La imagen española de la mujer lectora en la segunda mitad del siglo XIX"La Ilustración española y americana" y el "Harper's weekly"

Resum

This article deals with the image of women reading in two well-known illustrated magazines in the second half of the 19th Century: Harper's Weekly and La Ilustración Española y Americana. This iconography contributes to the understanding of women social position in North America and Spain. The 19th Century plays an essential rafe in the history of women's reading, since it was at this time that the female population began to have extensive access to books. This caused an amazement reflected in drawings, paintings and engravings, but the consequence was not as positive for feminism as might be thought. In the end, the study of these images show us how the female population were still limited by their practices of reading and how the understanding of this phenomenon was affected by the assumptions implicit in what was considered as the universal essence of feminity.