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Five men sharing a meal in Qing dynasty China.

Splitting Hairs

Chinese immigrants, the queue, and the boundaries of political citizenship.
by Sarah Gold McBride via The Public Domain Review on July 9, 2025
A line of Marines firing from behind a barricade.

Neither Marine nor Maggot

"Full Metal Jacket" and the crisis of masculinity.
by Chris Deutsch via Nursing Clio on June 4, 2025
Eugen Sandow flexing his bicep.

The Evolution of the Alpha Male Aesthetic

If you've noticed a certain look common to the manosphere, you're not mistaken. A visual identity has taken hold, with roots that trace back decades.
by Derek Guy via Bloomberg on April 22, 2025
Norman Mailer in front of Brooklyn skyline.

The New York Intellectuals’ Battle of the Sexes

Norman Mailer’s generation learned to “write like men.” But their female contemporaries from Mary McCarthy to Diana Trilling pioneered a more enduring style.
by Michael Kimmage via The New Republic on July 5, 2024
Norman Mailer.

The Tough Guy Crew

Jewish masculinity and the New York intellectuals.
by Leonard Benardo via New Statesman on June 12, 2024

The Making of Norman Mailer

The young man went to war and became a novelist. But did he ever really come back?
by David Denby via The New Yorker on December 19, 2022
Patrick Ewing makes a move against Larry Bird and Mark Acres on the basketball court.

The Myth of the Knicks

In Chris Herring’s recent history of the New York basketball team, we get a behind-the-scenes look at the sports commentariat’s fixation on grit and toughness.
by Zito Madu via The Nation on December 7, 2022
Advertisement for a gold dredging machine from a 1920's magazine.

The Huckster Ads of Early “Popular Mechanics”

Weird, revealing, and incredibly fun to read.
by Clive Thompson via Medium on August 6, 2022
Fox News host Tucker Carlson in March 2017. (Richard Drew/AP)
partner

Tucker Carlson’s Discussion of Testicle Red-Light Therapy is Nothing New

The long history of concerns about masculinity — and attempts to enhance it.
by Janet Golden, Elizabeth Neswald via Made By History on April 29, 2022
Caesar, William McKinley, and Trump sporting three different comb-overs throughout history.

The Rise, Flop and Fall of the Comb-Over

Balding has been the constant scourge of man since the beginning of time, and for millennia, our best solution was the comb-over.
by Brian VanHooker via MEL on March 21, 2022
Two unidentified soldiers in Union cavalry uniforms with sword share a drink in front of painted backdrop showing camp.

Manhood, Madness, and Moonshine

Civil War veterans could be unmanned by drinking too much, and their service did not insulate them from postwar blights on their manhood.
by Dillon Carroll via Nursing Clio on October 14, 2021
Men with six-packs on a boat

When Men Started to Obsess Over Six-Packs

Greek statues, the Napoleonic wars, and the advent of photography all played a role.
by Conor Heffernan via The Conversation on February 23, 2021
A man hooked up to receive shocks as part of the Milgram experiment

The Hidden Meaning of a Notorious Experiment

In Stanley Milgram's studies of obedience, people believed they were giving shocks to others. But did their compliance say much about the Nazis?
by Allison Miller via JSTOR Daily on January 7, 2021
A magazine cover featuring a man with a rocket launcher.
partner

Fear of the "Pussification" of America

On Cold War men's adventure magazines and the antifeminist tradition in American popular culture.
by Gregory A. Daddis via HNN on October 11, 2020

George Washington Would Have So Worn a Mask

The father of the country was a team player who had no interest in displays of hyper-masculinity.
by Maurizio Valsania via The Conversation on June 1, 2020
Freddie Bartholomew in fighting stance as Little Lord Fauntleroy for the film.

