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. |
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Page 1
... York Times offices straining to hear the results ; ten thousand men gathered outside the Atlanta Constitution . It was , quite simply , a national sensation.1 Ever since 1899 , when Jeffries first won the heavyweight championship , he ...
... York Times offices straining to hear the results ; ten thousand men gathered outside the Atlanta Constitution . It was , quite simply , a national sensation.1 Ever since 1899 , when Jeffries first won the heavyweight championship , he ...
Page 2
... York Herald.5 In April 1909 , the Chicago Tribune printed a drawing of a little blond girl begging the former champion : " Please , Mr. Jef- fries , are you going to fight Mr. Johnson ? ” Across America , white news- papers pleaded with ...
... York Herald.5 In April 1909 , the Chicago Tribune printed a drawing of a little blond girl begging the former champion : " Please , Mr. Jef- fries , are you going to fight Mr. Johnson ? ” Across America , white news- papers pleaded with ...
Page 3
... York Herald reported , " One negro was rescued by the police from white men who had a rope around his neck . . . . In Eighth Avenue , between Thirty - Seventh and Thirty - Ninth Streets , more than three thou- sand whites gathered , and ...
... York Herald reported , " One negro was rescued by the police from white men who had a rope around his neck . . . . In Eighth Avenue , between Thirty - Seventh and Thirty - Ninth Streets , more than three thou- sand whites gathered , and ...
Page 9
... Photos and Prints Division , Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture , The New York Public Library , Astor , Lenox , and Tilden Foundations . he claims ( falsely , according to his biographer ). REMAKING MANHOOD 9.
... Photos and Prints Division , Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture , The New York Public Library , Astor , Lenox , and Tilden Foundations . he claims ( falsely , according to his biographer ). REMAKING MANHOOD 9.
Page 17
... York , for example , luxu- rious " lobster palaces " and Broadway restaurants provided daring middle- class men with a genteel analogue to the working man's saloon . 70 Boxing and prizefighting , too - long associated with the working ...
... York , for example , luxu- rious " lobster palaces " and Broadway restaurants provided daring middle- class men with a genteel analogue to the working man's saloon . 70 Boxing and prizefighting , too - long associated with the working ...
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 |
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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