Masters Theses

Date of Award

5-1999

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts

Major

History

Major Professor

Susan Becker

Committee Members

Bruce Wheeler, John Finger

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to explore why Progressive era men were interested in conservation and to show how ideas of gender have informed history. The research focused on Forest and Stream, a sportsmen's journal of the Progressive era, as well as the published writings of George Bird Grinnell and Theodore Roosevelt. These materials were analyzed to see if there was a connection between the Progressives' emphasis on conservation and a perceived crisis in masculinity during the period. For sportsmen hunters, at least, the evidence shows that there was.

The great changes of the late nineteenth century placed the status of middle and upper class men of the period in flux. Industrialization, urbanization, immigration, the nature of the corporate workplace, changes in the role of women in society, and the closing of the frontier created anxiety for middle and upper class men, who saw their place as the natural head of society as well as their masculinity threatened. These changes led these men to look for new ways to define themselves as men. Among the outlets for this anxiety were organized sports, imperialism, war, and hunting. However, at the same time as these men were embracing hunting, the great herds of buffalo and other animals were being wiped out. Progressives were greatly concerned by this depletion in wild animals because they considered hunting so vital to their manhood as well as the future of the nation. This led them to look to protect game in the wild. Protection of game would allow them to hunt, therefore defining themselves as men as well as teaching their children manly virtues that was considered necessary for survival in modern society.

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