Library Company of Philadelphia
This Day in History!
On Wednesday, January 11, 1882, noted women’s rights advocate Kate Field (1838-1896) held a luncheon for Oscar Wilde when he was first in New York, at the beginning of his lecture tour on aestheticism. A couple of weeks later, this cartoon – characterizing the members of Field’s Co-operative Dress Association as “languishing maidens and sterile old girls” – appeared in an illustrated newspaper. Not only are Wilde and the women members of Field’s organization mocked, but the two women at the lower right in the cartoon may represent Kate Field and her partner Lilian Whiting (1847-1942). Field was a celebrity lecturer, who – like Oscar Wilde – provoked her own share of criticism.
Illustration in the Illustrated Police News (January 28, 1882). Gift of S. Marguerite Brenner.