Manliness and Civilization

Gail Bederman

Published by University of Chicago Press 1995

Manliness and Civilization

A Cultural History of Gender and Race in the United States, 1880-1917

Gail Bederman

In the series Women in Culture and Society

https://doi.org/10.7208/9780226041490

Overview
Contents

About this book

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.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Illustrations Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
Foreword Catharine R. Stimpson Publicly Available Download PDF	xi
Acknowledgments Publicly Available Download PDF	xiii
1. Remaking Manhood through Race arid "Civilization" Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
2. "The White Man's Civilization on Trial": Ida B. Wells, Representations of Lynching, and Northern Middle-Class Manhood Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	45
3. "Teaching Our Sons to Do What 'We Have Been Teaching the Savages to Avoid": G. Stanley Hall, Racial Recapitulation, and the Neurasthenic Paradox Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	77
4. "Not to Sex-But to Race!" Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Civilized Anglo-Saxon Womanhood, and the Return of the Primitive Rapist Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	121
5. Theodore Roosevelt: Manhood, Nation, and "Civilization" Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	170
Conclusion Tarzan and After Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	217
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	241
Selected Bibliography Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	289
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	297

Language: English
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Audience: Professional and scholarly;
Pages
- Main content: 322
Illustrations
- Other: 12 halftones
Keywords: gender; race; racism; sexism; 1800s; 1900s; contemporary; modern; cultural; social studies; boxing; anecdote; true story; jim jeffries; jack johnson; historical; riots; manhood; manliness; toxic masculinity; racial dominance; oppressor; oppressed groups; black experience; culture; victorian; men; aggressive; sexual; virility; primitive; civilized; theodore roosevelt; ida b wells; charlotte perkins gilman; g stanley hall; relationships

eBook

Published: March 22, 2021
ISBN: 9780226041490