Heroism

American ideals of heroism have been historically inseparable from ideals of masculinity. While heroism has been tied to such masculine ideals as gallantry, chivalry, nobility, and courage, the basis of American notions of both heroism and manliness has been a tension between virtuous devotion to a higher cause and the quest for personal achievement. Various heroic types have emerged and captivated the American imagination.

The earliest model of heroic masculinity in American culture was the patriotic citizen-soldier. Emerging at the time of the American Revolution, this figure embodied ideals of republican citizenship, particularly fraternalism, public virtue, and self-sacrifice on behalf of a national cause. But in a society already beginning to embrace a liberal-democratic commitment to individual liberty, the public spiritedness of the youthful soldier-patriot set the stage for self-interested pursuits later in life. By valorizing the youthful soldier and juxtaposing him to the mature, freedom-loving, civic individual, American culture resolved the tension between civic virtue and personal liberty in generational terms.

This model of heroism—emphasizing both the citizen-soldier's civic kinship with other Americans and the sacrifices that set him apart—has persisted through all subsequent American wars and been immortalized in countless novels and films. After being challenged during the 1960s by young Americans uncertain of the rightness of American involvement in the Vietnam War, it was strongly revived during the 1980s. This return to heroic masculinity can be seen in President Ronald Reagan's efforts to restore American military might, and in the popularity of the films of such actors as Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone.

During the early nineteenth century, another model of American heroic masculinity emerged: the frontier hero. Like the citizen-soldier, the frontier hero embodied the tension between public spiritedness and personal achievement. Early frontier heroes such as Daniel Boone and the fictional Natty Bumppo were both civic-minded agents of civilization and freedom-loving fugitives from civilization. Invariably white, they achieved their [Page 206]status through mastery of the hunting and survival skills characteristic of romanticized Native American manhood—and through the application of these skills to the conquest of the frontier and the westward expansion of Euro-American institutions. They thus tied heroic manhood specifically to whiteness. These contradictory characteristics re-emerged in such nineteenth- and twentieth-century figures as the frontiersman Kit Carson, the buffalo hunter William Cody (popularly known as Buffalo Bill), and the actor John Wayne. However, these were commercialized, mass-mediated versions intended to entertain audiences by appealing to the nostalgia that accompanied and followed the disappearance of the western frontier.

Amid the market revolution of the early to mid–nineteenth century, the “self-made man,” representing personal achievement and economic success, became a new type of heroic American man. Represented early in the century by Benjamin Franklin, and later in the century by immigrant industrialist Andrew Carnegie and Horatio Alger, Jr.'s, upwardly mobile street urchins, the self-made man became a hero by helping to justify the individualistic pursuit of selfinterest. But his heroism also lay in his moral virtue and his application of his wealth to philanthropic ends.

As the growing corporatization and bureaucratization of American life challenged the possibility of achieving self-made success, the self-made man became even more heroic. The continued vitality of this heroic ideal—and its expansion to embrace nonwhites—was evident in the twentieth-century works of writers Abraham Cahan (a Jewish immigrant) and Richard Rodriguez (a Mexican American), and in the success stories of twentieth-century sports heroes such as African Americans Jackie Robinson and Michael Jordan.

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