| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 88.1

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| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 88.1 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Ye Heart of a Man: The Domestic Life of Men in Colonial New England. By Lisa Wilson. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999. xii, 255 pp. $25.00, ISBN 0-300-07546-4.)

Lisa Wilson proposes to "recover the voices of men in the domestic world" of colonial New England, arguing that that was where men's lives and identities were shaped. Histories of gender, Wilson asserts, have too often depicted men as "one-dimensional power brokers. . . . Studying power does not allow for a nuanced portrait of colonial manhood." She emphasizes instead the importance of interdependency in colonial society, pointing out that men did not always feel powerful and that a man's power would "wax and wane over his lifetime." 1

A major theme is men's capacity for "usefulness." Wilson uses a method of role analysis, modeled on Laurel Thatcher Ulrich's Good Wives: Image and Reality in the Lives of Women in Northern New England, 1650–1750 (1982), to explore the significance of usefulness over the life cycle. While chapters in section 1, "To Be of Use," focus on career and marriage choices, those in the second section, "Usefulness," look at men's roles as husbands, fathers, and providers. The final section, "The Specter of Uselessness," examines the experiences of widowers and retired men. In keeping with her goal of recovering men's voices, Wilson quotes extensively from men's writings about their relationship to their homes and families. . . .

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