Crises in Masculinity

As a historian, or an aspiring one, I see time and time again men experiencing crises in their masculinity throughout American history.

In the Puritan era, men’s concerns with masculinity and their relationship with Christ led them to believe in a dual gender in each person (the soul as feminine and the body as masculine). The Salem Witch Trials played out these concepts through members of the community.

In the late 18th century, early Republican men again grew concerned about their masculinity. This played a role in the creation of the Republican Mother and eventually the cult of domesticity. Their fears of what it meant to be a man led to a simple definition: a man is not a woman. A woman stays at home, therefore a man does not. A woman cares for the children, a man does not. You get the idea. This continued throughout the century, playing into American imperialism and ending the century with the Spanish-American War… the ultimate manly war.

In the early 20th century this trend continued. Propaganda efforts for both wars explained in not-so-subtle terms that real men fought the enemy and saved the eternal damsel in distress. Often this also included the enemy feminized. This of course also helped to define gender roles in the 1950s and women responded to this in the 1960s.

Until tonight, I naively believed that contemporary men had finally overcome this fear for their own masculinity. Wrong. Super bowl commercials demonstrate that men still need to define and demonstrate what it means to be a man… a manly man. A man who wears pants and drives a Dodge.

The Great Failure of Prohibition

In 1919, the United States ratified the 18^th Amendment, sanctioning the prohibition of alcohol. It became illegal to make, sell, transport, or import any alcohol beginning in 1920. And so began one of the most unsuccessful amendments to the Constitution.

Prohibition had been an immensely popular idea, with temperance movements dating to the beginning of the nineteenth century. The movements, often linked to Protestant denominations and women’s moral activism, stressed the negatives of alcohol consumption. These women focused mainly on the impact of alcohol on women and children, believing that it encouraged husbands and fathers to spend time away from the home in taverns and that it caused violence in the home. Over the course of a hundred years, temperance and prohibition movements became linked with nativist and anti-Catholic movements, due to the belief that immigrants and Catholics abused the consumption of alcohol. Contemporary science in the early twentieth century preached that alcohol was bad for one’s health, while social scientists argued that alcohol consumption weakened society. Corporate executives and labor leaders petitioned for Prohibition hoping that it would improve their workforce.

The amendment proved difficult to enforce due to understaffing and underfunding. Despite the belief that the immigrants and workers’ drunkenness threatened the moral character of the nation; these groups consumed the least alcohol during Prohibition. The middle and upper classes (just the groups that supported Prohibition) had the means to obtain illegal alcohol, and they did. Speakeasies were plentiful and moonshine provided alcohol to those in more rural areas. While the nation had mostly drunk beer in the years leading up to 1920, during Prohibition they drank hard liquor. Liquor brought much higher profits than wine and beer. Speakeasies welcomed women, who had been kept out of taverns.

Rather than reducing crime, Prohibtion created a mob society, with criminals such as the infamous Al Capone, ruling the money and the urban landscape in the U.S. Capone and other criminal masterminds organized their organizations similar to the giant corporations of the early twentieth century. Photographs are bootleggers and dead gangsters plastered the covers of American newspapers.

In 1933, well into the Great Depression, the 21^st Amendment repealed the failed Prohibition.

The Power of Television

Today in 1960, the first series of televised presidential debates took place in Chicago between then Vice President Richard Nixon and Senator John F. Kennedy. Robert Sarnoff, the chairman of NBC, initiated the debate, asking both candidates to participate. Kennedy immediately accepted the idea, but Nixon took four days before also accepting. According to the recent Ted Kennedy memoir, behind the scenes President Eisenhower encouraged Nixon not to participate. Perhaps Nixon should have listened to that advice, as he did poorly in the televised debates and many believe it was these debates that secured Kennedy the presidency.

While Nixon had been slightly ahead in the polls before the debates, and the candidates stressed familiar Cold War themes, viewers felt that Kennedy proved a far better candidate after watching the debate. The image of seeing the youthful, vibrant Kennedy juxtaposed to the staunch and uncomfortable looking Nixon outweighed what the candidates were actually saying. Nixon constantly looked like he had a five o’clock shadow. The producer suggested to each candidate that they should see the make-up artist, both candidates were hesitant. Nixon refused, relying instead on an over-the-counter product, “Lazy Shave” meant to mask the appearance of that five o’clock shadow. Kennedy had an aide use a little drugstore makeup to absorb perspiration that would be created by the television studio’s lighting. While Kennedy’s make up held up well, Nixon’s did not. The product melted under the heat, making Nixon appear to be sweating heavily and accentuating that five o’clock shadow.

