The Salon and the Social Network
What did a literary salon do that a digital network cannot, and what can digital networks do that a salon could not?
Read the essay ↗The Archive / The world then & now
Freedom, then and now.
Wealth, family, law, reputation, and artistic work have shaped women's choices differently across time. These essays compare particular historical conditions without treating the past as a simpler version of the present.
History, not nostalgia
Different places. Different permissions.
The American Gilded Age and the French Belle Époque overlapped, but their social rules were not interchangeable. Natalie's money and mobility gave her options many other women did not possess. The essays examine those differences before asking what has changed.
Each essay examines its own evidence and its own limits before comparing those pressures with contemporary life. Similarities do not make two centuries equivalent.
Historical essays / Belle Époque & Gilded Age
Then & Now
Start with primary records. Ask what they establish. Only then compare the world of Natalie Barney with the one we inhabit.
What Could a Woman Refuse in 1900?
Marriage, work, reputation, the vote and the different freedoms that wealth could buy.
Read the essay ↗Women Artists and the Price of Independence
Alice Pike Barney and Romaine Brooks reveal different intersections of wealth, art and self-definition.
Read the essay ↗