Manhood, Manliness, and the Manly Boy: A Victorian Ideal
Manhood, Manliness, and the Manly Boy: A Victorian Ideal
An admired example of a manly boy was the newsboy, out earning his own keep, perhaps supporting his widowed mother, a portrait of pluck, perseverance and hard work. Surely he had every chance of growing up to become a captain of industry. Here, his image is used in an 1888 Coffeyville, Kansas newspaper ad.
From the 1840s to World War I, it was a constant topic of sermons, short stories, and magazine and newspaper essays. It’s hard to imagine that there was a single boy in the country who hadn't sat through several lectures and sermons, and read many stories and articles on the topic before reaching adulthood. Manliness, especially Christian manliness, was the code of conduct to which he was to aspire. The expectations of manly behavior should guide his every action.
How exactly did Victorians define manliness? In 1857 the New England Farmer gave several illustrative examples:
A father assigned his six-year old son the job of bringing cows home from the pasture each night. One dark, rainy evening in autumn, as the family sat around the fire, the father asked the little boy if he had brought in the cows. “Yes Father,” the son replied, adding after a moment's hesitation, “but I didn't put up the bars.” The bars would keep the cows in the barn or pen where they were. The boy was honest – even though he knew it meant he’d have to leave the coziness of the family fireplace and trudge through rain and darkness alone to do things the right way.
A father watched through a window as his nine-year old son got thrown from a horse immediately after mounting. He did not interfere. He watched as his son tried and was thrown a second time. The father called out, “Thrown again my boy?”
“Yes, but I’ll conquer him yet,” the son replied. And he did. “This was a manly boy.”
A 12-year old was visited at his school in the city by older boys who used profane language. He said, “Gentlemen, be so good as to abstain from this language or leave the room.”
A boy under the age of 12 had long suffered from a diseased leg. One day, when told of the surgeon's decision to amputate it he said, “Then I will have it done immediately before Mother comes home from church, that she need not know anything about it.”
Now that was manliness!
Manliness was a concept that differed from being a gentleman. A gentleman was a man of leisure, born into his station in life, the lord of the manor, living off tenants’ rent. He was skilled in the artifice of polite society and valued refinement, breeding, politeness.(1)
In contrast one wasn’t born with manliness – it had to be earned by gaining the respect of peers and mastering the circumstances of life. A crucial attribute that distinguished manliness from gentlemanliness was a frank straightforwardness. Manly discourse was direct, succinct, honest, sincere versus the artificiality of polite society. Energy, assertiveness, independence, directness and simplicity were core attributes of manliness.
Another aspect of correct manhood came from purposeful work. Manliness was closely associated with the gospel of work. A manly man had most of his time taken up by work versus the gentlemen who was supported by tenant rent and investments, and had much leisure time. In 1876 a minister wrote that industry was the most important aspect of manliness. “One of the most inelegant beings in the world is an idle man,” he wrote. “He is a blister on the fair face of society, a stagnant pool in the world’s highway, a parasite, feeding, consuming, never producing.” The manly man was constantly engaged in work, then. Other important characteristics were sincerity, truthfulness, magnanimity, and courage.(2)
The strongest metaphor of manliness was that life is a battlefield. One must go forth and do battle in a highly competitive world with a premium placed on virtues of self reliance and personal autonomy. Adversity could only be overcome by calling on personal reserves of character.
Speaking of character — the manly man was loaded with it. First, the manly man had energy, vitality and strength. Next came moral qualities: courage, as mentioned before, and decisiveness, and endurance. This was yoked to a notion of social responsibility and chivalry towards women, along with loyalty to peers. Manliness was contrasted with what were believed to be the feminine characteristics. Men were active; women were passive. Men were rational; women let their emotions rule them. Men were independent doers; women were dependent, passive and in need of protection.
The Newsboy as Paragon
There was no better model of a manly boy than the newsboy. A middle-class child could - and should - count his blessings that he didn’t have to work as one, but he could learn lessons from the many stories written about them. One example is an 1872 short story, “The Toothpick Seller.” A scantily-clad, shivering, little toothpick seller enters a hotel lobby trying to sell her last toothpicks on a frosty February night. She retreated into a corner, weeping bitterly in her torn and ragged gown as she had no takers, and fashionably dressed crowds passed her by.
Then Tony Herring, a bright-eyed newsboy with a smiling countenance entered the hotel and sold his last paper. On his way out he noticed the little peddler, asked what was wrong and took her by the arm. “Got four left, hey?” he said. “Well, come along; we’ll try and sell ‘em.”
