Women Whips in America

 

An article from “The Twentieth Century Home”, written by Paul Thompson, it appeared in the May 1905 issue, page 15.

 

Miss Angelica Gerry, of New York, Driving Four-in-Hand

While there are many sports that claim a greater number or obtains a greater hold on its followers than tooling a coach. These are necessarily limited, whether they be men or women, because of the very great expense that is entailed in owning and maintaining a four-in-hand. Despite this fact, and seemingly to keep pace with the increase in the wealth that each year witnesses in this country, there is a constantly growing number of society women who drive their own four-in-hands, or, having acquired the necessary knowledge, and possessing the good will of their more fortunate neighbors, operate the coaches of others. This Is particularly true in New York, where women whips— in other words, those who can and do drive fours have demonstrated by their increasing number and devotion to the sport that this is no mere fad, but a phase of sport that has come to stay. The present year will mark the fourth anniversary of the organization of the Ladies' Four-in-Hand Club of New York City.

While New York women have been particularly prominent in taking up this sport. It has by no means been limited to that section of the country.  As a matter of fact, there always have been more or less followers of the sport throughout the country, this being particularly true of the West and of the South, where women are much more accustomed to handling horses than in the East.  The old stage-coach of the far West comes at once to mind as an indication of the possibility of four-in-hand driving, but it has not been until comparatively recent years that women have taken their place on the boxes and seized the reins that were formerly held only by men.  In the South, where people are so much devoted to the horse, and where his use is so much more common than in the Northern and the Eastern parts of this country, it would naturally follow that he would be a far greater factor in many sports and would have an untold number of enthusiastic followers, whether the expression of their enthusiasm found vent in riding or in driving.  Fine macadam roads, found in the East and central parts of the country, have been lacking in the South, and because of this and because the South's soft dirt roads furnish excellent means for travel by horseback, saddle-horses have naturally come to occupy a more prominent place in Southern life than anywhere else In the country.   Yet the knowledge of horses possessed by Southern women has not been limited to their possibilities as mounts, for many Southern women have become excellent drivers of horses, either in single harness, in pairs or in fours, and many of these women who have journeyed North to become either temporary or permanent residents of Washington, Philadelphia or New York, have proved to be most adept at handling the reins over the backs of the most capricious and high-spirited quartets.

Miss Mary Harriman tooling a coach

 

Miss Florence McK. Twombly and Four-in-Hand

The opportunities for four-in-hand driving in the vicinity of New York are very great, for the surrounding country has been for many years the natural field of endeavor for drivers of all kinds. On Long Island the roads are so good that every opportunity is given to make four-in-hand driving most attractive and interesting. At many of the meets during the hunting-season, whether it be at Meadowbrook or Rockaway Hunts or other clubs, a well-appointed  four-in-hand, driven by a woman, is a not unusual sight. Mention here should be made of Miss Gulliver, who often drives a four-in-hand during the summer months from New York city as far as Southampton, a distant of about one hundred miles, partly over very poor roads.

 

Parade of the Ladies’ Four-in-Hand Driving Club, Central Park, New York

Most prominent in the sport of four-in-hand driving, because of their social position and the prominence given their annual meetings, is an organization whose existence has been
referred to earlier in this article, namely, the Ladies' Four-in-Hand Driving Club, most of whose members live in or near New York. The parade of the club, which is held each year in May, is a most picturesque affair. From nine to twelve, or even fifteen, women whips usually participate, each one driving her own coach, or managing the four-in-hand that some relative or friend is the owner of at any rate, demonstrating conclusively her ability to drive. Mrs. Thomas Hastings, who has been president of the club since its inception, has been unfailing in her efforts to advance the sport and further its interest.

    The formation of the club is possessed of a certain amount of interest, being, like so many other things of its kind, purely the result of an accident. Mrs. Hastings and Mrs. Iselin, who was then Miss Eleanor Jay, were watching the annual turn-out of the regular Coaching Club in 1901, and commenting on the poor showing made by the members. "I'll wager we can make a better showing than that ourselves," said Mrs. Hastings, and Miss Jay agreed with her. They counted up the number of coaches owned by women drivers, and found that they could  indeed make a very respectable showing. That same year the Ladies' Four-in-Hand Driving Club was organized, and in May, 1902, the parade of the club was held, since which time the organization has gained steadily in strength and has made a most effective sort of showing in its annual parade. The object of the club primarily is to encourage four-in-hand driving among the women of America, and none except a woman able to drive a four-in-hand is eligible for membership. It is stipulated in the by-laws and constitution of the organization that the president must lead all drives, while the vice-president must always bring up the rear. The club membership is limited to thirty, and one adverse vote suffices to throw out an application. While they are most in evidence in their annual parades, the numbers of the club are continually driving their own coaches throughout the coaching-season, and are, in many instances, as familiar a sight on the roads in and near New York as some of the better-known men whips.

