| dc.description.abstract | World's fairs, also referred to as international expositions, offer historians insight into a nation's society, populace, economy, and industry. Yet, literature in the field has made little effort to fully analyze the specific roles individuals or groups held within the expositions. The neglected groups are occasionally mentioned in articles, research papers, master's theses, doctoral dissertations, and monographs only when such information either supports their arguments or adds to the narrative. Specifically, historians have halfheartedly analyzed women's roles in world's fairs, with few exceptions. This thesis fills those gaps observed in its first chapter and examines the women who managed, exhibited, and performed at world's fairs in Chicago, Illinois, between 1893 and 1934. An analysis of the World's Columbian Exposition (1893), the Woman's World's Fairs (1925-1928), and the Century of Progress Exposition (1933-1934), produces a correlation between women's representation within the fairs and the evolution of the new woman in the United States. This correlation materializes within the second, third, and fourth chapters of New Women, New Opportunities. An examination of the new woman, women's rights, and the Woman's World's Fairs (1925-1928) presents a timeline that guides chapters three and four in their analysis of women's roles in the World's Columbian Exposition and the Century of Progress Exposition, respectively. Within the 1893 Columbian Exposition, the Board of Lady Managers regulated the image of the new woman and stifled other representations through control of women's sole exhibition space, the Woman's Building. Without such a governing body, women involved in management, exhibition, and performance at the Century of Progress Exposition freely expressed and enforced their personal ideal new woman. This thesis proclaims that the central factor contributing to the evolution of the new woman between 1893 and 1933 was autonomy, both from the government and from one another. This narrative revolutionizes the study of women's rights and further emphasizes the important role that international expositions, specifically those within Chicago, played in the history of the United States. Furthermore, it claims that an examination of women within these international expositions produces a complementary or supplemental narrative for the women's rights movement. It concludes with the assertion that both women's and world's fair scholarship require at least a basic analysis of the correlation between the new woman and world's fairs in Chicago between 1893 and 1934 in order to fully comprehend the influence the expositions had on one of the most significant social and political reform movements in the United States. | |
