Paris Exposition and Gender

A Look at the Palais de la Femme at the 1900 Exposition Universelle

Exterior of the Palais de la Femme, (collection of Deborah L. Silvermann)

Poster by the Belgian artist Henri Privat Livemont.

An original of this poster with text included can be valued for as much as $8K.

Concurrently with the 1889 Paris Exposition, there was also the staging of a women's congress to articulate the priorities of this burgeoning movement. As a result of these galvanizing feminist activities that were developing in France and indeed around the world in the late 1890's, international organizers of the world's fairs felt it necessary to combat this "femme nouvelle " as they believed that this particular type of woman was a threat to the economic stability of global expansion. (Debora L. Silvermann, Art Nouveau in Fin-de-Siecle France, University of California Press, Berkeley, 1989)

To that end, the Palais de la Femme, situated at the foot of the Eiffel Tower, was created to enforce the view that a woman's role as consumer and decorator of the home must be asserted and presented as a feminine virture. As such the Palais de la Femme displayed hygiene and toiletry objects, as well as day care services for children, as well as commissioned female artists.

The design of the Palais de la Femme is complicated by the fact that it was spearheaded by a female member of Paris's bourgeoise elite, Madame Pegard, whom Silvermann refers to as a "familial feminist". According to Pegard, women in her camp would "will work together for a common goal, the primacy of our arts, and ...the grandeur and wealth of our patrie."