Photograph of May Hazel Cushman, 1890s
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During the 1890s women began to move from domestic life into occupations such as salesclerks and typists. Dressing in separates became popular with the rise of the ready-made clothing industry, particularly shirtwaists and skirts. Charles Dana Gibson memorialized these independent women in his illustrations; the young women became known as Gibson Girls. They wore shirtwaists of cotton, linen, or silk with practical dark-colored skirts.
The woman in this photograph is May Hazel Cushman (1873 – 1949). She is wearing a checked shirtwaist and dark skirt with a cravat at the neck and a belt at the waist. Her hair is swept up and topped with a flower-trimmed straw hat. May married Bartholomew G. Corona, who was 19 years her senior, in 1914 when she was 41 years old. While the couple had no children together, he had two children from a previous marriage. She may have worked in some capacity before marrying, perhaps as a teacher. Her brother, Franklin Cushman, was a teacher.
This photograph appears on page 97 in Joy Spanabel Emery's book A History of the Paper Pattern Industry, Bloomsbury Academic, 2014.Information on the Artistic Photo Co. studio is impressed into the cardboard matte on the front of the photograph.