The National Police Gazette And The Making Of The Modern American Man, 1879-1906

"A fine addition to the growing literature on gender and popular culture. By celebrating the titillating boundary crossing of men and women behaving badly, the "Gazette" served to define the boundaries of acceptability in fin de siecle America. Reel makes that celebration, and those boundaries, more than mere abstractions or cultural tropes."--Michael Kimmel, Professor of Sociology, SUNY-Stony Brook, and author of "Manhood in America""" "The late 19th and early 20th centuries have been described as the beginning of a cult of masculinity, but relatively little has been written on how men actually learned new codes of sexuality, competitive sports, and what it meant to be a man, at least in the ideal sense. Guy Reel tells here the compelling story of the weekly paper that taught generations of men to sexually objectify women and worship muscular and/or competitive men, no matter what sport they won at (oyster eating contests?). It is exceptionally well-written, and an eye opening look at the roots of how today's men came to their beliefs and values. "The National Police Gazette" played an important role in the sniggers at the saloons and barber shops of America, with its celebration of aggressive crime, cheesecake, and barefist boxing, and Reel lays out its key place in the development of an American hegemonic masculinity."--Martin D. Schwartz, Professor of Sociology and Research Scholar at Ohio University


This book analyzes the "National Police Gazette," the racy New York City tabloid that gained an audience among men and boys of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Looking at how images of sex, crime, and sports reflected and shaped masculinities during this watershed era, this book amounts to a story of what it meant to be an American man at the beginning of the American Century.