#132: The History of the American Bachelor with Howard Chudacoff

The Art of Manliness

Society & Culture, Education, Philosophy

4.7 • 14.5K Ratings

🗓️ 24 August 2015

⏱️ 28 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Something all men have in common is that one point in their lives they're all bachelors, that is, they've never been married. What's interesting is that there's been very little written about the history and sociology of bachelorhood. Well, my guest today is the author of one of the few books on the topic. His name is Howard Chudacoff and he's the author of the book, The Age of the Bacehlor. Dr. Chudacoff and I discuss the influence bachelors in America have had on American masculinity, particularly the bachelors who lived during the late 19th century or "Golden Age of Bachelorhood." It was during this time that bars, barbershops, and pool halls became masculine institutions and the traditionally male past times like sports rose in prominence in the U.S.

Transcript

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0:00.0	music
0:15.0	Brett McKay here and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness Podcast.
0:18.5	So whether you are married with kids, divorced, a grandparent with grandchildren, a widower
0:23.7	or an unmarried man will be all having common as men, is that at one point in our lives
0:27.9	we have all been bachelors, that is an unmarried man.
0:31.6	It's funny, we don't really refer to unmarried men as bachelors anymore.
0:35.3	We also don't talk about unmarried women as spinsters, we're going to talk about why
0:39.5	today.
0:40.5	What's fascinating is that even though all men have been bachelors at one point in their
0:43.8	life, there isn't a lot of history or sociology written about the culture of bachelors that
0:49.2	grows up around unmarried men.
0:51.6	Because it's different from the culture of married men or grandparents or divorced
0:55.6	men.
0:56.6	It's completely different.
0:57.6	In a few books, one of my favorite is by Brown History Professor Howard Chudukoff.
1:01.7	It's called The Age of the Bachelor, creating an American subculture.
1:05.2	In it, he explores the history of bachelors in America, starting in the colonial days
1:08.9	of America, going all the way to late 20th early 21st century.
1:12.7	But a big portion of the book is dedicated to the culture of bachelors that sprung up during
1:18.2	the late 19th early 20th centuries.
1:21.0	It was during this time that bachelors, American bachelors and companies catering towards bachelors,
1:27.3	and they created a lot of the culture, a lot of the aesthetic, what we consider old
	...

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