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ABSTRACT JEWETT, AMANDA AVERELL. Aristocratic ABSTRACT JEWETT, AMANDA AVERELL. Aristocratic Gentlemanliness and Revolutionary Masculinities among Virginia’s Delegation to the Continental Congress, 1774-1776. (Under the direction of Dr. Craig Thompson Friend). There was never one type of manhood practiced in Virginia during from 1774 to 1776. Instead, different masculinities blended and overlapped to reflect changes in culture and society. While elements such as public validation and an honorable reputation persevered across gender constructions, they meant different things to different men in the early years of revolution. The American Revolution unleashed democratic, military, regional, and intellectual impulses that gave impetus to forms of manhood that helped to erode aristocratic gentlemanliness. Militant, intellectual, and southern men absorbed some ideals of aristocratic gentlemanliness like honor and public virtue, while abandoning others including submission and restraint. The Revolution and meetings with other men in the Continental Congress contributed to the dismissal of these principles as Virginians responded to changes in their political and social roles on a larger stage. Ultimately, the need for public approval ties all of these Virginians together. Validation of one’s gender and class from outside observers, be it fellow Virginian planters or delegates from other colonies, is the most permanent aspect of masculinity during these years. While other types of manhood—military, Enlightenment, and southern—broke from or changed several traits of aristocratic gentlemanliness, the requirement of public confirmation for status endured. © Copyright 2013 by Amanda Averell Jewett All Rights Reserved Aristocratic Gentlemanliness and Revolutionary Masculinities among Virginia’s Delegation to the Continental Congress, 1774-1776 by Amanda Averell Jewett A thesis submitted to the Graduate Faculty of North Carolina State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts History Raleigh, North Carolina 2013 APPROVED BY: _______________________________ ______________________________ Dr. Craig Thompson Friend Dr. Judy Kertész Committee Chair ________________________________ Dr. William Kimler ii DEDICATION This project is dedicated to my father, my sister, and my partner. My father, Keith Jewett, instilled me with a love of history from a very young age, and I am proud to say that I also inherited his wonderful sense of humor. Emma Jewett, my amazing sister, is a constant source of love and inspiration for me and she fills each day with incredible joy. My loving partner, Scott Zekanis, has shown me endless patience and support throughout my time in the graduate program. Without the encouragement of these caring individuals, this project may not have succeeded. iii BIOGRAPHY Amanda Averell Jewett lives in Garner, North Carolina with her partner, Scott Zekanis, and her sister, Emma Jewett. Amanda is expecting her first child in October of 2013. iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS First, I would like to thank my adviser, Dr. Craig Friend. His combination of encouragement and pushing me to finish this project is the main reason this thesis was completed. My gratitude goes out to my other committee members, Dr. William Kimler and Dr. Judy Kertész, for taking the time to read my work and be a part of my defense. I also want to thank Norene Miller for always answering questions and helping my graduate career proceed without problems. My colleagues in the graduate program talked through research, proofread drafts, and listened to problems I encountered while writing this thesis. They were an invaluable part of the process. v TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION...................................................................................................................1 CHAPTER ONE: The Refined and the Rough in Colonial Virginia................................16 CHAPTER TWO: The Collapse of Aristocratic Gentlemanliness....................................44 CHAPTER THREE: The Origins of Southern Manhood.................................................72 CONCLUSION....................................................................................................................100 BIBLIOGRAPHY................................................................................................................111 1 INTRODUCTION In 1775, Peyton Randolph traveled to Philadelphia for the Second Continental Congress concerned for his colony’s welfare. Having just learned of the events in Lexington and Concord, many feared a repeat of that violence in Williamsburg after royal governor Lord Dunmore seized all the gunpowder from the magazine. Randolph had calmed mobs in both Williamsburg and Fredericksburg shortly before departing for