Manliness and Its Discontents

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400 pp., 6.125 x 9.25, 12 illus. , notes, bibl., index

Paperback ISBN: 978-0-8078-5519-5
Published: April 2004
E-book EPUB ISBN: 978-0-8078-6417-3
Published: December 2005
E-book PDF ISBN: 979-8-8908-7753-6
Published: December 2005

Gender and American Culture

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Awards & distinctions

2005 Pacific Coast Branch Award, Pacific Coast Branch of the American Historical Association

In a pathbreaking new assessment of the shaping of black male identity in the early twentieth century, Martin Summers explores how middle-class African American and African Caribbean immigrant men constructed a gendered sense of self through organizational life, work, leisure, and cultural production. Examining both the public and private aspects of gender formation, Summers challenges the current trajectory of masculinity studies by treating black men as historical agents in their own identity formation, rather than as screens on which white men projected their own racial and gender anxieties and desires.

Manliness and Its Discontents focuses on four distinct yet overlapping social milieus: the fraternal order of Prince Hall Freemasonry; the black nationalist Universal Negro Improvement Association, or the Garvey movement; the modernist circles of the Harlem Renaissance; and the campuses of historically black Howard and Fisk Universities. Between 1900 and 1930, Summers argues, dominant notions of what it meant to be a man within the black middle class changed from a Victorian ideal of manliness--characterized by the importance of producer values, respectability, and patriarchy--to a modern ethos of masculinity, which was shaped more by consumption, physicality, and sexuality. Summers evaluates the relationships between black men and black women as well as relationships among black men themselves, broadening our understanding of the way that gender works along with class, sexuality, and age to shape identities and produce relationships of power.

About the Author

Martin Summers is associate professor of history at the University of Oregon.
For more information about Martin Summers, visit the Author Page.

Reviews

"Perceptively illuminates. . . . Creative and wide-ranging. . . . Places black men at the center of their own self-construction and should not be overlooked in any consideration of African American and masculinity studies."--American Studies

"Scholars of black politics and gender relations will find much of interest in Summers’s new book."--American Journal of Sociology

"Closely researched, carefully organized, and skillfully argued. Summers thoughtfully balances social, intellectual, and cultural history."--Journal of Social History

"A significant contribution. . . . Important for the way it brings gender ideology, cultural performance, and the daily complexities of life in black America to bear upon some of the broader themes and constructions of American citizenship. . . . This book stands tall and strong."--North Carolina Historical Review

"Manliness and Its Discontents will be a valued addition to the growing corpus of books on masculinities."--Western Folklore

"Summers's book is a welcome addition to the literature in the field of men's studies. . . . An original and thoughtful framework for thinking historically about issues of gender, patriarchy, and race. . . . Summers's Manliness and its Discontents makes an important, and often insightful, contribution to the literature."--History of Education Quarterly