Bederman, Gail.

Manliness and Civilization: A Cultural History of Gender and Race in

the United States 1880-1917. Chicago: University Press. 1995.

Manliness and Civilization analyzes the changes at the turn of the twentieth century

from a Victorian model of “manhood” that exercised restraint, to a new concept of

“primitive masculinity” which exhibits physical masculinity and violence. During the

time period of 1890-1917, Bederman argues that “white middle class men actively

worked to reinforce male power, their race became a factor which was as crucial to

their gender” (pg. 5). The Anglo-Saxon white male’s power was being threatened by

racial and sexual challenges. In the introduction, Jack Johnson is used as a case

study of an individual who challenged these Victorian ideals. It was Johnson’s

success as a prize fighter and his white girlfriend that angered whites. White males

saw Johnson as someone that was challenging white superiority by showing off his

primitive masculinity.

Bederman explores the relationship between manhood and race through the

discourse of “civilization”. How this discourse could be “manipulated in a variety of

contradictory ways to establish what it meant to be a man and, in doing so, to

1
establish or challenge male dominance and white supremacy.” Manliness and

Civilization uses excellent case studies to demonstrate the different ways this

discourse could further their own opinions. Due to this change in discourse at the

time, the author sees gender relations at the time as unstable due to a variety of

social and cultural factors.

1
Griffin, Clyde. Review of Manliness and Civilization: A Cultural History of Gender and Race
in the United States, 1880-1917, by Gail Bederman. American Historical Association. Vol.
102, No. 3. (1997): 903-904.
 The case studies are diverse; Ida B. Wells’ anti-lynching campaign used

manliness to encompass black males and when she could not get the response she

was looking for went on a trip to England to highlight the inequality of the races in

America. G. Stanley Hall’s Psychology of the white adolescent questioned whether

“over civilization was endangering White Manhood” (pg. 77). Charlotte Perkins

Gilman believed that manliness includes females, but her approach only included

white females. Theodore Roosevelt was able to use his ideas of imperialism to

confirm his beliefs of white superiority. The conclusion explains how the persona of

Tarzan encompasses all these ideals of manliness and civilization. The link between

the case studies is how race and gender become the major factor in each person’s

arguments. Hall and Roosevelt are obvious choices as examples to show these

changes, but Gilman and Wells are less likely choices to exhibit this discourse of

“civilization”. All the examples help to highlight the opinions at the time.

Bederman’s argument is controversial. Manliness and Civilization gives

excellent and soundly written case studies through four essays. The only weak part

of the author’s argument is the conclusion, in which she attempts to summarize the

effects of the turn of the century civilization on post 1920’s opinions of gender and

race. Manliness and Civilization provides an excellent link between race relations

and gender at the turn of the twentieth century and shows how these relations were

responsible for changing the national identity of America.

William Tyler Grove

Appalachian State University