Sarah Iepson, Associate Professor, Art and Design, Community College of Philadelphia will be using the Mellon/ACLS Community College Fellowship to pursue her research, She Crosses the Atlantic: The Power of the Feminine in the Art of Glasgow and Philadelphia.

This project undertakes research of primary source documents about and images produced by women in Glasgow and Philadelphia in order to address gaps in current scholarship. In particular, this study addresses the simultaneous rise and fall of women artists in these urban locations. Through travel to and research in archives and museums in the United Kingdom and United States, this endeavor seeks to reveal the loci of suppression and revitalize the careers of female artists sidelined by art history. Additionally, this exploration articulates the ways in which similar educational systems and political reform movements encouraged the empowerment of women in these “sister cities.” Due to these parallel circumstances, a transatlantic dialogue is constructed between female artists in Philadelphia and Glasgow from 1880-1920.