fabulous Century.

This was the source I used for my pictures