Song Character Analysis Worksheet - The University of North ...

new urban centers of society that valued culture and education. Yet most of this “work”
is unheralded in the historical canon because of its volunteer nature. Christopher Lasch
stated plainly that historians knew of woman’s role in reform and the building of modern
civilization but “for historians, as for everybody else, work is understood as something
dignified by a salary or a wage.” 29
In the 1920s a critical backlash emerged against the Victorian type of moral social
reformer, now considered the “custodian of American culture” or arbiter of civic taste.
Thomas Beer labeled this stereotype the “Titaness” in The Mauve Decade (1926). She
was “a terror to editors, the hope of missionary societies, and the prey of lecturers.” 30
The emancipated woman stereotype became the “Flapper,” a woman whose battles for
equality focused on sexual gratification and social independence rather than civic duty
and moral indoctrination.
In the midst of these general female stereotypes are four gender role subtypes that
are represented by the female characters in Show Boat: the New England Victorian, the
Post-Bellum Southern Belle, the Ethnic Other, and the New Woman. Although they
share many common qualities through the societal expectations of separate spheres and
the “Woman Question,” there are specific traits that provide a distinct stereotype for
each.
29 Lasch, 95-96.
30 Lasch, 100. Lasch described “club women, do-gooders, and cultural missionaries” as symbols
of Victorian repression and objects of ridicule in the 1920s.
45