Abstract
Over the last thirty years or more, scholars have stressed the interplay between constructions of gender identity on one hand and constructions of the nation and national identity on the other. Not only is the nation state a largely masculine and patriarchal entity, with men at the heart of government and the military, but as Nagel argues, nationalist culture “resonate[s] with masculine cultural themes.” Central to ideas of national identity are the masculine ideals of bravery and duty, ready to be put to use defending the honor of the feminized nation. In order, therefore, to help define the nation, it can also be helpful to define and construct definitions of ideal masculine and feminine behavior and characteristics. In her study on gender and race in the United States, Gail Bederman argues that from the early to mid-nineteenth century, the newly emerging American middle class sought to distinguish themselves from other classes, partly through renewed notions of gender identity. The brand of hegemonic masculinity that was promoted sought to characterize the ideal American man as full of strength, virility, and character.1
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Notes
Joane Nagel, “Masculinity and Nationalism: Gender and Sexuality in the Making of Nations,” Ethnic and Racial Studies 21, no. 2 (1998): 251;
Gail Bederman, Manliness and Civilization: A Cultural History of Gender and Race in the United States, 1880–1917 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995), 11.
Michael S. Kimmel, Manhood in America: A Cultural History, 2nd edn. (New York: Oxford University Press: 2006), 58, 4, 23;
Patricia Kelleher, “Class and Catholic Irish Masculinity in Antebellum America: Young Men on the Make in Chicago,” Journal of American Ethnic History 28, no. 4 (2009): 10.
Geraldine Meaney, Gender, Ireland and Cultural Change: Race, Sex and Nation (New York: Routledge, 2010), 5. 5.
Geraldine Moane, “Colonialism and the Celtic Tiger: Legacies of History and the Quest for Vision,” in Reinventing Ireland: Culture, Society and the Global Economy, ed. Peadar Kirby, Luke Gibbons, and Michael Cronin (London: Pluto Press, 2002), 117.
Carl Wittke, The Irish in America, 2nd edn. (New York: Russell and Russell, 1970), 260; Snyder, Voice of the City, 48, 114; Cullen, Vaudeville Old and New, 624; photograph of Kelly and Ryan, Thomas Ryan clippings file, BRTD RL, env. 1987.
David N. Doyle, “The Remaking of Irish America, 1845–1880,” in Making the Irish American: History and Heritage of the Irish in the United States, ed. J. J. Lee and Marion R. Casey (New York: New York University Press, 2006), 231.
Ignatiev, How the Irish Became White, 1; Kevin Kenny, “Race, Violence, and Anti-Irish Sentiment in the Nineteenth Century,” in Making the Irish American: History and Heritage of the Irish in the United States, ed. J. J. Lee and Marion R. Casey (New York: New York University Press, 2006), 372.
For a fuller discussion of the Minstrel show dandy, see, for example, William J. Mahar, Behind the Burnt Cork Mask: Early Blackface Minstrelsy and Antebellum American Popular Culture (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1999), 195–267;
Barbara L. Webb, “The Black Dandyism of George Walker: A Case Study in Genealogical Method,” The Drama Review 45, no. 4 (2001): 7–24.
Martin McLoone, Irish Film: The Emergence of a Contemporary Cinema (London: British Film Institute, 2000), 174–83;
Kathleen Heininge, Buffoonery in Irish Drama: Staging Twentieth Century Post-Colonial Stereotypes (New York: Peter Lang, 2009), 267.
Doyle, “The Remaking of Irish America,” 238; Margaret Lynch-Brennan, “Ubiquitous Bridget: Irish Immigrant Women in Domestic Service in America, 1840–1930,” in Making the Irish American: History and Heritage of the Irish in the United States, ed. J. J. Lee and Marion R. Casey (New York: New York University Press, 2006), 345.
Paul W. Hyde, A Morning’s Hearing (1896); LOC, The American Variety Stage: Vaudeville and Popular Entertainment, 1870–1920), 1, http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?varstg:2:./temp/~ammem_NE6m::.
William H. A. Williams, “Green Again: Irish American Lace Curtain Satire,” New Hibernia Review 6, no. 2 (2002): 12, 13.
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© 2015 Jennifer Mooney
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Mooney, J. (2015). Representations of Irish Masculinity in Vaudeville. In: Irish Stereotypes in Vaudeville, 1865–1905. Palgrave Studies in Theatre and Performance History. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-137-47662-3_4
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