GWS 200 Lecture 18: _The Birth of the Self-Made Man'

• School: University of Kentucky
• Department: Gender and Women's Studies
• Course: GWS 200
• Professor: Mikaela Feroli

Document Summary

The contrast- a five star comedy that posed the most challenged question before the newly independent nation: First few pages of this chapter recite a play. According to genteel patriarch, manhood meant property ownership and a benevolent patriarchal authority at home, including the moral instruction of his sons (p. 13) Genteel patriarch embodied love, kindness, duty and compassion. Colonel manly embodied a second type of manhood- the heroic artisan. Honest toiler, unafraid of hard work, proud of his craftsmanship and self reliance. Van rough embodied the self-made man, a model of manhood that derives identity entirely from a man"s activities in the public sphere, measured by accumulated wealth and status, by geographic and social mobility (p. 13) Mobile, competitive, aggressive in business, the self-made man was also temperamentally restless, chronically insecure, and desperate to achieve a solid grounding for a masculine identity (p. 14)