The Gendering of Space: Female Strollers on the Market in 19th and 20th Century New York

This essay aims to shed some light on the concept of urban walking or, using its literary definition, flânerie in New York City at the dawn of the 20th century. This study specifically focuses on female strollers walking New York at the turn of the century as strollers on the market, faithfully representing America’s social changes as the birth of women’s emancipation. In doing so, this essay will analyse a case study based on the comparison of two novels representing two examples of female strollers in American fiction, strolling through the streets of New York City. The ultimate aim of this study is to prove that the female flâneuse at the turn of the century walks both as a social signifier and as a symbol of a collective psychology, tracing the history of New York City and representing the salient moments in American cultural history. The study compares Edith Wharton’s The House of Mirth and Stephen Crane’s Maggie: A Girl of the Streets. Their representations of female strollers, similar and yet different, will help us understand this figure, providing us with the tools necessary to trace part of America’s history and the history of New York City as filtered through the eyes of the flâneur