American Masculinities A HistoricalEncyclopediaIndustri.docx

American Masculinities: A Historical
Encyclopedia
Industrialization
Contributors: Thomas Winter
Edited by: Bret E. Carroll
Book Title: American Masculinities: A Historical Encyclopedia
Chapter Title: "Industrialization"
Pub. Date: 2004
Access Date: November 25, 2017
Publishing Company: SAGE Publications, Inc.
City: Thousand Oaks
Print ISBN: 9780761925408
Online ISBN: 9781412956369
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781412956369.n119
Print pages: 232-235
©2004 SAGE Publications, Inc.. All Rights Reserved.
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note that the pagination of
the online version will vary from the pagination of the print
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The process of industrialization, which began in the United
States during the early nineteenth
century, had an enormous impact on American constructions of
masculinity. It complicated
preindustrial notions of manhood based on male patriarchal
control over family and
household, while also generating new and often class-based
definitions of gender. For some
segments of the male population, industrialization eroded two
critical foundations of
preindustrial male patriarchy: It reduced the importance of
property ownership and moved
productive, income-generating labor out of the home. In doing
so, it opened up opportunities
for social and cultural experimentation with definitions of
manhood both in and outside the
workplace. Men were able to shape these new articulations of
masculinity to some extent, but
the impact of industrialization on their work and on the
economic foundations of their lives
also set the parameters for their redefinition of themselves as
men.
Household Production, Proto-Industrialization, and Patriarchy
Through the late eighteenth century, most American households
were sites of preindustrial

production grounded firmly in patriarchal authority, which in
turn was a fundamental
component of masculine identity. Between 1790 and 1815,
however, the nature of both
household production and household patriarchy began to shift.
Commodity production in the
countryside and in urban households intensified as merchants
increased investment in
domestic markets and the development of manufactures. This
early commodity production, or
proto-industrialization, actually relied on the patriarchal family
unit and its social relations to
organize, mobilize, and discipline a spatially dispersed
workforce and produce goods for
expanding markets. In and around Lynn, Massachusetts, for
instance, merchants and artisans
began in the 1780s to create a thriving shoe industry based on a
“putting out” system in which
entrepreneurs supplied raw materials to widely dispersed farm
families working out of their
own homes. Such forms of household-based commodity
production actually reinforced
domestic patriarchy, since the father/husband mediated the
relation between the income-
generating family members and the artisan or merchant who
supplied the raw material.
Eventually, however, the success and profitability of this form
of household production
enabled master artisans, merchants, and shopkeepers to relocate
and concentrate work
processes into workshops, thus undermining traditional
household patriarchy. This process
was uneven in its application. In the 1790s, Samuel Slater hired
whole family units for his
textile mills in Massachusetts and Rhode Island, and even

purchased land for heads of
households to support a combination of industrial labor and
subsistence agriculture. He then
sought to incorporate household patriarchy and the family as a
productive unit, and to
channel the social discipline these relations helped to generate
into industrial manufacturing.
But while the Slater Mills relied on the patriarchal family unit
to maintain industrial discipline
among its workers, the textile mills at Waltham and Lowell,
Massachusetts, which were built
later, involved no similar effort to preserve preindustrial
patriarchal relations.
The Breadwinner Ideal
Across class lines, men counteracted the limitations that
industrialization imposed on
patriarchy by monopolizing income-generating productive labor.
Accompanying and justifying
this development was a new definition of manhood, that of
primary family breadwinner. This
concept was grounded in an increasing emphasis on gender
difference, and on the notion of
men's unique suitability for the new forms of work generated by
industrialization. The
breadwinner ideal had a mixed effect on male domestic
authority and masculine identity. On
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© 2003 by The Moschovitis Group, Inc.
American Masculinities: A Historical EncyclopediaPage 2 of 7