Mrs. Thomas Hastings, President of the Ladies’ Four-in-Hand Driving Club of New York.

The Art of Mrs. Potter

 

An article from the May, 1905 issue of “The Twentieth Century Home”, by Emily Hope Westfield

English Home of Mrs. Potter

 

    MRS. POTTER is preeminently an actress by temperament and endowment. Her method is by means of the imagination, rather than the study of a part from a distance. The part she is to play takes possession of her, while many other actresses—the majority, perhaps, of the really great ones— take possession of the part, through study. Edmund Kean sat up all night opposite the Debtors' Door of the Old Bailey to see the Cato Street conspirators put to death. "I mean to die like Thistlewood—I'll imitate every muscle of that man's countenance," he exclaimed. Rachel tells an anecdote of herself which illustrates this method of self-study, too. She learned suddenly of the death of a dear friend, and sank into a chair with a cry, but at the same instant she was struck with the idea that that was the very tone and action needed for her cry of "Alas!" in Corneille's "Horace." Clara Morris tells of copying her best bit of stage-business in "Camille" from an entire stranger in a Broadway street-car.

    Mrs. Potter's method is more spontaneous, and probably more wearing in a play which runs a whole season. It was admirably illustrated in her languorous, sensuous Calypso in Stephen Phillips "Ulysses." Study could hardly have sufficed to produce the splendid interpretation of that part. But the imagination—that can supply a world of emotions. And so the woman, afraid that her lover, her hero, would leave her for greater things, almost gifted with prescience that it must be so, wrung the hearts of the audience. For when primal passion is depicted on the stage, the settings make little difference. Let it be in the ancient days before Christ or today—we understand. The tragedy of renouncing a lover because to cling to him would mean the ultimate ruin of his career has often been portrayed admirably. But rarely if ever has the savage determination to cling to him whatever the result been better interpreted than in Mrs. Potter's Calypso.

    Mrs. Potter's career has been full of interest from the time she made her debut in Baltimore—not a professional one, but that of the average young society woman. As the daughter of Col. David Urquhart, of Louisiana, and later the wife of James Brown Potter, a nephew of the Episcopal bishop of New York, society welcomed her partly because of her inherited position, but more largely because of her beauty and brilliance.  Amateur theatricals soon attracted her as a relief from the ennui of social life in which there was no struggle.  The social climber who meets rebuffs at every run of the ladder finds such a life of absorbing interest.  But for one who can open all doors, boredom inevitably follows.

Styles in Hair-Dressing

 

From the May 1905 article of “The Twentieth Century Home”, written by Eleanor Burton

    THERE is style in wearing the hair almost as much as there is style in the wearing of hats and bonnets, and the woman who neglects to give a certain amount of attention to the dressing of her hair fails to take advantage of a very easy method to add materially to such natural personal charms as she may possess.

    Some very pretty new styles which are just now quite popular show a soft, loosely waved arrangement, half parted and half pompadoured, which seems quite to have taken the place of the tightly waved, stiff pompadour, and of the severely parted effect which so few women find becoming to them. One of the high dressings popular at the present time is made by lirst parting the hair straight across the top of the head and down back of the ears, then parting the front in three parts on the top and sides (Figure 1). To do this, take the middle piece and draw it back a little tighter than the sides, fasten it and then bring back the sides loosely. Then take up the back hair and tie on top of the head, rolling it in a large puff or coil. A jeweler's butterfly fastened at one side of the coil makes an artistic finish.

 
    In Figure 2 (left) is shown the hair parted slightly on the left side, puffed a little over the ear. the other side being puffed in a loose side pompadour drawn back into a loose coil in the middle of the back of the head. This is a popular English style of wearing the hair. The English coronet dressing (Figure 3, center) is another typically English method of dressing the hair. Another dressing shows the hair puffed loosely back and front, loosely waved, and finished with a long twist or loose braid in the center of the head (Figure 4, right).  In trying any of these dressings, it will be found much easier to manage them if the hair is first tied at the back, leaving the front hair free to be puffed and rolled without interfering with the back.

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

   Figure 5 (left) shows a twist or loose braid dressing at the back, and Figure 6 (right) a style of wearing the hair very similar to the coronet dressing. This is the high braided effect, but instead of the hair being parted as in the coronet dressing, it is puffed around the front and also slightly at the back.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

   A soft, low dressing which is very effective for evening wear is shown in the two illustrations at the lower left of the page (Figures 7 and 8). In this form the hair is twisted into a soft coil and worn very loose and low. The front liair can be parted either in the center or at the side, or puffed in a soft pompadour.  Flowers, rosettes of ribbon or tulle, or jeweled ornaments, caught in at the side or on the top of the coil, give a pretty finish.

