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From the Dance Floor to the Rifle Range: The Evolution of Manliness in the National Guards, 1870–19171
by Eleanor L. Hannah, University of Minnesota, Duluth
From 1870 through 1900, the National Guard attracted tens of thousands of new members by offering men the opportunity to demonstrate that they were manly men who held dramatic civic roles that put them at the center of community social and patriotic life. Time, modernization, strike service, changes in technology, and warfare all worked to alter the environment in which Guardsmen made themselves men. Guardsmen of the early twentieth century no longer found their definition of manhood and citizenship in performances for the local community. By 1917, the elements of manhood National Guardsmen shared had evolved from the focus on style and sociability they celebrated the 1880s and 1890s into an individual focus on a concept of self-discipline, self-improvement, and national patriotism. The National Guard offers historians the opportunity to see how an organization that emphasized making men manly was able to shift what that meant as definitions of manhood evolved and as the Guard worked to keep its appeal current and fresh to each new batch of recruits.
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During the 1890 dedication ceremonies of his regiment's new armory, Lieutenant Colonel Henry L. Turner of the First Regiment, Illinois National Guard (ING), sang the praises of the manly men who filled his organization. Turner boasted that his fellow Guardsmen combined "reliability with dash, conservatism with enterprise, culture with athleticism." He believed that his men would maintain "a regiment whose gayety shall be but eddies in the current of devotion to duty—whose bonhomie and good comradeship shall be the foam lightening up the surface of its patriotism." He admonished his listeners that "vulgarity and bravado are fashioned out of infinitely cheaper material than manliness and courage" and reminded them "that if we would enroll in our membership able men, cultivated men, men who will be an honor to us, we must give them manly, cultivated men for associates." He encouraged the members to be "athletic, reckless, wild—what you will—yet never drop below the level of self-respecting manliness." And, finally, he challenged his fellows to dedicate their new armory as "the home of the highest discipline; as the center and inspiration," and to dedicate themselves to "a ninety-nine years' struggle for supremacy in military efficiency."2 |
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Lieutenant Colonel Turner could not know that his description of the ideal elements of the "self-respecting manliness" of volunteer Guardsmen, with their gay, courageous, reckless, wild, good comradeship, would not last ninety-nine years, or even twenty. Turner's conception of manly Guardsmen, drawing on the experiences of new militia companies in the 1870s and 1880s, was already on the way out even as he spoke. By 1900, in quest of "supremacy in military efficiency," volunteer Guardsmen were busy redefining the manly characteristics they idealized and celebrated. They sought out new models that would better reflect the evolution of both the society they served and the tactical and strategic developments of the professional militaries they patterned themselves after. By 1917, the elements of manhood National Guardsmen shared–even across class, racial and ethnic lines–had gradually evolved from the focus on style and sociability Turner celebrated in 1890 into an individual focus on a concept of manly self-discipline, self-improvement, and national patriotism.3 |
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