Excerpt from History of the Work of Connecticut Women at the World's Columbian Exposition: Chicago, 1893 The comparatively recent decision of Congress to postpone the printing of the official reports of the late Columbian Ex: position has made it necessary for each State to print for itself whatever history of that event it finds desirable to preserve among its records. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

This handsomely illustrated book is a welcome addition to the history of women during America’s Gilded Age. Wanda M. Corn takes as her topic the grand neo-classical Woman’s Building at the 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago, a structure celebrating modern woman’s progress in education, arts, and sciences. Looking closely at the paintings and sculptures women artists made to decorate the structure, including the murals by Mary Cassatt and Mary MacMonnies, Corn uncovers an unspoken but consensual program to visualize a history of the female sex and promote an expansion of modern woman’s opportunities. Beautifully written, with informative sidebars by Annelise K. Madsen and artist biographies by Charlene G. Garfinkle, this volume illuminates the originality of the public images female artists created in 1893 and inserts them into the complex discourse of fin de siècle woman’s politics. The Woman’s Building offered female artists an unprecedented opportunity to create public art and imagine an historical narrative that put women rather than men at its center.