the one hand, it made men, their manliness, and their ability to
provide economic security for
their families dependent on market forces beyond their control.
By disrupting the link between
men's work and their households, moreover, it reduced the time
that most fathers spent at
home, which limited their control over their wives and children.
It also rendered them less able
to validate themselves by transmitting their skills to a son or
apprentice or by steering their
sons into their own career paths. Yet at the same time, the male
breadwinner actually held a
greater share of domestic economic power than had the
preindustrial patriarch, and
breadwinning reinforced men's ability to provide for their wives
and children.
Masculinity and Class
Industrialization created a new social division between those
who owned or managed
business establishments (the emergent middle class) and those
who worked under these
owners and managers as working-class wage earners. Male
experiences, and the definitions
of masculinity that these generated, varied across this class line.
In general, working-class
men found that the craft-based skills in which they had
traditionally grounded their ideas of
manly labor were undermined and increasingly replaced by new
technologies. Middle-class
men, meanwhile, were able to form new definitions of
masculinity around their work,
particularly the appropriation and administration of
entrepreneurial and organizational
prerogatives formerly under the purview of artisans and small-

scale producers. Both groups of
men formed and expressed new class-based ideals of manhood
inside and outside the
workplace.
For working-class men, a heightened emphasis on male physical
ability enabled them to
reassure themselves of their manliness and respond to the
pressures of industrialization.
Although industrialization would ultimately result in the
mechanization and de-skilling of many
work tasks, early industrialization, with its demand for
productivity and its comparatively
primitive machinery, actually increased the demand for physical
strength in such industries as
metallurgy, mining, and textiles. In many trades, working-class
men expressed their class-
based masculinity by asserting their independence, craft skills,
and control over the shop
floor, thus challenging managerial prerogatives and control of
work processes. In trades such
as steel, glass blowing, or printing, craft skills remained
significant in many aspects of the
production process, and craftworkers continued to define their
identities as workers and as
men around their craft-based autonomy on the shop floor.
Resistance at work represented another such outlet available to
working-class men. Labor
and crowd action, bread riots, and price riots did not represent a
new phenomenon, but in the
eighteenth century such social uprisings were community-based
rather than work- or class-
based, and they also included both men and women. While
women workers in such
industries as textiles and needlework went on strike just as men

did, the nineteenth century
witnessed a masculinization of such forms of protest, which
were increasingly organized
through labor and trade unions that grew out of men's
homosocial workplace bonds.
Working-class men also defined and asserted their masculinity
off the job. The industrializing
city offered a range of boisterous amusements that became key
settings for public
demonstrations of manliness. Drinking alcohol—a traditional
element of artisanal labor, but
increasingly stigmatized by middle-class men as incompatible
with productive efficiency—
became for the new industrial labor force both an important
badge of one's physical stamina
and a rejection of middle-class morality. Theaters in working-
class neighborhoods, where
middle-class male patrons were often unwelcome and risked
forced removal, served a similar
function.
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By the late nineteenth century, as advancing mechanization
increasingly de-skilled more and
more tasks and work processes and undermined craft-based
prerogatives at work, working-
class men's responses to industrialization began to change. More
traditional segments of the
working class, inspired by a craft-based ideal of manhood,

sought to resurrect artisanal
production and a community of producers by organizing the
relatively short-lived Knights of
Labor organization, which did not survive a series of strikes in
1886. A more accommodationist
wing of the labor movement, represented by the American
Federation of Labor, accepted the
loss of workplace prerogatives and sought better financial
compensation of its members to
attain the newer breadwinner ideal. This mostly male labor
organization paved the way for the
notion of the working man as a consumer that emerged in the
twentieth century.
Whereas industrialization imposed more rigid forms of
workplace discipline and control over
working-class men, it generated outlets for masculine self-
expression at work for middle-class
men. With the onset of new technologies, administrative and
scientific functions (such as
engineering, accounting, and chemistry) gained significance in
industry around the mid–
nineteenth century. As new machinery replaced craft and
physical skills, it generated
demands for administrative skills and produced an inclination
among middle-class men to
distinguish between their intellectual labor and what they
considered the inferior, and even
animalistic, physical labor of working-class men. Middle-class
men increasingly defined their
masculinity in terms of those qualities that characterized
business in industrializing America:
rationality, competitiveness, efficiency, and frugality. With the
growing bureaucratization of
American business that accompanied advancing
industrialization later in the nineteenth

