Love and Desire in the Penny Press

Love and Desire in the Penny Press

By: Elizabeth Burt

It came as no surprise that love, weddings, elopements, and divorces were frequent topics in the penny press. People want to read something that they can relate to on some level, and the emotions associated with love are a fairly universal experience. I found it somewhat amusing, to be honest, that many of the stories Professor Burt was able to find about love and desire in the press were about love gone wrong. This is fitting, considering the overall tone of our analysis and discussion of love and desire last semester.

It has long been established that the images and articles published in the press have a significant impact on how we create gender roles.  Depictions of women in the Penny Press contributed to the idealized image of a woman at the time. Likewise, the depictions of men had an impact on the expectations that women had of them. Many newspapers portrayed women as delicate, demure creatures who were to be courted by men. Although this depiction was derived from societal norms, the penny press reinforced the image. Many men, in turn, used fragments of this gender role to ‘fill in the blanks’ of their idealized image of their beloved. Similarly, women had certain expectations about men that molded their idealized image of the beloved as a strong, chivalrous provider.

Additionally, the alteration of messages sent by the press can cause a shift in relationship norms. I would be interested to see the relationship between the number of divorce articles in the press and the divorce rate. My inclination is to say that as divorce was discussed more openly in the media, it became more common and socially acceptable. Professor Burt explained that as the years went on, the Penny Press began publishing divorce stories far more frequently. This observation falls in line with the idea that press on divorce varies directly with the divorce rate, which saw a nearly linear increase from 1860 to 1930 (See: http://www.thecurseof1920.com/images/image002.jpg). This relationship is fairly intuitive – if divorce is seen and heard of more, it will happen more frequently.  Also, by extension, the converse is true – as divorce happens more frequently, it will appear more frequently in the press.

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