Redrawing the Lines

At the turn of the twentieth century, a remarkable group of women illustrators in Philadelphia helped shape America’s visual culture. The city in that era was a rich setting for women artists: Its schools and museums provided opportunities for training and exhibitions, and its thriving print culture offered new avenues for professional work. The creations of artists such as Jessie Willcox Smith, Elizabeth Shippen Green, Violet Oakley, Charlotte Harding, Ethel Franklin Betts, and Alice Barber Stephens reached millions of Americans through books, magazines, advertisements, calendars, and exhibitions. Yet despite the extraordinary popularity and influence of these women, their contributions have often been overlooked.
Redrawing the Lines restores these pioneering artists to their rightful place in American art history. Grounded in analysis of original works of art, published illustrations, and archival research, this book explores how these women built successful professional careers while navigating expectations around gender, class, race, and artistic value. It examines how their accessible, narrative illustrations shaped ideas about motherhood, childhood, American history, and the “New Woman” while redefining the relationship between fine art and mass culture. By placing Philadelphia’s women illustrators at the center of the story, Patricia Scanlan offers an alternative history of American art that foregrounds women’s contributions to mass culture and middle-class visual taste.