Description
Book SynopsisIn 1755 Benjamin Franklin observed a man without a wife is but half a man and since then historians have taken Franklin at his word. In Citizen Bachelors, John Gilbert McCurdy demonstrates that Franklin''s comment was only one side of a much larger conversation. Early Americans vigorously debated the status of unmarried men and this debate was instrumental in the creation of American citizenship.
In a sweeping examination of the bachelor in early America, McCurdy fleshes out a largely unexamined aspect of the history of gender. Single men were instrumental to the settlement of the United States and for most of the seventeenth century their presence was not particularly problematic. However, as the colonies matured, Americans began to worry about those who stood outside the family. Lawmakers began to limit the freedoms of single men with laws requiring bachelors to pay higher taxes and face harsher penalties for crimes than married men, while moralists began to decry the
Trade Review
Although this book is about men, like the best new works on masculinity Citizen Bachelors repeatedly brings its subject into conversation with women's history.
* William and Mary Quarterly *
Many single men in eighteenth-century England and America faced heavy, discriminatory taxation, but rather than obliterating 'the solitary state,' such policies served instead to politicize bachelors and to draw them fully to the brink of citizenship. In Citizen Bachelors, John Gilbert McCurdy writes the history of this remarkable development. His narrative is convincing, elegant, and often astonishing. He explores both the lived experiences of single men and the social construction of bachelorhood as a gendered identity.... McCurdy's narrative... makes a vital contribution to the study of early American manhood and masculinity.... Written in clear, uncluttered prose and offering rich rewards for scholars of gender, sexuality, the family, and the law, Citizen Bachelors should be singled out for careful reading.
-- Benjamin Irvin * H-SHEAR *
McCurdy succeeds brilliantly in showing how the legal standing of 'bachelors' changed over the course of the colonial and revolutionary eras.... Drawing enlightening comparisons between New England, the Chesapeake, and Pennsylvania, he is able to show how laws across the colonies were moving in a similar direction... [as they] collectively began to carve a space for adult single men in society. McCurdy also unearths some fascinating snapshots of the subjective experience of bachelorhood.
-- Rodney Hessinger * Men and Masculinities *
MCurdy has produced a valuable volume in this careful and highly readable inventory of early American bachelors and their cultural representations. When combined with the many related works on sexuality in this period, the book helps us understand a world long neglected and misrepresented. It is vital that we appreciate how different colonial society's cultural and sexual norms were from our own; the bachelor we recognize today was not known in early colonial North America. With this useful study, however, we can begin to see how this familiar figure first came into existence.
-- David D. Doyle * New England Quarterly *
Extensively researched and lucidly written.... An illuminating and substantial work which should be of interest to historians of gender relations in early modern England, colonial British America, and the early American republic.
* The English Historical Review *
McCurdy has done a marvelous job of highlighting the newborn independence of early American bachelors.
* American Historical Review *
A very fine book.
* The Journal of American History *
A thoughtful, intriguing, and valuable contribution to our understanding of early American social, cultural, and political life.
* Pennsylvania History *
McCurdy's detailed and well-researched book offers an alternate perspective on the late-colonial and Revolutionary eras of American history. Forward-thinking in terms of its subject matter, this book is a must read for historians of American gender, especially those specializing in masculinity studies.
* History: Reviews of New Books *
Table of ContentsIntroduction: Bachelors in Early America
1. "Unmarried Men Are Best Friends, Best Masters, Best Servants": Singles in Early Colonial America
2. "If a Single Man and Able He Shall Make Satisfaction": The Bachelor Laws
3. "Every One of Them Shall Be Chained about the Middle to a Post Like a Monkey": Literary Representations of the Bachelor
4. "I Resolve to Live a Batchelor While I Remain in This Wicked Country": Living Single in Early America
5. "The Bachelor Is the Only Free Man": The Single Man and the American Revolution
Epilogue: Bachelors since 1800
