BOXING the BOUNDARIES: Prize Fighting, Masculinities, and Shifting Social and Cultural Boundaries in the United State, 1882-1913
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BOXING THE BOUNDARIES: Prize Fighting, Masculinities, and Shifting Social and Cultural Boundaries in the United State, 1882-1913 BY C2010 Jeonguk Kim Submitted to the graduate degree program in American Studies and the Graduate Faculty of the University of Kansas in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy __________________________ Chairperson __________________________ __________________________ __________________________ __________________________ Date defended: ___July 8__2010_________ The Dissertation Committee for Jeonguk Kim certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: BOXING THE BOUNDARIES: Prize Fighting, Masculinities, and Shifting Social and Cultural Boundaries in the United States, 1882-1913 Committee: ________________________________ Chairperson ________________________________ ________________________________ ________________________________ ________________________________ Date defended: _______________________ ii Abstract Leisure and sports are recently developed research topics. My dissertation illuminates the social meaning of prize fighting between 1882 and 1913 considering interactions between culture and power relations. My dissertation understands prize fighting as a cultural text, structured in conjunction with social relations and power struggles. In so doing, the dissertation details how agents used a sport to construct, reinforce, blur, multiply, and shift social and cultural boundaries for the construction of group identities and how their signifying practices affected the ways in which power was distributed in American society. Accordingly, my dissertation examines how cultural autonomy affected the socially organized forms of power. As an intersectional study of prize fighting, my dissertation also criticizes the reductionist, structuralist, and binary conception of culture, power, and social relations and stresses interconnections between social history and cultural history. iii Acknowledgements I would like to express my deepest gratitude to people who helped me finish this dissertation. I could not be more thankful for my advisor, Dr. Sherrie Tucker. Dr. Tucker was simply an extraordinary scholar and amazing person. Since I met her at KU, Dr. Tucker has always been with me as a teacher and friend. She introduced me to the field of intersectional studies. She also graciously read my long paper and offered many suggestions to improve my dissertation. I should express my deepest appreciation to the professor who served on my dissertation committee. My gratitude goes to Dr. David Katzman. He has always been a great advisor. I am heavily indebted to his ample knowledge. Dr. Norman Yetman was the first professor whom I met at KU. In fact, his teaching on race and ethnicity made me begin my academic project about prize fighting. He also made a significant editorial contribution for my dissertation. As a boxing specialist, Dr. Robert Rodriguez has been truly inspiring. I was so lucky to meet someone who shared the same research topic. I would like to thank Dr. Mark Joslyn for his presence in the committee. I will not forget his kindness. I am grateful for other professors who helped me grow academically. I should specially mention Dr. Ann Schofield, Dr. Bill Tuttle, Dr. Cheryl Lester, and Dr. Rita Napier. I am also grateful for researchers whose scholarly works I cited and sometimes criticized. Without their efforts, my dissertation never could have been completed. iv I have been appreciably aided by our graduate division secretary, Kay Isbell. I also extend my gratitude to two friends I met at KU, Mark A. Rhrein and Ralf Brauchler. I am no less thankful for my colleague, Sanjo Kim. I am also grateful for all people who helped me edit my dissertation. My dissertation is dedicated to my parents, Young-Il Kim and Jeong-Hye Huh. They not only gave me a life, but also their love and support goes beyond words. I am also grateful for my other family members and relatives, who love me. v Table of Contents Abstract……………………………………………………………………………….iii Acknowledgements…………………………………………………………………iv Introduction…………………………………………………………………………..1 Chapter 1 A Christian Gentleman, a Natural Man: Prize Fighting and the Construction of the Middle Classes………………………….15 1. The Victorian Moral Order, Prize Fighting, and Class Construction…………..18 2. The Diversification of Middle-Class Culture and the Reconstruction of Class...47 3. Professionalization and Prize Fighting……........................................................78 4. Beyond the Bondage of Civilization...………………………………………….88 Chapter 2 Becoming Popular Male Rituals: Prize Fighting, Working-Class Ethos, and Cultural Negotiation...