Cornelia Baxter Barns
American, 1888-1941

My Dear, I'll be economically independent if I have to borrow every cent!
Illustration for The Masses, March, 1915
Offset lithography

Extended loan from Lydia Chappell

Greenwich Village bohemianism mixed with idealistic but nondoctrinaire politics in The Masses in the hopeful years before America entered WW I. Though The Masses championed women's rights, Cornelia Barns was one of its few female contributors. Her cartoons satirize selfdeceptive male arrogance with unmalicious insight; her sympathy with feminist causes kiddingly accepts human contradiction. Her progressive faith does not lose power because of her charming down-to-Earth wisdom about our imperfect nature. Like Isabel Bishop, she delights in the valid ordinariness of early twentieth century women, at the dawn of their liberation. At the same time, in this cartoon, she may be offering a gentle nudge toward unillusioned independence.


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