Their poise played a role as well. Kennedy seemed calm and composed during the debate. Nixon seemed nervous and uncomfortable. While Kennedy spoke directly to the camera, Nixon seemed unsure where to focus, his eyes darting from his notes, the the producer, to the camera and back to his notes.

So powerful was the image that those who listened to the debates over the radio believed Nixon won. However, those who watched the debates believed Kennedy won. Approximately 120 million people saw at least one of the four televised debates. Those viewers went to the polls with these images still in mind. Kennedy went on to win, of course, albeit by a narrow election. But it would not be a far stretch to state that without these debates, Kennedy might not have been our president at all.

Politics as Usual

I have been thinking a lot about the U.S. government in history lately. I hear and read on the news almost daily now about how bi-partisan our nation currently is and how different this is from the past. Then there was Representative Joe Wilson calling President Obama a liar during Obama’s congressional address this past week. News media and politicians on both sides reacted to this outburst, Democrats calling it disrespectful and Republicans  shaking their heads at a time when there has been such much criticism lately about the behavior of their party. But what I find interesting is how shocked we all seem to be at this behavior, that we act as though our history has been filled with polite, perfect politicians. What history are they talking about? Does anyone remember President Jackson’s relationship with Henry Clay? Much less than peaceful. Or how about the entire Republican party’s relationship with FDR during the Great Depression?

The behavior of our elected representatives is anything but new to American history. In the years leading up the Civil War, politicians were extremely ill behaved. They were disrespectful, often finding themselves caught up in shouting matches. Determining how to to handle slavery as new states entered the nation was so emotional, so difficult it led the nation into its most brutal war. So out of control were politics, that congressman Preston Brooks of South Carolina beat Senator Charles Sumner (an abolitionist) of Massachusetts with his cane. The attack was so brutal that Sumner fell into unconsciousness and Brooks’ cane was broken. It took Sumner three years to recover and return to the Senate. Somehow, Wilson’s outburst last week, pales in comparison (please do not take this as condoning of either yelling or beating fellow politicians with sticks).

The point here isn’t whether Wilson should have yelled or not, or whether bi-partisanship is appropriate or not (that could be a whole other blog!). The point is, however, that this is not new behavior. Politics can be passionate and should be, its about the leadership of our nation and its future. The media and American public expects that our leaders should be quite, calm, and collected and when that doesn’t happen, they complain. They discuss this behavior as if it is a symbol of the tragic path our nation is embarking upon. However, it is not new, it is not revolutionary. The nation finds itself in a difficult time, and just as we have seen in history, this leads to extraordinary (if not always appropriate) behavior.

Defending Oneself Using Truth

Today in 1735, the German American publisher John Peter Zenger was acquitted of libel. Many have claimed that this acquittal would help pave the way to eventually establish the American freedom of press.

But let’s go backwards rather than forward. In 1732, a man named William Cosby arrived from England in New York. He arrived to fulfill his appointment of the colony’s governor. Like all colonial governors, New York’s was appointed by the crown. To put it mildly, Cosby was an unpopular leader. This had much to do with his philosophy, “God damn ye.” Woe to the colonist who cross Cosby’s path.

One such colonist was Jason Alexander. He became determined to have Cosby removed from power and hired Zenger to publish an opposition newspaper. In November 1733, Zenger’s The New-Yorker Weekly Journal went to press. Alexander happily wrote a large portion of the premier issue. Not surprisingly, Cosby was outraged.  His first reaction was likely “God damn The New-Yorker Weekly Journal!” He had a committee created whose sole purpose was pointing out “the particular seditious paragraphs” in the newspaper. He ordered the inflammatory issues burned and Zenger was arrested for libel.

Unremarkably, Zenger was brought to trial in 1735. Remarkably, his lawyer did not dispute the charges placed against his client and he did not deny that Cosby was the target of the paper. Instead, He argued that Zenger was innocent because what he had printed was true. He continued to argue the importance of the freedom of the press, stating the colonies were in desperate need for it because they were so far removed from England there were little checks in place against the governors’ powers.

