The Voluptuous Woman was notably less assertive and distinctive than the Steel-Engraving lady, the Gibson Girl, and the Flapper in her role in the American woman's evolution throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. However, she did serve as woman's stepping stone from the frail, trite nature of the Steel-Engraving lady to the fuller, more confident assuredness of the Gibson Girl. She may not have aroused as much public attention or commotion as the other females discussed within this site, but she played a pertinent role in allowing for the smooth transition of the Gibson Girl into American society. Without the Voluptuous Woman the acceptance and success of the Gibson Girl is undetermined.
Leavitt chronicles the Voluptuous Woman's function in transitioning the American woman from the meager Steel-Engraving to the bold Gibson Girl in her work, Women and Health in America: Historical Readings, "The voluptuous woman, as the name suggests, idealized the hourglass figure with accentuated ample breasts and hips. The natural woman exhibited a curvaceous figure but shed its extreme hourglass shape and its artifice in favor of a 'healthy' constitution. As the century closed, an athletic physique joined this group [the Gibson Girl]." 5
Leavitt chronicles the Voluptuous Woman's function in transitioning the American woman from the meager Steel-Engraving to the bold Gibson Girl in her work, Women and Health in America: Historical Readings, "The voluptuous woman, as the name suggests, idealized the hourglass figure with accentuated ample breasts and hips. The natural woman exhibited a curvaceous figure but shed its extreme hourglass shape and its artifice in favor of a 'healthy' constitution. As the century closed, an athletic physique joined this group [the Gibson Girl]." 5
5. Leavitt, Judith Walzer. Women and Health in America: Historical Readings.
(University of Wisconsin Press, 1984.)
(University of Wisconsin Press, 1984.)
