Manliness and Civilization: A Cultural History of Gender and Race in the United States, 1880-1917University of Chicago Press, 2008 M04 7 - 322 pages When former heavyweight champion Jim Jeffries came out of retirement on the fourth of July, 1910 to fight current black heavywight champion Jack Johnson in Reno, Nevada, he boasted that he was doing it "for the sole purpose of proving that a white man is better than a negro." Jeffries, though, was trounced. Whites everywhere rioted. The furor, Gail Bederman demonstrates, was part of two fundamental and volatile national obsessions: manhood and racial dominance. In turn-of-the-century America, cultural ideals of manhood changed profoundly, as Victorian notions of self-restrained, moral manliness were challenged by ideals of an aggressive, overtly sexualized masculinity. Bederman traces this shift in values and shows how it brought together two seemingly contradictory ideals: the unfettered virility of racially "primitive" men and the refined superiority of "civilized" white men. Focusing on the lives and works of four very different Americans—Theodore Roosevelt, educator G. Stanley Hall, Ida B. Wells, and Charlotte Perkins Gilman—she illuminates the ideological, cultural, and social interests these ideals came to serve. |
From inside the book
Results 1-5 of 61
Page 8
... Victorian culture had identified the powerful , large male body of the heavyweight prizefighter ( and not the smaller bodies of the middleweight or welterweight ) as the epitome of man- hood . The heavyweight's male body was so equated ...
... Victorian culture had identified the powerful , large male body of the heavyweight prizefighter ( and not the smaller bodies of the middleweight or welterweight ) as the epitome of man- hood . The heavyweight's male body was so equated ...
Page 13
... Victorian codes of manly self - restraint began to seem less relevant . Increasingly , middle - class men were attracted to new ideals -- ideals at odds with older codes of manliness . Concurrent with middle - class men's narrowing ...
... Victorian codes of manly self - restraint began to seem less relevant . Increasingly , middle - class men were attracted to new ideals -- ideals at odds with older codes of manliness . Concurrent with middle - class men's narrowing ...
Page 15
... Victorian ideals of self - restrained manliness . Working class and immigrant men , as well as middle - class women , were challenging white middle - class men's beliefs that they were the ones who should control the nation's destiny ...
... Victorian ideals of self - restrained manliness . Working class and immigrant men , as well as middle - class women , were challenging white middle - class men's beliefs that they were the ones who should control the nation's destiny ...
Page 16
... Victorian culture itself was " effeminate " and insisted that men must re - virilize their society . As Henry James had Basil Ransom put it in The Bostonians ( 1886 ) , The whole generation is womanized ; the masculine tone is passing ...
... Victorian culture itself was " effeminate " and insisted that men must re - virilize their society . As Henry James had Basil Ransom put it in The Bostonians ( 1886 ) , The whole generation is womanized ; the masculine tone is passing ...
Page 17
... Victorian manliness — institutions like saloons , music halls and prizefights ; values like physical prowess , pugnacity , and sexu- ality.69 Since the 1820s , advocates of this rough working - class manhood had ridiculed middle - class ...
... Victorian manliness — institutions like saloons , music halls and prizefights ; values like physical prowess , pugnacity , and sexu- ality.69 Since the 1820s , advocates of this rough working - class manhood had ridiculed middle - class ...
Contents
1 | |
Ida B Wells Representations of Lynching and Northern MiddleClass Manhood | 45 |
G Stanley Hall Racial Recapitulation and the Neurasthenic Paradox | 77 |
4 Not to SexBut to Race Charlotte Perkins Gilman Civilized AngloSaxon Womanhood and the Return of the Primitive Rapist | 121 |
Manhood Nation and Civilization | 170 |
Conclusion Tarzan and After | 217 |
Notes | 241 |
Bibliography | 289 |
Index | 297 |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
adolescent African Americans American race Anglo-Saxon antilynching Apes barbarism believed boys Burroughs century Charlotte Perkins Gilman Chicago civi civiliza civilization's civilized manliness civilized races civilized white constructed culinity cultural depicted discourse of civilization Edgar Rice Burroughs evolution evolutionary evolved example Feminism feminist fight force gender Hall's History human Ibid ideologies imperialistic Indians Iron John Jack Johnson Jane lynch law lynch mobs male body male power male sexuality manly self-restraint masculine men's middle-class millennial modern moral nation natural neurasthenic neurasthenic paradox overcivilized passion perfect political powerful manhood primal rapist primitive masculinity race race suicide racial recapitulation rape recapitulation theory remake manhood savage rapist savagery social Southern Stanley Hall superior Tarzan Theodore Roosevelt tion TR's traits uncivilized University Press unmanly Victorian violence virile Wells-Barnett white Americans White City white man's white supremacy white women woman womanhood Women and Economics York