Hostname: page-component-7bb8b95d7b-2h6rp Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-09-11T19:53:14.317Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Masculinities in an Industrializing Society: Britain, 1800–1914

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 December 2012

John Tosh
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content.
Image of the first page of this content. For PDF version, please use the ‘Save PDF’ preceeding this image.'
Type
Special Feature on Masculinities
Information
Journal of British Studies , Volume 44 , Issue 2 , April 2005 , pp. 330 - 342
Copyright
Copyright © North American Conference of British Studies 2005

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 See Corfield, Penelope J., “History and the Challenge of Gender History,” Rethinking History 1 (1997): 241–58, quote on 249CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 Hobsbawm, E. J., Industry and Empire: From 1750 to the Present Day, 2nd ed. (London, 1999)Google Scholar.

3 A rare exception is Kent, Susan Kingsley, Gender and Power in Britain, 1640–1990 (London, 1999)Google Scholar.

4 Mosse, George L., The Image of Man: The Creation of Modern Masculinity (New York, 1996)Google Scholar.

5 Stearns, Peter N., Be A Man! Males in Modern Society (New York, 1979)Google Scholar.

6 Hunt, Margaret, The Middling Sort: Commerce, Gender, and Family in England, 1680–1780 (Berkeley, 1996)Google Scholar; Kuchta, David, The Three-Piece Suit and Modern Masculinity England, 1550–1850 (Berkeley, 2002)Google Scholar.

7 Tosh, John, A Man's Place: Masculinity and the Middle-Class Home in Victorian England (New Haven, CT, 1999)Google Scholar.

8 Kirk, Neville, The Growth of Working-Class Reformism in Mid-Victorian England (Beckenham, 1985)Google Scholar; McClelland, Keith, “Masculinity and the ‘Representative Artisan’ in Britain, 1850–1880,” in Manful Assertions: Masculinities in Britain since 1800, ed. Roper, Michael and Tosh, John (London, 1991), 74–91Google Scholar.

9 Clark, Anna, The Struggle for the Breeches (Berkeley, 1995)Google Scholar; McClelland, Keith, “England's Greatness, the Working Man,” in Defining the Victorian Nation: Class, Race, Gender and the British Reform Act of 1867, by Catherine Hall, Keith McClelland, and Jane Rendall (Cambridge, 2000), 98–99Google Scholar.

10 Lawrence, Jon, “Class and Gender in the Making of Urban Toryism, 1880–1914,” English Historical Review 108 (1993): 629–52, quote on 650CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

11 Davidoff, Leonore and Hall, Catherine, Family Fortunes: Men and Women of the English Middle Class, 1780–1850 (London, 1987), 229–71Google Scholar.

12 The interpretation of this process has been the subject of vigorous debate among feminists and others. For a critical overview, see Creighton, Colin, “The Rise of the Male Breadwinner Family: A Reappraisal,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 38 (1996): 310–37CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See particularly Seccombe, Wally, “Patriarchy Stabilized: The Construction of the Male Bread-Winner Wage Norm in Nineteenth-Century Britain,” Social History 11 (1986): 53–76CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

13 The classic exposition of this theme is Houghton, Walter, The Victorian Frame of Mind, 1833–1870 (New Haven, CT, 1957), chap. 3Google Scholar.

14 Honey, J. R. de S., Tom Brown's Universe: The Development of the Victorian Public School (London, 1977)Google Scholar.

15 Oppenheim, Janet, “Shattered Nerves”: Doctors, Patients and Depression in Victorian England (New York, 1991), 152–57CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Compare Rotundo, E. Anthony, American Manhood: Transformations in Masculinity from Revolution to the Modern Era (New York, 1993), 185–93Google Scholar.

16 Hunt, Middling Sort.

17 Tosh, A Man's Place, chap. 2.

18 Hammerton, A. James, Cruelty and Companionship: Conflict in Nineteenth-Century Married Life (London, 1992)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

19 Ibid.

20 Hammerton, A. James, “Pooterism or Partnership? Marriage and Masculine Identity in the Lower Middle Class, 1870–1920,” Journal of British Studies 38 (1999): 291–321CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.

21 Shoemaker, Robert B., “Male Honour and the Decline of Public Violence in Eighteenth-Century London,” Social History 26 (2001): 190–208CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed. Shoemaker points to some important ways in which masculine reputation was already counting for less before 1800.

22 Andrew, Donna, “The Code of Honour and Its Critics: The Opposition to Duelling in England, 1700–1850,” Social History 5 (1980): 409–34CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Shoemaker, Robert B., “The Taming of the Duel: Masculinity, Honour and Ritual Violence in London, 1660–1800,” Historical Journal 45 (2002): 525–45CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

23 Archer, John E., “‘Men Behaving Badly?’ Masculinity and the Uses of Violence, 1850–1900,” in Everyday Violence in Britain, 1850–1950, ed. d’Cruze, Shani (Harlow, UK, 2000), 41–54Google Scholar.

