Manliness and Civilization

At the turn of the 20th century, America's cultural ideals of manhood changed, 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, G. Stanley Hall, Ida B. Wells, and Charlotte Perkins Gilman - she illuminates the ideological, cultural and social interests these ideals came to serve.