Advice Literature

Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Advice

Religious leaders and physicians authored the earliest advice books for parents and young men, which stressed the moral responsibility of the man in the family. Colonial advice literature viewed the family as a microcosm of society, making little distinction between the public and private roles of fathers and, by example, of their sons.

During the early to mid-nineteenth century—amid rising nationalism, urbanization, the transition to a market economy, and the erosion of traditional preindustrial village restraints on male behavior—advice-manual writers such as Sylvester Graham, William Alcott, and O. S. Fowler continued to infuse advice literature with strong religious overtones. But there was a new emphasis on self-control and self-discipline of the body. Often considered an essential component of good “character,” self-control provided new mechanisms of moral and social order and reinforced the traits men were thought to need to contribute to economic growth. Advice manuals urged young men to avoid sexual indulgence (especially masturbation), and the language used in the manuals suggests that the [Page 14]writers saw the young (white) man's body as a powerful metaphor for the strength and purity of the nation.

Family life was a major concern in these early advice manuals. Men were urged both to be effective providers by seeking economic success and to cultivate domestic ties as a counteractive force to the amorality of capitalist competition. There was a growing sense that the family was a safe haven from an increasingly stressful public world, and that the husband/father was the crucial link between the public world and the increasingly private domestic sphere.

The role of emotions raised troubling questions about the performance of masculinity. Women were thought to be much more emotional than men. Early Victorian-era Americans saw male anger as a dangerous loss of self-control, and advice literature for parents of boys and for husbands recommended its suppression. Following the Civil War, however, advice writers increasingly saw anger as a natural emotion in men, one that should be constructively channeled.

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