Draft of Paper 2

In a period when all American women were negotiating behavior and self-presentation between older ideals of domesticity and newer ideals of independent womanhood, Kathy Peiss’s “Making Faces: The Cosmetics Industry and the Cultural Construction of Gender, 1890-1930” argues that some black and immigrant women sought out cosmetics as a means of becoming culturally and socially accepted in the white, male-dominant society and as a way of expressing modernity. Yet black and immigrant women were often faced with dire poverty and didn’t necessarily have the time or money to devote toward their own physical appearance. This paper will argue that while many minority women did strive to obtain the materialistic beauty that white, American women embraced, Anzia Yezierska’s character Sara Smolinsky expressed her modernity and femininity through seeking an education, independence, and the natural, pristine beauty that she admired in her fellow college students.

In the time period of Yezierska’s novel Bread Givers, minority women struggled with re-defining themselves to fit not only the mold of the white, American woman, but also the mold of the modern woman. Peiss expresses the idea that make-up was a stepping stone towards women’s success and fulfillment (Peiss 372). According to Peiss, “women linked cosmetics use to an emergent notion of their own modernity, which included hard-work, athleticism, leisure, freer sexual expressiveness, and greater individual consumption,” (372). Futhermore, the assumption evolved that “every woman should be beautiful – as a duty to her husband and children, in order to achieve business success, or to find romance – and those who were not beautiful had only themselves to blame,” (376).

The cosmetic industry created “class,” “mass,” and “ethnic” markets so every woman had the opportunity to use make-up and reap its’ benefits, according to Peiss (372). Some, however, particularly those of different ethnic backgrounds, saw make-up as being used by what Peiss calls “disorderly women oriented toward urban nightlife and sexual pleasure,” (373). Yet the cosmetic and beauty product industry’s widespread advertising through drugstores, hairdressers, magazines, and more, eventually led to its popular use, particularly by black women.

According to Peiss, black people in the nineteenth century were constrained even more than white people by poverty and had little money for anything beyond what they needed (381). Yet Peiss describes how the beauty industry offered new employment opportunities for black women; beauty parlors could easily be opened in homes and small shops and was considered a woman’s type of work. Yet the beauty products that appealed most to black women, according to Peiss, were not cosmetics, but were hair products. Peiss writes, “For black women, hair care, including straightening, was one external marker of personal success and racial progress, signifying a response to the white denigration of black womanhood,” (383). Hence, it can be argued that the new-found beauty in hair products helped define the new, modern black woman who was trying to appear whiter.

For immigrant women, such as Yezierska’s leading character, Sara, there existed unique interpretations of what the new, modern woman was. For Sara, a great part of that was pulling herself away from the strict, traditional ways in which a woman was defined. Her father’s character is the emblem of the old world which they come from; his views on women would be perceived as sexist by today’s standards. Yet for him, they represent the ideals of the Torah. He says, “No girl can live without a father or a husband to look out for her. It says in the Torah, only through a man has a woman an existence,” (Yezierska 136-7). Thus, the driving force behind Sara’s dream of becoming the new, modern woman was independence. Not until later when she started going to school did the idea of beauty become any sort of priority for her. Her idea of modernity was not solely shaped by using make-up and other high fashion as means of improving herself and making herself more attractive to men, as it was for her sister Mashah, who stood “proud in the power of her beauty,” (145). Sara’s dedication to becoming a self-educated, hard-working American supersedes any romantic or materialistic fulfillments. This is illustrated in chapter seven when Sara says to her sister Fania, “Besides, I don’t want to get married. I’ve set out to do something and I’m going to do it, even if it kills me,” (177). Later on in the chapter when her sister asks her to accompany her to visit their mother, Sara responds with, “My work goes on Sundays and holidays. I’m like a soldier in battle. I can’t stop for visiting, even with my own family,” (178). These two quotes exemplify Sara’s work-ethic to fight for the American dream because that will make her the modern woman she wishes to become. Beauty and family, the two ideals that stereotypically define womanhood, no longer apply to Sara; they will only hinder her goals.

