The American Bohemian Movement

This historical study will define the urban development of the New Woman and the feminist ideology of the American Bohemian Movement in late 19th century Victorian culture. The urban space provided women with a new way to countermand the patriarchal values of Victorian culture, which had severely limited the rights and social place of women in society. The New Woman of the 1890s was the result of the increasing presence of European Bohemianism, which had been developing in the U.S. since the mid 19th century. Various women in urban spaces began to become more independent of male dominance by advocating financial independence, independent living quarters, and by having sexual activity outside of marriage. These examples of womanhood in the late …show more content…
The Bohemian culture of the mid-19th century was primarily imported from Europe, which brought about a countermand the conservative culture of Victorian values in American urban life. More so, the aesthetic life of the artist was the main focus of Bohemianism, since it reflected a more creative, ‘s novel independent, and adventurous lifestyle. James Dabney McCabe’s novel Lights and Shadows of New York Life: or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City of 1872 defines the bohemian lifestyle of young men living in New York on Bleecker Street in the early …show more content…
In this example, the New Woman of late 1870s and early 1880s defines he rejection of women as domestic servants in the patriarchal household: “As to marriage it has been inculcated on women for centuries, that men have not only stronger passions than they, but of a sort that it would be shameful for them to share or even understand (Fuller 82). In this passage, Fuller’s evaluation of the Victorian marriage defines the early origins of feminism in America, which would become realized through the New Woman ideology, as well as the Bohemian lifestyle that afforded women the opportunity to live outside of the institution of