24 Davies, Andrew, “Youth Gangs, Masculinity and Violence in Late Victorian Manchester and Salford,” Journal of Social History 32 (1998): 349–69CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

25 Clark, Struggle for the Breeches.

26 Gatrell, V. A. C., “The Decline of Theft and Violence in Victorian and Edwardian England,” in Crime and the Law: The Social History of Crime in Western Europe since 1500, ed. Gatrell, V. A. C., Lenman, Bruce, and Parker, Geoffrey (London, 1980), 240Google Scholar.

27 Quoted in Gatrell, “Decline of Theft and Violence,” 241.

28 For juvenile crime, see Shore, Heather, Artful Dodgers: Youth and Crime in Early Nineteenth-Century London (Woodbridge, 1999)Google Scholar, and Davies, “Youth Gangs.” For domestic assault, see Wiener, Martin, “The Victorian Criminalization of Men,” in Men and Violence: Gender, Honor, and Rituals in Modern Europe and America, ed. Spierenburg, Pieter (Columbus, OH, 1998), 208Google Scholar. Hammerton (Cruelty and Companionship, 39–42) sounds a strong note of caution. For a more optimistic reading, see Tomes, Nancy, “A ‘Torrent of Abuse’: Crimes of Violence between Working-Class Men and Women in London, 1840–1875,” Journal of Social History 11 (1978): 328–45CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

29 Wiener, ‘Victorian Criminalization of Men,” 206.

30 For the reform of public schools, Newsome, David, Godliness and Good Learning (London, 1961)Google Scholar; Mangan, J. A. and Walvin, James, eds., Manliness and Morality: Middle-Class Masculinity in Britain and America, 1800–1940 (Manchester, 1987)Google Scholar; Nelson, Claudia, Boys Will Be Girls: The Feminine Ethic and British Children's Fiction, 1857–1915 (New Brunswick, NJ, 1991)Google Scholar. For applied theology, see Vance, Norman, Sinews of the Spirit: The Ideal of Christian Manliness in Victorian Literature (Cambridge, 1985)Google Scholar; Hall, Donald E., ed., Muscular Christianity (Cambridge, 1994)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Alderson, David, Mansex Fine: Religion, Manliness and Imperialism in Nineteenth-Century British Culture (Manchester, 1998)Google Scholar.

31 Tosh, A Man's Place, 110–14, and “Gentlemanly Politeness and Manly Simplicity in Victorian England,” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 6th ser., 12 (2002): 455–72CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

32 Gay, Peter, The Bourgeois Experience: Victoria to Freud, vol. 2, The Tender Passion (New York, 1986), 352–90Google Scholar; Mason, Michael, The Making of Victorian Sexuality (Oxford, 1995), 72–103Google Scholar.

33 Cannadine, David, The Decline and Fall of the British Aristocracy (New Haven, CT, 1990)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

34 Notably Davies, “Youth Gangs.”

35 Perkin, Harold, The Rise of Professional Society: England since 1880 (London, 1989), 29CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

36 Laqueur, Thomas, Making Sex: Body and Gender from the Greeks to Freud (Cambridge, 1990)Google Scholar.

37 Wahrman, Dror, “Percy's Prologue: From Gender Play to Gender Panic in Eighteenth-Century England,” Past and Present, no. 159 (1998): 113–60, quote on 156CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

38 Hitchcock, Tim, “Redefining Sex in Eighteenth-Century England,” History Workshop Journal 41 (1996): 73–90Google Scholar.

39 Clark, Struggle for the Breeches, 2.

40 Tosh, “Gentlemanly Politeness,” 468–71; McClelland, “England's Greatness,” 97–101.

41 Bratton, J. S., The Victorian Popular Ballad (London, 1975), 159–62, 184–88, 192–99CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

42 Laqueur, Making Sex, 194–207.

43 Clark, Struggle for the Breeches, 220–32.

44 Newsome, Godliness and Good Learning, chap. 4; J. A. Mangan, “Social Darwinism and Upper-Class Education in Late Victorian and Edwardian England,” in Mangan and Walvin, eds., 135–59; Tosh, A Man's Place, 182–89.

45 Harrison, Brian, Separate Spheres: The Opposition to Women's Suffrage in Britain (London, 1978), 56–81Google Scholar.

46 Dijkstra, Bram, Idols of Perversity: Fantasies of Feminine Evil in Fin-de-Siècle Culture (New York, 1986)Google Scholar; Gilbert, Sandra and Gubar, Susan, No Man's Land, vol. 1, The War of the Words (New Haven, CT, 1988)Google Scholar; Showalter, Elaine, Sexual Anarchy: Gender and Culture at the Fin de Siècle (London, 1991)Google Scholar.