Before this case, truth had never been a defense against libel (as shocking as that might seem now!). While Zenger was technically on trial, to the public it was Cosby’s character that was really being tried. Zenger was easily acquitted and Cosby would die the following March. Governors in the colonies remained powerful in the eyes of the crown, but in the eyes of many colonists they were to be mistrusted. It was papers such as Zenger’s that would allow for this opinion to flourish throughout the eighteenth century.

Did the acquittal allow for the American freedom of press? No. Did it play an important role in a series of events that would eventually lead to the first amendment? Yes.

Defining Citizenship

Today in 1868, the 14^th Amendment was added to the U.S. Constitution when Secretary of State, William Seward, issued a proclamation that certified the ratification of the amendment. The amendment had passed the Senate on June 8, 1866 (33 to 11) and passed the House on June 13, 1866 (120 to 32), but took over two years to receive ratification from the states (July 9, 1868). Ratification is necessary to make any changes to the Constitution.

The amendment granted citizenship to “all personals born or naturalized in the United States,” which included former slaves that had been recently free. It was the first time African Americans could legally claim citizenship without reproach (many white Americans believed that African Americans were not fit for citizenship. The amendment continued, forbidding states from denying any person “life, liberty, or property, without due process of law” or to “deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of its laws.” The 14^th Amendment has been so important that it has been cited in more litigation than any other amendment

The amendment purposefully used broad language. By keeping the language broad it allowed for future Congresses and federal courts to give meaning to the guarantee of legal equality. Also, the ability for the Constitution define who was a citizen and giving the nation the power to restrict states from denying citizenship also greatly empowered the federal government.

Not surprisingly, the amendment created an intense division between the Republican and Democrat parties. Not a single Democrat in Congress voted for the amendment and only four of the 174 Republicans opposed it. Despite the lack of support from Democrats (who typically hailed from the South), the amendment had the potential to increase southern political power. Before the change, African Americans accounted for 3/5 of a person in the calculation of population that determined representation in the House. By claiming that African Americans were now citizens, they could each be counted as a full person, increasing the number of Southern Representatives in Congress. Democrats, full of rage from the lost Civil War and suffering a painful Reconstruction, failed to recognize this potential and saw only another way Republicans and Northerners were forcing the South to lose its identity.

The amendment made equality before the law regardless of race a fundamental right of all American citizens. However, African Americans still suffered as second class Americans, as the amendment did not give them suffrage. This would be provided to them in the 15^th Amendment ratified in 1870.

Better Late Than Never

Last week, on Monday July 20 I tweeted that on the same date in 1848, the first women’s convention was held in the United States. While six days late, this is the accompanying blog. Better late than never, right? In fact, this might be a sentiment shared by nineteenth century women regarding their convention and by twentieth century women once suffrage was attained.

At the time of the convention, known as the Seneca Falls Convention, women enjoyed few rights. They were denied access to most jobs, with the exception of those positions that perpetuated the traditional gender roles. While they could participate in politics by attending meetings and giving speeches, they were denied the right to vote. They had limited access to education. They were wards of their husbands and fathers, lacking the autonomy to govern their own lives. Some women compared their lives to those of slaves.

The women who claimed their lives mirrored those of the slaves, the women who participated in the Seneca Falls Convention, understood the comparison they were making. These women were veterans of the anti-slavery cause. The founders of the convention, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott, had traveled to London in 1840 to attend the World Anti-Slavery Convention. However, they were barred from participating due to their gender. Eight years later, inspired by the scorn felt in London, they held the first women’s convention.

The Seneca Falls Convention gathered women together in upstate New York to raise the issue of women’s rights for the first time. Hundreds of supporters attended. The convention called for laws that would allow women to own their own property, to have access to jobs and education, to have legal equality, and they wanted to repeal laws that gave fathers custody of children in the event of a divorce. However, it was suffrage that was the convention’s most controversial issue. In fact, it was the only resolution that did not pass the unanimously. The convention also produced a Declaration of Sentiments, modeled by Stanton on Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence. The document added women to the statement that all men are created equal. It condemned the injuries and usurpations of men against women.

While it would take over seventy years for women to achieve that controversial issue of the convention, other points were taken from the convention. Several states granted women greater control in property, some made divorce easier to obtain, and finally in some places women received the right to sue in court. While it was quite a small step for women’s rights, it legitimized the movement. It gave women a voice that was not focused on the domestic sphere but instead on her status as a equal human being.