Class

Manhood and Social Hierarchy in Preindustrial Society

The notion of class divisions did not exist in preindustrial America, but emerged with the separation of labor from managerial control and ownership of the means of production that were part of the Industrial Revolution. Yet preindustrial society recognized social hierarchies and status distinctions that were closely intertwined with definitions of manhood. Status distinctions were reflected in three different paradigms of manliness that prefigured subsequent class-based definitions of masculinity: patrician, artisan, and yeoman. The patrician, who inherited European aristocratic ideals of manhood based on honor, cultural refinement in taste and conduct, and substantial property ownership, saw himself as one of the trustworthy few who fulfilled his duties and obligations and served the republic by providing leadership to society. In turn, the patrician expected and received the deference of those below him in social standing. The artisan and the yeoman both emphasized economic self-sufficiency and independence as the basis of citizenship and manliness, but they had different economic foundations. The artisanal ideal of manliness, rooted in craft-based production, emphasized workplace autonomy and craft-based solidarity, whereas the yeoman emphasized access to and ownership of land as the marks of autonomy and manliness.

Industrialization and the Market Revolution

In the early nineteenth century, industrialization and the market revolution fundamentally reshaped processes of economic production, manufacturing, and distribution, as well as the social experiences of work and business. These economic transformations created new forms of social stratification and new notions of manliness based on class difference.

Class-based constructions of masculinity were grounded in experiences of work, income-generating activity, and economic transactions. The control over one's labor power and the ability to participate in an expanding marketplace—called “transactional manhood” by the historian Scott Sandage— increasingly set the standards by which men defined themselves as men and as members of particular social classes. Industrialization and the market revolution slowly replaced an ideal of manliness grounded in propertied independence with an ideal rooted in acquisitive individualism and the ability to engage in economic transactions.

Merchants, lawyers, and those artisans who were able to expand their operations formed the core of an emerging middle class and conformed most closely to a notion of transactional manhood. For these men, entrepreneurial control over one's business operations, and one's workforce became fundamental both to class status and to class-based definitions of manliness. Middle-class manhood meant, above all, espousing an individualistic ethos, being continually “on the make,” and embracing those behaviors deemed necessary for economic success—particularly self-control, industry, sobriety, rationality, and competitiveness.

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