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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)
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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.
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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
Arthur Morgan from video game Red Dead Redemption 2 sporting a gun and cowboy hat.

Cult of the Cowboy: Inside the Toxic Adoration of an All-American Obsession

Video games, violence and the enduring allure of the vigilante hero.
by Rachel Wagner via Literary Hub on February 26, 2025
1860 political cartoon depicting Lincoln as a "Wide-Awake"
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A Posthumous Romance of White Male Reunion

The history of deriving political meaning from Abraham Lincoln’s sexuality.
by Andrew Donnelly via HNN on February 11, 2025
A painting of George Washington on horseback reviewing the Western Army at Fort Cumberland.
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Merry, Manly Militias

Levity and play — eerily combined with anxiety, terror, and deadly violence — shaped the identity and image of Early Republic militias.
by Eran A. Zelnik via HNN on January 28, 2025
A cartoon of a group of effeminate men walking together.

Rise and Fall of the ‘Pansy Craze’

On Jazz Age gay culture and its backlash.
by Margaret Vandenburg via Gay And Lesbian Review on January 2, 2025
Photo of men holding sign that says "end token equality draft women."
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The Debate About Men Being Left Behind Is Decades Old

It's crucial to understand the real history behind claims that men are being marginalized.
by Theresa Iker via Made By History on December 12, 2024
Gratz Cohen and the manuscript of one of his poems.

A Savannah Poet

The Civil War cut short many lives, and a new a book that blends the genres of history and memoir sets out the resurrect the memory of one of those lives.
by Jason K. Friedman via University Of South Carolina Press on July 15, 2024
Border patrol agents in a physical training.

From Suspect to Perpetrato

How history shaped the modern U.S. Border Patrol agent.
by Ernesto Chávez, Ervin A. Zubiate-Rocha via Public Books on June 5, 2024
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