Work

Productive Labor in Colonial America

Since the founding of Plymouth Plantations in 1620, work has been central to American conceptions of masculinity. Sixteenth-century Protestant colonists asserted that consistent, hard work was both the condition and the reward of life on Earth. Idleness, which suggested a rejection of God's plan, was to be avoided at all costs. For them, a man's hard work represented an outward display of faith and virtue and marked him as an upright citizen, whereas idle men invited ridicule and censure.

By the eighteenth century, popular understandings of the role of work had changed. Work was still the foundation of a moral life, but now it was linked to civic life. The work ethic of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries centered around the image of homo faber,“the man who makes,” a concept inherited from European political economists such as Adam Smith and John Locke. In the United States, homo faber was linked specifically to the health and success of the republic. Only the unstinting and productive labor of men could propel the economy of the United States forward through the creation of useful commodities for exchange and profit—a kind of work that was almost exclusively male.

Productive work was embodied in the public imagination by the yeoman farmer and the urban artisan, both of whom combined great physical strength with the masculine virtues of self-reliance and property ownership. In addition, the work of yeoman farmers and urban artisans provided food, shelter, and comfort for dependent wives and children. Not only would hard work and consistent production ensure national success, but hard work was also the avenue to true personal success—to becoming a “self-made man.” Failure to achieve economic stability or provide for a family indicated that a man lacked moral fiber and determination.

However, contempt for unproductive men remained the same: Idle men were perceived as leeches on society who depended on the hard work of other men for their survival. Similarly, women were dependent on their husbands, fathers, or brothers for food, shelter, clothing, and any luxuries. Their own hard work within the home was considered distinct from manly work precisely because it did not support the family. In cases where a woman did become the primary breadwinner, popular commentary emphasized that this situation was far from normal. Often, it was ascribed to a husband's unmanliness, emasculation (whether through excessive drinking or gambling), or to the tragedy of a husband's death. Thus, examples of female breadwinners were often used to reinforce the assumed connection between masculinity and work—and between idleness and unmanliness.

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