Congress. As a trusted patriarch of Virginia, he likely dreaded leaving his colony in such a tumultuous state.1 On his journey, Randolph carried with him ideas of manhood and gentlemanliness that some of his fellow Virginians shared. To Randolph, the mob represented ungentlemanly behavior, and with refined patriarchs like him away in Congress, the general citizenry might not be as well controlled. As an aristocratic gentleman, Randolph glorified restraint and self- control as markers of truly gentlemanly behavior, but the threat of mob violence and a refusal to submit to royal authority shared by some of Randolph’s fellow delegates evinced changes in masculinity as the older form of colonial, aristocratic gentlemanliness began to collapse. How did different men practice masculinity in Virginia from 1774 to 1776? Traditionally, historians have used Virginia’s George Washington as the epitome of manhood. Scholars’ descriptions of Washington make him larger than life with an “arresting figure” whose authoritative demeanor “inspired confidence in congressmen.”2 Moreover, historians have traditionally described Washington as a veritable renaissance man citing his life as a landholder, his military experience, and his gentlemanly manner as evidence of what 1 John E. Selby, The Revolution in Virginia, 1775-1783 (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1988) 1, 3-4. 2 Burke Davis, George Washington and the American Revolution (New York: Random House, 1975), 8, 9. 2 made one a man in the eighteenth century. For these scholars, masculinity was implied and, moreover, it was uniform. In reality however, different masculinities blend and overlap over time. Washington in fact stood transitionally between a construction of manhood— aristocratic gentlemanliness—which he performed in his role as a planter gentleman, and military manhood, formed by his glorified experiences in combat. Scholars have largely failed to understand the subtleties and intricacies within masculinity, and only through widening the view of Virginia to include other figures can historians hope to understand how different ideas of manhood were performed and transformed between 1774 and 1776.3 Daniel Blake Smith’s Inside the Great House: Planter Family Life in Eighteenth- Century Chesapeake Society captures plantation life at the family level, the smallest unit controlled by Virginian patriarchs. Published in 1980, Smith discusses aristocratic gentlemanliness as a path exclusively offered through authoritative planter family life. His research into the family dynamics of the Chesapeake gives great insight into how parents raised their children in aristocratic practices to perpetuate Virginia’s planter class and their power. Particularly, Smith’s chapter entitled, “Fathers and Sons: The Meaning of Deference and Duty in the Family” illustrates how education reinforced proper gender behavior and was essential to a young gentleman’s upbringing. However, his assertion that aristocratic gentlemanliness could only be attained through familial means can be directly disproven when examining the life of Virginian Edmund Pendleton. Pendleton was not born to an elite home, but through a law apprenticeship, he learned society’s prized qualities of 3 Nathaniel Wright Stephenson and Waldo Hilary Dunn, George Washington, 1732-1777, 2 vols. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1940), 1:53. 3 gentlemanliness and practiced them without genealogical influence. By doing so, he became one of Virginia’s patriarchs on par with gentlemen like Richard Henry Lee who inherited his genteel status from his ancestors.4 Jan Lewis expanded on Smith’s use of patriarchy to contextualize planter family life in her The Pursuit of Happiness: Family and Values in Jefferson’s Virginia. Patriarchy flourished at both the familial and colonial levels as eighteenth-century men desperately tried to implement their values of “moderation, restraint, [and] independence” both within and outside the plantation house.5 Part of being an aristocratic gentleman was controlling others along with oneself. An orderly man and his household marked a patriarch as ready to lead on a larger level. Lewis’s work builds on Smith’s to expose the more public requirements of patriarchy and gentlemanliness. Lazy or unsuccessful sons did not gain the same station as their fathers, and because sons of wealthy planters were not self-made, they needed to develop their own careers outside the home to ascend the social ranks and cement themselves as patriarchs.6 While less interested in Virginia, Anthony Rotundo’s American Manhood: Transformations in Masculinity from the Revolution to the Modern Era explores aristocratic gentlemanliness among other masculine practices along the entire Atlantic Coast in the early to mid-eighteenth century. Aristocratic
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