Progressive Era

Abstract

Definitions of manliness during the Progressive Era (1890– 1915) were often ambiguous and contradictory. While a more assertive and aggressive masculinity (with origins in the Gilded Age of the late nineteenth century) spilled over into the twentieth century and continued in the Progressive Era, new articulations of manliness were emerging that emphasized a greater foundation in social networks and political associations and a scientific approach to examining and understanding society and politics. These new definitions, which sought to balance notions of liberal individualism and social justice with notions of social bonds, social order, the common good, and social efficiency, began to reign in and temper the more aggressive concepts of masculinity common in the Gilded Age.