47 Hitchcock, Tim, English Sexualities, 1700–1800 (London, 1997), chap. 5CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Shoemaker, Robert B., Gender in English Society, 1650–1850 (London, 1998), 72–85Google Scholar.

48 Cohen, Michèle, “Manliness, Effeminacy and the French: Gender and the Construction of National Character in Eighteenth-Century England,” in English Masculinities, 1660–1800, ed. Hitchcock, Tim and Cohen, Michèle (London, 1999), 44–61Google Scholar; Carter, Philip, Men and the Emergence of Polite Society: Britain, 1660–1800 (London, 2001), 128–35, 143–52Google Scholar.

49 Sinfield, Alan, The Wilde Century: Effeminacy, Oscar Wilde, and the Queer Moment (London, 1994), 25–47, 109–26Google Scholar.

50 Foucault, Michel, The History of Sexuality, vol. 1, An Introduction, trans. Hurley, Robert (London, 1981), 1:42–44, 100–102Google Scholar.

51 Weeks, Jeffrey, Coming Out: Homosexual Politics in Britain from the Nineteenth Century to the Present (London, 1977)Google Scholar; Cook, Matt, London and the Culture of Homosexuality, 1885–1914 (Cambridge, 2003)Google Scholar; Houlbrook, Matt, “A Sun among Cities” (PhD diss., Essex University, 2001)Google Scholar.

52 Sinfield, The Wilde Century; Cohen, Ed, Talk on the Wilde Side (New York, 1993)Google Scholar.

53 Hall, Catherine, Civilising Subjects: Metropole and Colony in the English Imagination, 1830–1867 (London, 2002)Google Scholar, and “Histories, Empires and the Post-Colonial Moment,” in The Post-colonial Question, ed. Chambers, Iain and Curti, Lidia (London, 1996), 65–77CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

54 Schumpeter, J. A., Imperialism and Social Classes, trans. Norden, Heinz (London, 1951)Google Scholar.

55 Goodman, David, Gold Seeking: Victoria and California in the 1850s (Sydney, 1994)Google Scholar; Perry, Adele, On the Edge of Empire: Gender, Race, and the Making of British Columbia, 1849–1871 (Toronto, 2001)Google Scholar.

56 Haines, Robin, Emigration and the Labouring Poor: Australian Recruitment in Britain and Ireland, 1831–1860 (Basingstoke, 1997)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

57 See, e.g., Hattersley, A. F., The British Settlement of Natal (Cambridge, 1950)Google Scholar.

58 This is a recurrent theme in letters home from settlers overseas. See, e.g., Scrope, Poulett, ed., Extracts of Letters from Poor Emigrants Who Emigrated Last Year to Canada and the United States (London, 1831), 14–15Google Scholar; Sidney's Emigrant's Journal (12 October 1848), 13.

59 George Russell, autobiography (1873), 65, Killie Campbell Library, Durban, South Africa.

60 For the early days of British settlement in New Zealand, see, e.g., Phillips, Jock, A Man's Country? The Image of the Pakeha Male—a History, 2nd ed. (Auckland, 1996), 2–42Google Scholar.

61 Tosh, A Man's Place, chap. 8.

62 Dunae, Patrick, “Boys’ Literature,” Victorian Studies 24 (1980): 105–21Google Scholar; Phillips, Richard, Mapping Men and Empire (London, 1997), 69–70Google Scholar.

63 Phillips, Mapping Men and Empire, 70.

64 Wiener, “Victorian Criminalization of Men.”

65 Semmel, Bernard, The Governor Eyre Controversy (London, 1962)Google Scholar; Hall, Civilising Subjects, 243–64, 406–24.

66 Holt, P. M., The Mahdist State in the Sudan, 2nd ed. (Oxford, 1977), 240Google Scholar.

67 In Kipling, 's The Light That Failed (London, 1891)Google Scholar—published a few years before Omdurman—Dick Heldar does not flinch from killing Sudanese in battle or at placing himself in the line of certain death. His appetite for frontier violence is his way of resolving a failed relationship with a “new woman.”

68 Anderson, Gregory, Victorian Clerks (Manchester, 1976), 56Google Scholar.

69 Ibid., 56–60.

70 Price, Richard N., “Society, Status and Jingoism: The Social Roots of Lower Middle-Class Patriotism, 1870–1900,” in The Lower Middle Class in Britain, ed. Crossick, Geoffrey (London, 1977), 89–112Google Scholar.