…………………100 1. Anti-Hegemonic Working-Class Culture and Prize Fighting...………………….102 2. The Law, the Club, and the Transformation of Prize Fighting...………………...124 3. Scientific Boxing, Clean Life, and New Hegemonic Masculinity in the Ring..…145 4. The Reproduction of Working-Class Ethos in Clubs and Cultural Negotiation....173 Chapter 3 Fighting Men, Fighting Women: Prize Fighting, Circulating Power, and Shifting Gender Boundaries………………202 1. Prize Fighting and Male Culture.......……………………………………………204 2. Prize Fighting, Victorian Moral Reformers, and Feminists……...……………..211 3. Women at Fights and Theaters...………………………………………………222 4. Boxing Women...………………………………………………………………...234 vi Chapter 4 Sons of Erin, Sons of America: Prize Fighting and the Construction of Ethnic and National Identity………………249 1. Class, Masculinity, and the Reproduction of Irish Identity…….…….………….251 2. Prize Fighting and Local Heroes ..........................................................................285 3. National Boundaries and Prize Fighting .…………….......…………………….293 4. The Ring after Corbett ............………………………………………………….320 Chapter 5 An America Contested in the Ring: Prize Fighting, Masculinities, and Shifting Racial Boundaries.. …………………..331 1. Black Boxers before Jack Johnson….…………………………………………334 2. A Road to the First Black Heavyweight Championship..……………………….351 3. Reno, 1910………………………………………………………………………376 4. Blacks and the First Black Heavyweight Champion…………………………….399 Conclusion………………………………………………………………………….422 Bibliography………………………………………………………………………..428 Note………………………………………………………………………………450 Appendix…………………………………………………………………………453 vii Introduction In 1972, Clifford Geertz defined culture as an “ordered system of meaning and of symbols, in terms of which social interaction takes place” and contrasted culture to the social system, which is the “pattern of social interaction itself.”1 This anthropological definition of culture has two significant implications for scholars. First, while everyone has his or her own methods for creating and distributing symbols, culture is no longer synonymous with high art or elite culture. Second, because culture is constructed by practices of making, understanding, and distributing symbols, “interpretative agency” becomes a focal point for the study of culture. Accordingly, Geertz’s definition of culture contests the old assumption that culture is subsidiary to or derived from social structure and another layer of social system. While Geertz’s hermeneutic study of culture referred to cultural autonomy, it failed to address critical points about culture. For instance, Geertz argued that the cockfight is a ritual reflecting social divisions and underlying psychological tendencies among the Balinese, and exerting influence directed back on Balinese society. However, while Geertz focused on local people placed in a web of shared meanings, he overestimated the stability of cultural structures and underestimated cultural diversity in a society. Accordingly, in Geertz’s study about the cockfight, the cockfight appeared as a means to psychologically intensify and appease individual 1 Clifford Geertz, “Ritual and Social Change: A Javanese Example,” in The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays, 53rd ed. (New York: Basic Books, 2005), 144. 1 competitions.2 This single reading of a ritual for the Balinese overlooked the contested nature of cultural structures. Geertz understood that culture and society (social structures) are only analytically distinct and that social realities are subjectively constructed. However, his anthropological study of culture could not provide perfect theoretical tools to explore the dynamic relationships between culture and social structures and, more specifically, between culture and social relations in modern society where social and cultural grouping multiplies.3 As a result, his study did not fully illuminate the textuality of culture and its relationships with persisting social relations and power struggles.4 In modern society, culture has two conflicting roles at once. Culture both unifies and divides people by categorizing people and producing cultural boundaries. Cultural boundaries shapes social structures (institutionalized social practices including social relations) and power struggles. Considering the dynamic 2 See Clifford Geertz, “Deep Play: Notes on the Balinese Cockfight,” in The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays, 53rd ed. (New York: Basic Books, 2005), 412-453. 3 Social structures refer to a “set of habitual and institutionalized social practices that assume a systematic existence beyond the actions of any one individual.” However, social structures mean not only the “reproduced outcome of human agency” but also the “medium” of construction of social practices. William John Morgan, Leftist Theories of