 
  

A simple dressing which can be worn with the hair combed either low or high is formed by parting the hair straight across the top of the head and down back of the ears, then parting in front at the ears and in the center (Figure 9).  To do this, take each side and comb it up into a puff, pinning it first so as to bring it under the opposite side. Then bring over the other side, turn in the end and pin down the center of the head.   This should form a kind of double-point effect.

Coquetry and Flirtation

 

As it appeared in “The Twentieth Century Home”, May, 1905                                         by Rafford Pyke

    To the mind of the average woman the two words which head this paper mean one and the same thing; but there is in fact a real distinction to be made between them. Coquetry is one of the charming little arts which are intuitive in every girl, and which are altogether innocent and pleasing. It is nothing more than the assumption of a winningly capricious manner, just the least provocative, just the least impertinent, just the least imperious. It assumes that man is a pursuer who may be alternately attracted and discouraged, by experiencing first a show of favor and then a simulated indifference or disdain. It is all the merest play, and it enables a young girl to bring to bear all the weapons with which nature has provided her for the harmless delectation of the other sex —smiles, pouts, frowns, arch looks and pretty gestures of command or of reproach. Many a girl who has just begun to practise coquetry upon her male acquaintances imagines that she has been flirting desperately, and she so speaks of it, with an excited little air of having done something very daring and pleasantly reprehensible. She thinks over all her saucy words, her flashes of repartee and the pertness of her bearing toward her amused admirers, and she feels like a little queen who has just succeeded to her throne and who is experimenting with her newly acquired power.

    But all this sort of thing is very different from flirting, which is a much more serious affair.   Coquetry is practised openly. The more who witness it the better pleased is the coquette. Indeed, she is anxious to have as many as possible observe her prowess.   She can coquet with a dozen men at once, and the presence of persons of her own sex simply enhances her sense of  triumph  and  general  beatitude.   Moreover,  in coquetry, laughter is seldom far away—at least from the lips of the coquette. It is all such fun!   In the crude young girl it takes the form of giggling, but in the better-bred it sounds in little peals and ripples of laughter which are a joy to hear.   But just because coquetry is, so to speak, an open, public thing, and because it has mirth for its concomitant, it is wholly harmless.   The coquette in reality is always thinking of herself alone, and very little of those on whom she practises her coquetry.   They are merely opportunities.   Her unconscious egotism is a sure protection against any serious harm, either to herself or to others.   In fact, the whole thing is a bit of play, a little social comedy in which grave looks are only momentarily assumed, and in which the denouement brings a peal of happy laughter.

    But flirting is very different from this.   Its very essence is the solitude a deux and the
air of rapt and thoroughly absorbed attention.  Just as coquetry aims at the pretended conquest of many, so flirtation seeks the actual subjugation of one.   Its most effective form  is where it begins in a perfectly indifferent acquaintance, which passes slowly into a confidential but unsentimental friendship, and then deepens and strengthens into an apparent intensity of feeling that intimates unutterable things. There is little mirth in a genuine flirtation. Laughter and lightness would belie and contradict the emotions which are at least supposed to sway the pair who flirt. And this is why flirtation makes a much more stirring appeal to every woman than mere coquetry—since every woman desires to be taken very seriously. She may be humorous and full of gaiety in all things else; but when it comes to sentiment, she will not even seem to yield unless her yielding can be made to bear the look of a surrender to superior force or feeling.

    Coquetry is essentially the pastime of the debutante. It is a rather silly thing in itself, and becomes attractive only through the artless grace and pertness and unstudied naturalness of the innocent. As the years go by and experience comes, then coquetry is but an artifice. It hardens into a manner and ends in an affectation which is either pitiful or ludicrous.But flirting, since it has the air of seriousness, belongs to every age, and the passion for it only grows with time. It is in reality unworthy of a truly womanly woman or of a manly man; for it involves the cult of insincerity, and thereby impairs the power of loving truly or feeling deeply.   A practiced flirt becomes at last a very paltry creature, for the lack of truth and earnestness is in the end perceptible to every one who knows the world. And  so, the woman who has flirted away the possibility of a genuine affection, yet who craves the emotional stimulus of the jeu d'amour, spends the last years of her middle period in befooling inexperienced boys; while the male flirt, more wisely or at least more harmlessly, is apt to take an easy refuge in misogynism, professing a low opinion of women as a sex, and passing his idle hours in concocting epigrams of cynicism. The male flirt and the female flirt of long and constant practice never try their arts upon each other.  They know each move of the game so well as to anticipate it, and thus all possible excitement is eliminated; and if they looked each other in the eye they could scarcely keep their faces straight.   It is a sorry business altogether, and those who enter on it for the first time with a thrill of pleasurable excitement, should know that before very long there is nothing which becomes so great a bore.