In 1889 the English playwrite Sir Srthur Wing Pinero wrote and produced a play called “The Weaker Sex.” While it only had a short run in London, it went on to play in the U.S. in the 1890s to much success. In the play, Pinero displays two types of women: the socially active ones who look to make good marriages and live acceptable lives; and those women who live and work for other social causes including the independence of women. Early in the first act the daughter of the house of the leader of women’s independence looks out longinly at the nearby lawn where young women of the other sort art playing tennis. She describes them as, “those Gibson girls out there, playing lawn tennis!”

It may be just as Pinero referenced Gibson’s popular images of women, Gibson in return referenced Pinero when he chose the name for this illustration.