Although poor himself, Tony was like a bright angel. “In all his poverty, rough exterior, shabby attire and unkempt hair, Tony had kind, warm-hearted, loving words,” for the girl who was probably used to a cruel, abusive, drunken father. He was a “little ragged, warm-hearted, manly newsboy.”
Tony met the definition of manly: hard-working, plucky, cheerful and uncomplaining, kind to girls, the poor and weak – even though he was poor himself. The story concluded by reminding children to think, as they enjoyed the comforts of home and kind parents, about the “many hundred toothpick girls, bootblacks and newsboys,” who were “out battling with starvation yet are out doing good and noble deeds of kindness to one another.”
It didn’t seem to occur to many Victorians that something should be done so that children didn’t have to be out on the streets all day battling starvation through sales. When newsboy houses were created, they provided a place for boys to sleep, get a hot meal and a bath – but were careful not to provide it for free. That would make boys think one could get something for nothing, and lose the incentive to work.
No, the manly newsboy was out in a dog-eat-dog world, uncomplaining, working from dawn to dusk, and with his admirable code of loyalty and nobility among other newsies. “These manly and sturdy youngsters that struggle for existence as hardily and gravely as men who fight on a battlefield – they have no provisions made for them,” an Atlanta Constitution reporter wrote in 1888.
“Few people understand the difficulties under which the newsboy makes his living. While the world is asleep he slips from his bed and through rain or snow, and with the winter wind nipping his ears and ankles and hands, he starts out to buy his merchandise. It is a sight to see them – gathered by the hundreds around the Constitution office before the dawn has lighted the east, scuffling for place and advantage, and as they are supplied with papers, scudding through the darkness like white-winged birds in search of customers.
The English sparrows of the commercial world they are! Cocky, pert, aggressive, hardy, pushing their way evenly, never losing a step…Unlike the sparrow they evolute from pugnacity to firmness, from fussiness to earnestness, from aggressiveness into the justice that will neither give nor take from what is right. Some of the best and most successful men in Atlanta began life as newsboys – and found in that strenuous school the admirable qualities that have served them in after life.”
For decades newspapers told stories of newsboys helping each other, buying a meal for an unlucky boy who hadn’t sold enough that day, or chipping in to help pay for a doctor for a boy’s sick mother, or pooling their money to be sure a fellow newsboy had a decent funeral. Popular, too were rags-to-riches stories of newsboys who grew up to be great men. After all, any boy with manly qualities like pluck, perseverance and “industry” could grow up to be a business success, too. “There are sluggards and those who acquire bad habits and fall by the wayside in the race,” a Philadelphia reporter wrote in a story about former newsboys who now owned their own newsstands. “But those with ordinary tact, a spark of intelligence, and the requisite industry, invariably do well, make for themselves honorable records and often accumulate considerable fortunes.”
How did they do it? Most of these successes told the same story. “They had no one to depend on but themselves and went to work at a tender age, frowned down adversity, battled against odds and by the force of their youthful genius and pluck made their way in the world.”
This illustration accompanied an 1894 story in the Chicago Tribune about its newsboys. For the Sunday delivery boys arrived as early as 8:00 p.m. Saturday night, but certainly between midnight and 4:00 a.m. If they had money upfront to buy papers they spent the night on the floor of the Tribune building. If not, they slept over ventilation shafts or "anywhere to get a little out of the the wind and the rain and the snow." Once the paper rolled off the press, they stuffed special sections by hand. The article praised the boys for their "snap and ginger."
Asa Packer: A Profile of Manliness
Asa Packer, industrialist and founder of Lehigh University, is but one of many nineteenth century exemplars of the concept of manliness. A real life Horatio Alger success story, he rose from a poor family and his start as a laborer to amassing one of the largest fortunes in America. Born around 1805, he apprenticed as a carpenter. Over time he moved into the promising canal business in Pennsylvania. He was able to buy a canal boat, then a fleet. When canal traffic was beginning to wane, he invested in the railroad, and eventually became president of the Lehigh Valley Railroad.
“According to Victorian preferences, Asa Packer was the ideal man,” an examination of his life by Lehigh University researchers says.(4) “He had a profession that secured recognition that made him fabulously wealthy, he was a devout Christian, and he was considered honorable and humble.”
Americans have probably always been fascinated by rags-to-riches stories, and clung to the belief that with proper manly qualities, anyone could become a millionaire. Victorians especially praised the “self-made man.” Businessmen were viewed in a different light in the post-Civil War era. “In the early days of capitalism in America, the emerging economic system was often framed as a meritocracy, so that success in business reflected moral strength,” according to historians.(3) This moral strength went hand-in-hand with the concept of manliness.