Yet despite her strong-will and determination, her poor, immigrant status and dirty appearance makes it hard for her to fit in and we never read of her forming any female friendships. After a catastrophic attempt to use make-up as a means of fitting in with the other girls, Yezierska illustrates Sara’s frustration and return to her initial priority; “I threw myself more desperately than ever into my studies. My one hope was to get to the educated world, where only the thoughts you give out count, and not how you look,” (Yezierska 183).
Despite the fact that minority women had access to what Kathy Peiss calls the “mass” cosmetic products, Sara sees beauty in a more natural sense, one that correlates to Peiss’s description of the “beauty culture” that is reflective of healthy and hygienic primping. Ironically enough and analogous to Sara’s perception of beauty, Peiss describes how beauty culturists of the time initially did not approve of make-up; rather, they stressed the route to natural beauty through breathing, exercise, diet, and bathing. We learn multiple times in Bread Givers, particularly when Sara goes to college, that Sara also finds natural beauty and clean appearances to be more attractive than fake, ostentatious outward displays of beauty. In the scene when she is on the train going to college, she finds the natural beauty in the landscape and people around her. Yezierska writes, “This was the beauty for which I had always longed….Beauty of houses, beauty of streets, beauty shining out of the calm faces and cool eyes of the people! Oh – too cool…” (211). Sara’s surprise at the natural beauty is only amplified when she arrives at college and first observes the college girls - “But never had I seen such plain beautifulness. The simple skirts and sweaters, the stockings and shoes to match. The neat finished quietness of their tailored suits. There was no show-off in their clothes, and yet how much more pulling to the eyes and all the senses than the Grand Street richness I knew,” (212). Even with Sara’s sister Mashah, who is notorious for being fashionable and always looking beautiful, Sara sees in her an effervescent, natural beauty that is far more impressive than any material or cosmetic products:


“When Mashah walked in the street in her everyday work dress that was cut from the same goods and bought from the same pushcart like the rest of us, it looked different on her. Her clothes were always so new and fresh, without the least little wrinkle, like the dressed-up doll lady from the window of the grandest department store. Like from a born queen it shined from her. The pride in her beautiful face, in her golden hair, lifted her head like a diamond crown,” (4).

Sara is on her way to becoming the independent modern woman she aspires to be when she leaves home to live on her own and seek a college education. She finds a dismal but affordable place to live, works as an ironer, and attends night school so she can get in to college. And here, even though she is living in the darkness of poverty and loneliness, she is inspired by Mashah’s natural ability to make things look more beautiful than they initially appear. Sara’s attempt to make her dismal living quarters more furnished and pretty is another expression of how she is turning herself into this new, modern woman. Yezierska writes:

“Against this heart-choking dinginess flashed Mashah’s shining little palace. Her place was once worse than this, and she polished it up. Why can’t I? A pot of paint, a little white oilcloth with brass tacks, a scrubbing brush with soap… I don’t ask for fancy furniture, but only a little light for the eyes…” (162-3).

Yezierska’s character Sara found her own modernity and re-defined herself as a new woman by the end of the novel. She is independent, college-educated, and beautiful by her own natural standards. When she finally has overcome poverty and goes to shop for her new clothes, she makes it clear that she doesn’t choose anything too fancy; “Plain serge only! Yes. But more style in its plainness than the richest velvet,” (239). When she furnishes her new room, she does it very simply:

“A table, a bed, a bureau, a few comfortable chairs. No carpet on the floor. No pictures on the wall. Nothing but a clean, airy emptiness. But when I thought of the crowded dirt from where I came, this simplicity was rich and fragrant with unutterable beauty,” (240-1).
While cosmetics did open the door to culture acceptance and modernity for many black women as described by Peiss, the natural beauty coupled with independence and education was what led other minority women, such as Sara Smolinsky, to finding their own new womanhood.