century, definitions of middle-class manhood expanded to
include teamwork, loyalty, and
professionalism. Off the job, middle-class men of the nineteenth
century cultivated a genteel
model of manly deportment that—in conscious distinction from
working-class behavioral
patterns—embraced temperance, social etiquette, and
refinement.
Industrialization also generated new patterns of fathering in the
middle class. Whereas
working-class fathers had to worry about how they might
prepare their sons for the new
industrial workplace, middle-class fathers had to provide their
offspring with more formal
education to enable sons to choose their own career paths.
Middle-class men, in particular,
measured their manhood through their ability to ensure their
sons' upward social mobility, and
thereby preserve their families' often tenuous middle-class
status. For these men, the role of
the breadwinner included the expectation to provide their
children with increasing numbers of
years of schooling. Their sons, meanwhile, enjoyed greater
autonomy than had their
preindustrial counterparts in choosing their own careers, and
they viewed their freedom in
determining their professional life as an expression of their own
achievement of manhood.
Gender Hierarchy in the Industrial Workplace
Industrialization posed a potential threat to the traditional
gender hierarchy of preindustrial
patriarchy by creating opportunities for women to enter the
labor force and achieve economic

independence. But in such industries as textiles and needlework,
which relied heavily on
female workforces, men held supervisory positions, in effect
restoring some measure of
patriarchal control. Furthermore, in those industries that tended
to rely on women as a cheap
labor supply, male workers and middle-class reformers
demanded a reduction in working
hours for women on the grounds that women either lacked men's
physical strength and
stamina or were required in their homes as mothers. Working
men who supported such laws
most probably had the well-being of their daughters and wives
in mind, yet their aspiration to
the domestic power of the sole breadwinner was probably also a
factor. Middle-class men, on
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the other hand, justified the gender division of labor and their
dominance of emerging
entrepreneurial, professional, and bureaucratic work not on
technological or physical
necessity, but on what they considered to be women's lack of
capacity for rational thought
and self-control. New codes of manliness that emphasized
expertise, knowledge, and mental
power supported this belief.
Masculinity and Sexuality in Industrializing America

Industrialization and the accompanying process of urbanization
provided one final arena for
defining and demonstrating masculinity: sexuality. During the
nineteenth century, sex became
an increasingly important signifier of manliness (particularly
among working-class men) and
the age at which men tended to become sexually active dropped
from twenty-five to eighteen.
No longer able to rely on property as a means of patriarchal
control and with work often no
longer an integral part of household activities, sex became a last
resort for the exercise of
patriarchal power among men. As industrialization made the
achievement of manhood
through work dependent on the shifts in labor markets, and as
the acquisition of property
became uncertain, men could validate themselves through
sexual domination of women.
Indeed, antebellum New York City witnessed an increase in
rapes and sexual assaults on
women. Industrialization made sex available as a compensatory
outlet for men in more direct
ways as well: Female needle workers, working out of their own
homes in New York under
abysmal conditions in the 1830s and 1840s, frequently had to
resort to casual prostitution to
make ends meet.
For middle-class men, meanwhile, sexuality became a new
territory for asserting the self-
control so crucial to middle-class definitions of manhood.
Advice writers such as William
Alcott, Sylvester Graham, Augustus Kingsley Gardiner, and
John Todd counseled self-
restraint in all bodily matters, and especially in all sexual
matters. Masturbation, while never

encouraged in preindustrial society, was now condemned as
wasteful of potentially productive
male energy. Sexual activity, contemporary observers advised,
was best restricted to
procreation only. Middle-class men, then, were admonished to
synchronize their bodies and
their bodily conduct with an emerging capitalist regime of
accumulation and delayed
gratification. As middle-class men emphasized self-restraint and
self-control to the point of
repressing their libidos, they also linked definitions of
manliness to class difference, as
working-class men did not follow the same mandates.
Conclusion
Industrialization affected definitions and cultural constructions
of manliness by undermining
patriarchal control over the household, cutting the spatial link
between work and home, and
prompting the formation of new class-based masculinities. Men
redefined manliness through
the role of the breadwinner, by generating new codes of
manliness on the job, and through
sexuality. While the separation of masculinity from property
ownership and household
patriarchy cut across class lines, industrialization also affected
men and masculinity in class-
specific ways. Middle-class men had more cultural and
economic resources at their command
to actively generate new articulations of manliness than did
working-class men. As a social
and cultural construct, American masculinity took new forms as
industrialization generated the
social and cultural dynamics of a modern society.