Advice to Parents
The reams of lectures, sermons, short stories and advice columns perhaps reflected a level of anxiety about how to inculcate proper behavior in boys. It was an anxious age, a time of such profound change. An 1885 article titled, “Being Manly - What Constitutes True Manliness - Hints to Parents as well as Children,” let parents know that, “The manly boy is not that pale fellow who mopes in a corner while the rest are racing and romping on the playground.” What may have driven parents crazy sometimes was desirable behavior.
“The boys running and jumping and pushing are preparing for the rough and tumble of life. The one shouting loud is developing a voice that may be heard in Congress or from the pulpit.”
He is always polite to ladies and kind to sisters. He will carry their books to school and help them over gutters. He is kind to parents, kind to everyone, but especially kind to the poor and weak. Finally, the true manly boy is a Christian. He is full of life and fun but never cheats or swears. (Using a term like, “by golly,” was unacceptable. Start there and it was a slippery slope to the grossest profanity.)
An editor in Iowa in 1884 worried about the reactions of boys to the play “Peck’s Bad Boy” at the Muscatine opera house. The main character, Henry “Hennery” Peck, is a mischievous prankster, a sort of mean-spirited Huck Finn. The term “Peck's bad boy” entered the language to describe someone whose mischievous or bad behavior lead to annoyance or embarrassment. The editor was concerned about boys in the audience laughing at Peck’s antics. A manly boy has true nobility of character, he wrote. He is not afraid to protect the weak or defend the right; not ashamed to kiss his mother or look father in the eye. He is brave, strong, upright, cheerful, he has pure affection and utmost respect for his parents. That was manly!
Finally, anything worth discussing in the Victorian era was worth writing a poem about. Here’s an inspiring poem to clip and paste in the family scrapbook, from Galena, Kansas in 1900:
A Gentlemanly Boy
A gentle boy, a manly boy
Is the boy I love to see;
An honest boy, an upright boy
Is the boy of boys for me.
The gentle boy guards well his lips,
Lest words that fall may grieve;
The manly boy will never stoop
To meanness, nor deceive.
An honest boy clings to the right
Through seasons foul and fair;
An upright boy will faithful be
When trusted anywhere.
He reaps reward in doing good,
Finds joy in giving joy
And earns the right to bear the name —
A gentlemanly boy.
By H.L. Charles, originally published in The Evangelist
Notes:
Tosh.
Dr. Dixon.
Huefner and Young.
Donis, Jay, Nia Baker, Lindsey Sokol and Mathew Anthony.
Sources:
Donis, Jay, Nia Baker, Lindsey Sokol and Mathew Anthony. “Asa Packer the “Self-Made Man” and Victorian Masculinity,” Decoding the Myths of Asa Packer 1805?-1879, https://scalar.lehigh.edu/asa-packer/asa-packer--victorian-masculinity-and-the-self-made-man
Huefner, Michael S. and Shauna Anderson Young. “Joseph R. Johnson: Author of Frontier News, Promotion and Progress,” Great Plains Quarterly, Vol. 33, No. 3 (Summer 2013), pp. 141-159.
Tosh, John. “Gentlemanly Politeness and Manly Simplicity in Victorian England,” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, Vol. 12 (2002), pp. 455-472.
Newspapers:
“The School-Mate - True Manliness,” New England Farmer, 19 Dec 1857, p. 4.
“Manliness. Dr. Dixon Gives Utterance to Some Wholesome Truths on the Above Theme,” Evansville Courier and Press, 25 Feb 1876, p. 4.
“Peck’s Bad Boy,” Muscatine Weekly Journal, (Muscatine, Iowa) 15 Feb 1884, p. 7.
“Being Manly - What Constitutes True Manliness - Hints to Parents as well as Children,” Wessington Springs Herald (Wessington Springs, South Dakota), 23 Jan 1885, p. 4.
“News Merchants. Little Street Venders Who Made Their Mark In Business. The Story of Their Success. Pluck, Perseverance and Honorable Methods Richly Rewarded,” Philadelphia Times, 6 Feb 1887, p. 3.
“Christmas Dinner For Newsboys,” The Atlanta Constitution, 16 Dec 1888, p. 26.
“A Gentlemanly Boy,” The Galena Daily Republican (Galena, Kansas), 21 Feb 1900, p. 3.
Copyright Andrea Auclair © 2024
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