The Gibson Girl and Women of Conscience and Conviction
Charles Dana Gibson at work
Among the most prolific and significant artists whose success might be, at least in part, attributed to Mitchell, was Charles Dana Gibson, the creator of The Gibson Girl. The Gibson Girl was the epitome of beauty and independence for American women. She was self-possessed, well-mannered, original, romantic, and formally educated. Rather than producing a wide breadth of characters, Gibson instead endeavored to perfect a few carefully cultivated characters like the image we have of the Gibson Girl, who exploded so much in popularity after being featured in Life Magazine that it sustained a wildly successful artistic career for him for more than 30 years. Though her features and expressions are recycled repeatedly, the artist puts her in a number of situations and scenarios depicting middle and upper-class white American life around the start of the twentieth century. In many ways, The Gibson Girl was indicative of Gibson’s own progressive views regarding the rights and lives of women, views that she brought with her to every advertisement, cover, and artwork she graced. Mitchell’s support of such a radically independent woman, a woman who would become the feminine standard for white women in America, suggests his own investment in shifting the way women were viewed around the turn of the twentieth century. By giving Charles Dana Gibson and his Gibson Girl such a widely circulated and consumed platform, Mitchell succeeded not only in jump-starting the career of an emerging artist, but moreover, in furthering the revolutionary image of a woman who could think and act for herself.
Composite sketch of the Gibson Girl
Elinor Marshall, The Pines of Lory’s female protagonist, is described in a 1902 book review from The American Journal of Nursing as Mitchell’s own literary interpretation of artist Charles Dana Gibson’s iconic Gibson Girl. The review by critic L. D. D. begins, “A rather serious beginning is immediately merged into a most deliciously improbable little tale of two decidedly modern Robinson Crusoes. One of them is certainly a Gibson girl!”
Mitchell’s portrayal of a Gibson Girl esque female protagonist offers readers a literary image of a woman who is as defiant of their expectations for her as she is enchanting, albeit somewhat problematically at times. Elinor is described as a “woman of conscience.” She is skeptical at first of Pats after a conversation with Father O’Brien, who she is traveling with, and is unabashed in communicating her lack of interest in engaging him. As the story progresses and she finds herself in the throes of an unexpected, and nevertheless exciting journey, she proves herself to be tougher than the delicate features of the Gibson Girl might suggest. When she and Pats are first making their way through the woods they find refuge in a cabin, and continue to explore the area around it in search of supplies or any evidence that might help them determine where they are. Elinor sets off on these adventures in long dresses and shoes better suited for the far milder trip she believed she was embarking on, but is shown to be as necessary to their survival as her male counterpart. They soon discover the owner seated at a bench, only to find to their surprise and sadness, that the man is dead, his head still resting on his hand, preserving his state in the final moments he spent taking in the sights and sounds of the Pines. Pats, who is still recovering from being injured at war, asks Elinor to help him carry the body back near the house so they can lay the man to rest with a proper burial, and despite momentary horror, she obliges, her physical strength being the thing that equips the pair to settle into their new circumstances.