“A Tinge of Effeminacy”: Masculinity and National Manhood in the Mosely Report, 1904

• In Event: Gender, Achievement, and Learning

Abstract

Following Bederman, (1993) I will use the 1904 Mosely report as a cultural text and interpret the images of manliness, masculinity and femininity that it included. In opening the text to a critical gaze, gendered imagery and assumptions will be analyzed to assess how the ideal American man who would bring national prosperity through the ‘right’ kind of education, was cast against a screen of lesser men, inferior races and indeed women. By indicating the discourses at work in the text I will consider the gendered citizenship duties that the report advances through its focus on the American education system and examine how these were promoted and furthered in the Mosely report.

Author

• Una Ni Bhroimeil, Mary Immaculate College