Brutes in Suits: Male Sensibility in America, 1890–1920

Preface

p r e f a c e In completing this study, I’ve come to view masculinity as a type of cultural disease—a contagion that spreads through the communication of ideas as well as through the transference of emotional and cognitive disposition. This pathological model may in some ways resemble post–Civil War elites’ assumptions about the origins of male aggressiveness and violence. But, as I describe and criticize in the pages that follow, late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century American thought predominantly represented brutish masculinity as an instinct—an innate, biologically transferred trait of male human beings. Measuring the difference between instinct and contagion is the analytical purpose of Brutes in Suits. I understand hypermasculinity to be a self-perpetuated and half-understood sickness, one that debilitates men even as it empowers them over women and other men. Masculinity as contagion helps us see the de-evolutionary impulse as a contingent cultural and psychological accretion rather than some sort of preordained return to a natural or essential state of being. Contagion incorporates a historical sensibility that recognizes the hegemonic power of gender while affirming human capacity for resisting mental habit, social inequality, and patterns of violence. Masculinity is an educative process, I argue, its de-evolutionary variant a matter of learning to be instinctive. I’m happy to have the opportunity to recognize the many debts I have accrued over the course of this long-term project. Before beginning my formal study of masculinity, I developed an appreciation for learning, inquiry, and relativism from my parents, Fred Pettegrew and Mary Pettegrew. Grandparents Muriel Pettegrew and Percy Pettegrew shared with me, among many other things, the joys of historical argument and of the Horicon Marsh. Aunt Jean Lindemann and grandmother Lu Spidell generously supported me throughout my education. And, outside of my family, Buzz Berg led me to intellectual history and the Progressive Era while providing a model of a committed college history teacher. This study began as a Ph.D. dissertation at the University of Wisconsin–Madison , and it is to that institution and my friends, teachers, and colleagues there that I owe the largest debt. The library of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin facilitated my research and writing. Fellow graduate students Jennifer Frost, Mark Koerner, Samantha Langbaum, Andrew Rieser, Landon Storrs, Paul Taillon, and Rafael Vela made early contributions to my understanding of U.S. manhood. Special thanks to Glen Gendzel and Paul Schuck for their good humor, critical intelligence , and high sociability. I also received assistance from a number of faculty members, including Jeanne Boydston, Carl Kaestle, Tom Schaub, Stanley Schultz, Richard Sewell, and David Zonderman. Before leaving Madison I had the pleasure of meeting two of Wisconsin’s most esteemed historians. Several lunches with George Mosse sharpened my understanding of manhood in relationship to nationalism, war, and sexuality. And one of the real high points of my graduate training was to become friends with Merle Curti. His reading of my Turner material and other work, our discussions of pragmatism (which included his personal reminiscences of Dewey), and his constantly probing questions in conversation all proved invaluable to me. Since my first days in Madison, Hendrik Hartog was a constant source of support and learning. The original idea that underlies this study and was first advanced in my dissertation emerged from discussions with him, and through every step of the dissertation he offered his time, enthusiasm, and considerable historical imagination. I can’t imagine having completed this study without Paul Boyer’s extraordinary talents as intellectual historian, editor, and adviser. His teaching and scholarship have been absolutely exemplary, and, since leaving Madison, I have only come to appreciate more his writing, integrity, and friendship. In beginning the long transition from dissertation to book manuscript, I bene fited greatly from a critical and intelligent reading of my work by Elliott Gorn. A summer at Stanford University’s Institute for Research on Women and Gender provided a wonderful opportunity for reopening and recalibrating my thoughts on manhood around feminist history and theory; Stanford’s Green Library and Special Collections and Archives were extremely helpful in my work on college football. Also important during this middle period was Patrick Miller, whose close attention to my work sharpened my analysis of sports, culture, and masculinity. Carl Degler bestowed very timely guidance in my understanding of Darwinism and gender. And at a crucial point in this study, I benefited from generous readings by David Leverenz and Jim Livingston...