The Masculinization of Little Lord Fauntleroy

The 1936 movie Little Lord Fauntleroy broke box office records, only to be toned down and masculinized amid cultural fears of the “sissified” male.
by Kristin Hunt, U. C. Knopfelmacher via JSTOR Daily on March 26, 2020

What Maketh a Man

How queer artist J.C. Leyendecker invented an iconography of twentieth-century American masculinity.
by Tyler Malone via Lapham’s Quarterly on June 10, 2019

Manly Firmness: It’s Not Just for the 18th Century (Unfortunately)

The history of presidential campaigns shows the extent to which the language of politics remains gendered.
by Sarah Swedberg via Nursing Clio on February 28, 2019
Photographs of Oscar Wilde and Walt Whitman.

When Wilde Met Whitman

As he told a friend years later, "the kiss of Walt Whitman is still on my lips."
by Michèle Mendelssohn via Literary Hub on July 16, 2018

When Salad Was Manly

Esquire, 1940: “Salads are really the man’s department... Only a man can make a perfect salad.”
by Jessamyn Neuhaus, Elizabeth Fakazis, Manisha Claire via JSTOR Daily on June 6, 2018

How John Wayne Became a Hollow Masculine Icon

The actor’s persona was inextricable from the toxic culture of Cold War machismo.
by Stephen Metcalf via The Atlantic on November 9, 2017

Beards, Bachelors, and Brides: The Surprisingly Spicy Politics of the Presidential Election of 1856

Of the presidential elections in early America, few have stressed the themes of sex and gender so spicily as the heated contest of 1856.
by Thomas J. Balcerski via Commonplace on July 16, 2016
Civil War generals Ambrose Burnside and Robert E. Lee, sporting the substantial beards.
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City Men on the Beard “Frontier”

A brief discussion of the fierce 19th century debates over beards, and how booming American cities created the perfect climate for all that facial hair to grow.
via BackStory on August 28, 2015
Leyendecker’s distinct cross-hatch style is seen in this 1911 painting for Cluett Dress shirts, featuring a particularly intimate gaze between two gentlemen.

Before Rockwell, a Gay Artist Defined the Perfect American Male

Alfredo Villanueva-Collado on his J.C. Leyendecker collection and the fascinating story behind this oft-neglected male image maker.
by Hunter Oatman-Stanford, Alfredo Villanueva-Collado via Collectors Weekly on August 28, 2012
Photograph of Jack Kerouac looking into a shop window, by Allen Ginsberg.

Drive, Jack Kerouac Wrote

"On the Road" is a sad and somewhat self-consciously lyrical story about loneliness, insecurity, and failure. It’s also a story about guys who want to be with other guys.
by Louis Menand via The New Yorker on September 24, 2007
Lionel Trilling photographed by Walker Evans in the 1950s.

Colony, Aviary and Zoo: New York Intellectuals

A new book examines the aggressive masculinity that the editors of the Partisan Review brought to their art and literary criticism.
by David Denby via London Review of Books on July 3, 2025
Mannequins model Black fashion ranging from ethnic apparel to suits.

Turning Style Into Power: How the Black Dandy Used Clothing to Challenge Authority

At the Met, "Superfine: Tailoring Black Style" shows how clothing became a way for Black men to assert presence and push back against control.
by Richard Thompson Ford via The Yale Review on May 20, 2025
Malcolm X holding his daughter Qubilah.

Malcolm X the Girl Dad Was Hidden in Plain Sight

On the other side of the hardened activist was a man who stirred his coffee with his daughter's finger and told her it made it sweet.
by Mark Anthony Neal via Level Magazine on May 19, 2025
Texas Southern University marching band.

The Storied History of HBCU Marching Bands

Marching bands at historically Black colleges and universities can be seen as both celebratory emblems and complicated arbiters of Black American culture.
by Betsy Golden Kellem via JSTOR Daily on April 24, 2025
Cartoon drawing of a child hiding behind a man.

How Robert Crumb Channeled Mid-Century Teenage Angst Into Art

Dan Nadel on the formative awkward adolescence of an iconic American cartoonist.
by Dan Nadel via Literary Hub on April 15, 2025
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