working men
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middle class
breadwinners
industrialization
masculinities
working class
patriarchy
ThomasWinter
http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781412956369.n119
Related Entries
Artisan
Breadwinner Role
Bureaucratization
Business/Corporate America
Capitalism
Class
Fatherhood
Heterosexuality
Labor Movement and Unions
Leisure
Market Revolution
Middle-Class Manhood
Patriarchy
Professionalism
Property
Self-Control

Self-Made Man
Technology
Urbanization
Work
Working-Class Manhood
Bibliography
Barker-Benfield, Graham J.The Horrors of the Half-Known
Life: Male Attitudes toward Women
and Sexuality in Nineteenth-Century America. New York:
Harper & Row, 1976.
Blumin, Stuart. The Emergence of the Middle Class: Social
Experience in the American City,
1760–1900. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press,
1989.
Coontz, Stephanie. The Social Origins of Private Life:
American Families, 1600–1900. New
York: Verso, 1988.
Gorn, Elliot J.The Manly Art: Bare-Knuckle Prize Fighting in
America. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell
University Press, 1986.
Kimmel, Michael. Manhood in America: A Cultural History.
New York: Free Press, 1996.
Licht, Walter. Industrializing America: The Nineteenth Century.
Baltimore: Johns Hopkins
McGaw, Judith A.Most Wonderful Machine: Mechanization and
Social Change in Berkshire
Paper Making, 1801–1885. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University
Press, 1987.
Stearns, Peter N.Be a Man! Males in Modern Society. 2nd ed.
New York: Holmes & Meier,
1990.
Further Reading
Baron, Ava, ed. Work Engendered: Toward a New History of
AmericanLabor. Ithaca, N.Y.:

SAGE SAGE Reference
http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781412956369.n119
http://sk.sagepub.com/reference/masculinities/n16.xml
Cornell University Press, 1991.
Bensman, David. The Practice of Solidarity: American Hat
Finishers in the Nineteenth
Century. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1985.
Clawson, Mary Ann. Constructing Brotherhood: Class, Gender,
and Fraternalism. Princeton,

N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1989.
Cooper, Patricia A.Once A Cigar Maker: Men, Women, and
Work Culture in American Cigar
Factories, 1900–1919. Urbana: University of Illinois Press,
1987.
Montgomery, David. The Fall of the House of Labor: The
Workplace, The State, and American
Labor Activism, 1865–1925. Cambridge, England: Cambridge
http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511528774
SAGE SAGE Reference
http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511528774
YOU ALREADY DID THE DISCUSSION: I NEED THE
REPLY TO THE TWO POST BELOW
Legislative Action and Reflection
The path to becoming a clinical mental health professional has
required you to develop strong personal skills, including skills
in self-care, but fortunately you haven’t had to do it all by
yourself. Throughout this course, you have been working with
your peers, and together you have been making social change
over the weeks of this course. This week, you and your peers
will continue to pursue positive social change by advocating for
legislative action.
For this Discussion, you will prepare to contact a legislative
representative to advocate for legislative action on a topic that
interests you, and you will reflect on how personal actions on
advocacy can impact you and your current and future clients.
To Prepare:

· Review Part 3 of your Final Project and look for what you
found compelling and would seek for further advocacy
opportunities.
· Search the ACA websites (Including the ACA branches site) in
this week’s Learning Resources to research current legislative
concerns in the counseling profession, and select one legislative
concern that interests you.
· Based on the issue you chose, determine whom to contact:
your federal, state, or local elected official.
· Compose an email or letter to the chosen elected official about
the legislative concern.
. Note: Your letter or email will be more effective if you
address a single topic or issue rather than a variety of issues
you may feel passionate about. Typed, 1-page letters are best.
Many Political Action Committees (PACs) recommend a three-
paragraph letter that is straightforward and to the point.
. Review the web article “Tips for Writing Effective Letters to
Congress” in the Learning Resources for more recommendations
on writing your e-mail or letter.
. Cite at least two scholarly articles in the email or letter to
support your position.
. Keep the email or letter succinct (no more than 3 paragraphs).
REPLY 1
The Honorable Bill Cassidy
United State Senate
Washington, DC 20510
Senator Bill Cassidy,
My name is Nadine Vitenas and I am studying counseling the
concerns for more advocacy in our society. I am concerned
about price transparency. Prices of medical services should be
transparent and clear when completing your medical visits. I am
aware that Congress will be discussing the term on healthcare in

January and I hope that you find my research applicable to your
case of making medical care prices transparent.
What is the price transparency movement? The AMA Journal of
Ethics describes price transparency as, “This movement has
been made possible in recent years by a variety of new websites
and tools that provide information directly to patients about the
charges that they could face”(AMA). According to this article
in the AMA Journal of Ethics patients receive services that will
not help them get better, “First, we physicians should take
ownership of our clinical decisions and make sure they are
actually going to make our patients better” (AMA). A law
should be in place for physicians to provide patients with
services that are only essential for the betterment of their
diagnosis.
Who would support us in our quest to change price
transparency? Honestly, everyone. No person wants to receive a
check in the mail after they have already paid a lump sum of
money at the doctor. Most times patients will not be informed
that they will receive an invoice after paying a fee at their
health care physician's office or hospital or urgent care.
Democrats and Republicans would be for this law passing
because it involves the secretive management of costs.
Sincerely,
Nadine Vitenas
22 Cressington Drive
Marietta, GA 30067
732-765-9876
[email protected]
REPLY 2
The Honorable Lindsey Graham
290 Russell Senate Office Building

United States Senate
Washington, DC 20510
Dear Senator (Graham):
My name is Jolly Perkins, I am a student at Walden
University, and I am writing to address the concern of law
enforcement officers and the need for better counseling
techniques. I am currently training to become a counselor, and
I also served in the field of law enforcement for over six years.
During my time I, along with my fellow officers, suffered
tragedy both at home and at work, but many of us failed to seek
counseling. There are several reasons for this, but I would like
to address two with you. First, officers do not like seeking
counseling, because they feel that they should be able to handle
whatever comes there way (Wester, Arndt, Sedivy, and Arndt,
2010). Second, officers do not desire to attend facilities where
people they have arrested may be required to attend (Fair,
2009).
Counseling is seen by many in law enforcement as a
weakness. This is especially true in the male officers (Wester
et. al., 2010). Many of our officers feel that they should be able
to handle all aspects of the job. They tend to forget that they
are actually human, and still need to seek assistance when it
comes to stressful matters. We have many officers that turn to
suicide in order to cope with the stress that they deal with
(Mohandie and Hatchert, 1999). These are the people that are
supposed to protect us, but we tend to forget who is supposed to
protect them.
Many officers do not seek counseling because they do
not feel comfortable attending a facility where people who they
are arrested will also be attending (Fair, 2009). Even if the
officer is not in group counseling they may still be required to
sit in a waiting room with others who they have arrested in the
past. This can add stress to the officer as they may feel that
they are no better mentally than the people that they deal with.
It can also present an issue the next time that the officer deals
with this person on the street, because knowing that the officer

is attending counseling the suspect may bring up issues such as
this during their case to try and have the officers motives or
mental stability questioned.
I feel that we need to look at having better options and
techniques for law enforcement in regards to seeking
counseling. I personally know that many officers would feel
more comfortable speaking to a counselor who had law
enforcement experience, because they feel that they know better
what they are feeling. I feel that having a special field of
counseling or those in law enforcement would be beneficial and
may even help reduce some of the stress among these officers.
By providing those officers with a safe place to seek counseling
these officers may be able to obtain the help that they need to
be both better officers, and handle the stress of their jobs more
efficiently. I truly appreciate the time that you took out of your
day to read this letter.

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