Making Men, Making History
Making Men, Making History
Canadian Masculinities across Time and Place
What has it meant to be a man in Canada? Alexander Ross, fur trader and chronicler; Percy Nobbs, Montreal architect, fisherman, and fencer; Andy Paull, Sḵwx̱wú7mesh residential school survivor, athlete, and lacrosse promoter; Yves Charbonneau, radical nationalist, jazz musician, and commune member; “James,” a young man growing up black and gay in postwar Windsor. Who were these men, and how did they identify as masculine?
Populated with figures both well known and unknown, Making Men, Making History frames masculinity as a socially and historically constructed category of identity, susceptible to variation across time, place, and social context. This collection of original essays addresses Canadian masculinities across the country and at various historical points, revealing the frequent dissonance between hegemonic ideals of manhood and masculinity and the everyday lives of men and boys.
The volume showcases some of the best new work in the thriving field of masculinity studies, organized by themes such as expertise and authority, masculine spaces, and fatherhood. With an introduction that contextualizes the international origins of the field, Making Men, Making History is the first book to explore these themes entirely in Canadian historical settings.
This book will find an eager audience among scholars and students interested in the history of gender, masculinity studies, gender studies, and Canadian studies.
Peter Gossage is a professor of Quebec and Canadian history at Concordia University, focusing on family, gender, and society in Quebec. His published works include Families in Transition: Industry and Population in Nineteenth-Century Saint-Hyacinthe and, with J.I. Little, An Illustrated History of Quebec: Tradition and Modernity. Robert Rutherdale is an associate professor of Canadian history at Algoma University. He is the author of Hometown Horizons: Local Responses to Canada’s Great War and co-editor, with Magda Fahrni, of Creating Postwar Canada: Community, Diversity, and Dissent, 1945–75.
Introduction
Part 1: Expertise and Authority
1 Medical Men, Masculine Respectability, and the Contest for Power in Mid-Nineteenth-Century Quebec / Lisa Chilton
2 Accident Prevention in Early-Twentieth-Century Quebec and the Construction of Masculine Technical Expertise / Magda Fahrni
3 “The Spiritual Aspect”: Gordon A. Friesen and the Mechanization of the Modern Hospital / David Theodore
4 “I am still the Supt. in this plant”: Negotiating Middle-Class Masculinity in Edmonton Packinghouses in an Era of Union Strength, 1947–66 / Cynthia Loch-Drake
Part 2: Masculine Spaces
5 The Place of Manliness: Architecture, Domesticity, and Men’s Clubs / Annmarie Adams
6 “As Christ the Carpenter”: Work-Camp Missions and the Construction of Christian Manhood in Late-Nineteenth- and Early-Twentieth-Century Canada / Norman Knowles
7 An Open Window on Other Masculinities: Gay Bars and Visibility in Montreal / Olivier Vallerand
Part 3: Performing Masculinities
8 Scales of Manliness: Masculinity and Disability in the Displays of Little People as Freaks in Ontario, 1900s–50s / Jane Nicholas
9 Claiming “Our Game”: Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Lacrosse and the Performance of Indigenous Nationhood in the Early Twentieth Century / Allan Downey
10 Sea Shepherds, Eco-warriors, and Impresarios: Performing Eco-masculinity in the Canadian Seal Hunt of the Late Twentieth Century / Willeen G. Keough
11 The New Quebec Man: Activism and Collective Improvisation at Petit Québec Libre, 1970–73 / Eric Fillion
Part 4: Boys to Men
12 Men’s Business: Masculine Adolescence and Social Projection in Selected Coming-of-Age Novels from Interwar Quebec / Louise Bienvenue and Christine Hudon
13 Boys and Boyhood: Exploring the Lives of Boys in Windsor, Ontario, during the Postwar Era, 1945–65 / Christopher J. Greig
14 Heroes on Campus: Student Veterans and Discourses of Masculinity in Post–Second World War Canada / Patricia Jasen
15 Constructing Canadianness: Terry Fox and the Masculine Ideal in Canada / Julie Perrone
Part 5: Men in Motion
16 Tough Bodies, Fast Paddles, Well-Dressed Wives: Measuring Manhood Among French Canadian and Métis Voyageurs in the North American Fur Trade / Carolyn Podruchny
17 “The Moral Grandeur of Fleeing to Canada”: Masculinity and the Gender Politics of American Draft Dodgers during the Vietnam War / Lara Campbell
18 Rebellion on the Road: Masculinity and Outlaw Motorcycle Clubs in Postwar Ontario / Graeme Melcher
Part 6: Faces of Fatherhood
19 Celebrating the Family Man: From Father’s Day to La Fête des Pères, 1910–60 / Peter Gossage
20 “I’m a lousy father”: Alcoholic Fathers in Postwar Canada and the Myths of Masculine Crises / Robert Rutherdale
Afterword
Index
Feminist History in Canada
New Essays on Women, Gender, Work, and Nation
Edited by Catherine Carstairs and Nancy Janovicek
