HIUS 131 Chapter Notes - Chapter Article Notes: Social Darwinism, American Imperialism, Wild Beasts
HIUS 131 – Article Notes – Theodore Roosevelt: Manhood, Nation, and Civilization
• Roosevelt considered effeminate and gay by the press when he was a state assemblyman in NY
• Politics a "man-only subculture"
• Turning effeminate image -> masculine image using discourse of civilization
o "…stog ut iilized hite a"
o "To prove their virility, as a race and a nation, American men needed to take up the
'strenuous life' and strive to advance civilization - through imperialistic warfare and racial
violence if necessary"
• Political power resting on claim to manhood
Civilized Manliness and Violent Masculinity: Claiming the Power of a
Man
• Victorian moral manliness, "strength, altruism, self-estait… hastit"
• Violent masculinity associated with nature
• Inspired by The Boy Hunters by Mayne Reid
o "…este adetue i hih hite e poe thei ahood fightig ad auishig
Indians and wild beasts"
o Hunting white buffalo
o Similar to but superior to NA
o Men as superior to all other animals
• Darwinism -> Social Darwinism
• Bought South Dakota cattle ranch in order to make himself masculine cowboy
• Writing books about him as western hero
o Picture of him on the book looking manly with rifle, but wearing NA clothes
• Like NA but superior
• Political ambitions not for himself, but to advance race and nation
The Winning of the West: Race War Forges the Identity of the Manly
American Race
• Four-volume history of American frontier
• "…Aeia West as uile i hih the hite Aeia ae as foged though asulie
racial conflict"
• Heo the "al Aeia ae… o i iolee o the Weste fotie"
• Settlement of West mirroring establishment of Europe
• "…Aeia ae as a ad e ae, ut it shaed oth aest ad 'lood' ith the Eglish
race"
• Blacks not a part of American race
o Racial inferiors that were only damaging America with their presence
• Whites and NA need to compete for dominance, but whites will win
• Traditional gender roles
• NA and blacks opposite of manly because they show no mercy toward the weak, like women and
children
o Making NA rapists and child-killers, just like blacks were seen as rapists
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
