The New Negro Woman: African-American Womanhood, Respectability, and Power in the Early Twentieth Century

Abstract

This thesis seeks to shed light on the construct of the New Negro Woman as the start of Black female activism and identity. It grapples with the implications of Black womanhood in the early twentieth century (1900 to 1919), as African-Americans across the country would seek new opportunity, advancement, enterprise, and integration into American society under the New Negro Movement. The New Negro Woman was one form of this advancement, a model of educated, hardworking, ladylike, and modest Black womanhood free from the stereotypes of slavery. Fashion and respectability became tools used by Black women to subvert stereotypes surrounding their supposed ignorance and masculine quality. This new form of Black womanhood would have an impact on power, activism, classism, and colorism in the Black community. These discussions were illustrated in fashion magazines, such as The Colored American and Half Century Magazine, and in the voices of Margaret Murray Washington and Mary Church Terrell. The legacy and history of the New Negro Woman is relevant today, as the New Negro Woman was an empowering figure, yet the construct's colorism and respectability politics are still points of contention in the Black community.