Visual Fictions and the U.S. Treasury Courtesans: Images of 19th-Century Female Clerks in the Illustrated Press

During the Civil War, the United States Treasury began hiring female clerks to work within its departments, a decision that would lead to the federal government becoming, according to historian Cindy Sondik Aron, “the first large, sexually integrated, white-collar bureaucracy in America.” By 1864, a...

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Main Author:	Midori V. Green
Format:	Article
Language:	deu
Published:	Dalhousie University 2015-06-01
Series:	Belphégor
Subjects:	culture populaire émancipation féminine États-Unis histoire culturelle illustration art
Online Access:	http://journals.openedition.org/belphegor/593

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spelling	doaj-d82b04d9d0fc46e6876a20ee9f6690032020-11-25T01:38:21Zdeu Dalhousie UniversityBelphégor1499-71852015-06-0113110.4000/belphegor.593Visual Fictions and the U.S. Treasury Courtesans: Images of 19th-Century Female Clerks in the Illustrated PressMidori V. GreenDuring the Civil War, the United States Treasury began hiring female clerks to work within its departments, a decision that would lead to the federal government becoming, according to historian Cindy Sondik Aron, “the first large, sexually integrated, white-collar bureaucracy in America.” By 1864, a congressional committee had already begun looking into accusations that some of the women were mistresses of government officials and that the Treasury Department had been turned into a harem. A second scandal, this time playing out in the press in 1869, renewed the old imagery of the harem. This article looks at how female Treasury clerks were portrayed in the two most popular illustrated weeklies at the time, Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper and Harper’s Weekly, as well as The Days’ Doings and Harper’s Bazar, and the use of misleading visual tropes that called women’s characters into question. The employment of these pernicious “visual fictions” aided in the creation of stereotypes of working women that continued well into the twentieth century, which, in turn, contributed to the devaluation of white-collar women and their work.http://journals.openedition.org/belphegor/593culture populaireémancipation féminineÉtats-Unishistoire culturelleillustrationart
collection	DOAJ
language	deu
format	Article
sources	DOAJ
author	Midori V. Green
spellingShingle	Midori V. Green Visual Fictions and the U.S. Treasury Courtesans: Images of 19th-Century Female Clerks in the Illustrated Press Belphégor culture populaire émancipation féminine États-Unis histoire culturelle illustration art
author_facet	Midori V. Green
author_sort	Midori V. Green
title	Visual Fictions and the U.S. Treasury Courtesans: Images of 19th-Century Female Clerks in the Illustrated Press
title_short	Visual Fictions and the U.S. Treasury Courtesans: Images of 19th-Century Female Clerks in the Illustrated Press
title_full	Visual Fictions and the U.S. Treasury Courtesans: Images of 19th-Century Female Clerks in the Illustrated Press
title_fullStr	Visual Fictions and the U.S. Treasury Courtesans: Images of 19th-Century Female Clerks in the Illustrated Press
title_full_unstemmed	Visual Fictions and the U.S. Treasury Courtesans: Images of 19th-Century Female Clerks in the Illustrated Press
title_sort	visual fictions and the u.s. treasury courtesans: images of 19th-century female clerks in the illustrated press
publisher	Dalhousie University
series	Belphégor
issn	1499-7185
publishDate	2015-06-01
description	During the Civil War, the United States Treasury began hiring female clerks to work within its departments, a decision that would lead to the federal government becoming, according to historian Cindy Sondik Aron, “the first large, sexually integrated, white-collar bureaucracy in America.” By 1864, a congressional committee had already begun looking into accusations that some of the women were mistresses of government officials and that the Treasury Department had been turned into a harem. A second scandal, this time playing out in the press in 1869, renewed the old imagery of the harem. This article looks at how female Treasury clerks were portrayed in the two most popular illustrated weeklies at the time, Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper and Harper’s Weekly, as well as The Days’ Doings and Harper’s Bazar, and the use of misleading visual tropes that called women’s characters into question. The employment of these pernicious “visual fictions” aided in the creation of stereotypes of working women that continued well into the twentieth century, which, in turn, contributed to the devaluation of white-collar women and their work.
topic	culture populaire émancipation féminine États-Unis histoire culturelle illustration art
url	http://journals.openedition.org/belphegor/593
work_keys_str_mv	AT midorivgreen visualfictionsandtheustreasurycourtesansimagesof19thcenturyfemaleclerksintheillustratedpress
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Visual Fictions and the U.S. Treasury Courtesans: Images of 19th-Century Female Clerks in the Illustrated Press

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