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Making American Boys Kenneth B. Kidd REVIEWS: |
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$57.00 cloth/jacket |
A lively look at the cultural history of American boyhood. Will boys be boys? What are little boys made of? Kenneth B. Kidd responds to these familiar questions with a thorough review of boy culture in America since the late nineteenth century. From the “boy work” promoted by character-building organizations such as Scouting and 4-H to current therapeutic and pop psychological obsessions with children’s self-esteem, Kidd presents the great variety of cultural influences on the changing notion of boyhood. Kidd finds that the education and supervision of boys in the United States have been shaped by the collaboration of two seemingly conflictive approaches. In 1916, Henry William Gibson, a leader of the YMCA, created the term boyology, which came to refer to professional writing about the biological and social development of boys. At the same time, the feral tale, with its roots in myth and folklore, emphasized boys’ wild nature, epitomized by such classic protagonists as Mowgli in The Jungle Books and Huck Finn. From the tension between these two perspectives evolved society’s perception of what makes a “good boy”: from the responsible son asserting his independence from his father in the late 1800s, to the idealized, sexually confident, and psychologically healthy youth of today. The image of the savage child, raised by wolves, has been tamed and transformed into a model of white, middle-class masculinity. Analyzing icons of boyhood and maleness from Father Flanagan’s Boys Town and Max in Where the Wild Things Are to Elián González and even Michael Jackson, Kidd surveys films, psychoanalytic case studies, parenting manuals, historical accounts of the discoveries of “wolf-boys,” and self-help books to provide a rigorous history of what it has meant to be an all-American boy. “Kenneth B. Kidd’s fascinating and well-documented book, Making American Boys, outlines two distinct patterns of representation that have constructed the image of the ‘boy’ in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.” —Journal of American Culture “Disney honcho Michael Eisner has frequently attributed his success to lessons he learned as a boy at Vermont’s Camp Keewaydin. Those interested in a more scholarly analysis of summer camp, scouting, and other forms of ‘boy work’ can pick up University of Florida professor Kenneth B. Kidd’s Making American Boys: Boyology and the Feral Tale.” —Boston Globe “Making American Boys is a wide-ranging study of boys and boy work—the YMCA, the Boy Scouts, popular literature, and film all get attention and analysis here. Kidd’s analysis makes use of various theoretical and practical lenses. Through those lenses, readers can see how our views on boys color so many other issues, including gender relations, anxieties about sexuality, and socio-economic and racial questions.” —Gay and Lesbian Review “Kidd makes a well-researched and interesting argument about the construction of middle class white US boyhood. Entertaining to read—especially to those who spend a lot of time thinking about where our ideas about gender and sex come from.” —Clamor “A strong cultural study. Fascinating stories that convince one the overarching significance of boys and boy work. The pleasure of Kidd’s archive, and of the tales and ideas he generates, is reason enough to pick up the book.” —Criticism “Making American Boys serves as a useful work of cultural history.” —Journal of Interdisciplinary History “In this engaging study, Kidd charts the evolution of arguments on what makes good boys and bad boys, finding that adult boyologists often tell us more about themselves and their society than they do about the boys under consideration. Kidd has done an excellent job producing a thoroughly researched account of how American boys become American men.” —Men and Masculinities Kenneth B. Kidd is assistant professor of English at the University of Florida and associate director of the Center for Children’s Literature and Culture. 288 pages | 1 halftone | 5-7/8 x 9 | paper: 2004, cloth: June 2005 TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgments 1. Farming for Boys Notes |
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$18.95 paper