INTELLECTUAL MANHOOD: BECOMING MEN OF THE REPUBLIC AT A SOUTHERN UNIVERSITY, 1795-1861 Timothy J. Williams A dissertation submitted to the faculty of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of History Chapel Hill 2010 Approved by: Harry L. Watson Donald G. Mathews John F. Kasson James Leloudis Heather Williams ©2010 Timothy J. Williams ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ii ABSTRACT Timothy J. Williams Intellectual Manhood: Becoming Men of the Republic at a Southern University, 1795- 1861 (Under the direction of Professor Harry L. Watson) ―Intellectual Manhood‖ explores antebellum southern students‘ personal and civic development at the University of North Carolina, the first state university to open its doors to students. Historians have characterized southern colleges as crucibles of sectional loyalty and culture, aimed at teaching students how to be southerners and gentlemen above all. This dissertation, however, demonstrates that southern education was more nuanced: it was cosmopolitan, southern, and American. Students described its goal as ―intellectual manhood,‖ which they strove to achieve by learning to think, read, write, and speak their way to adulthood. Though collegiate vice and dissipation threatened to impede young men‘s development, formal and informal education at the University emphasized a culture of mental and moral improvement. In the process, students incorporated values conventionally associated with middle-class society— industry, temperance, and discipline—and adapted them (at times uncomfortably) to youth culture and the southern gentry‘s traditional honor-bound, rugged worldview. Young men entered college with ambitions to serve the republic as virtuous, confident, and competent citizens. The University‘s formal and informal structures reinforced those ambitions. A core liberal arts curriculum, including ancient languages, science, math, rhetoric, and ethics, emphasized that knowledge and virtue comprised iii men‘s honor and greatness. Student-organized literary societies existed at the crux of male education and friendship and reinforced these ideals by pushing students to work hard for academic distinction. Societies also provided informal instruction in oratory and debate, which qualified students for civil society and participatory democracy, and they maintained large, cosmopolitan libraries to enhance students‘ studies and provide opportunities for private reading and amusement. For many students, learning occurred in private contemplation of histories, biographies, and novels. Higher education also occurred in an informal curriculum of dancing and singing schools, balls, courtships, and rendezvous with local prostitutes. These private and social experiences influenced young men‘s social and emotional development, as they confronted conflict resulting from temptation, anxiety, heartache, and melancholy. In all of these collegiate spaces, students engaged in a living curriculum of higher learning and pursued ―intellectual manhood.‖ The resulting elite male culture favored intellectualism, bourgeois values, and both national and regional belonging. iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This dissertation began as a seminar paper for an undergraduate history course at Wake Forest University, and I owe my first thanks to Simone Caron for introducing me to the richness of gender history and for encouraging and directing me in the very first phases of my career. I also owe many thanks to Susan Z. Rupp, for her encouragement, and to Robert Beachy for his professional guidance, intellectual example, and steadfast friendship. At the University of North Carolina, many scholars provided invaluable guidance. My advisor, Harry L. Watson, helped me shape, ground, and complete this dissertation. He has scrupulously read every word I have written on this subject and offered comments that have helped me become a stronger writer and a better thinker; I am incredibly grateful for his constant support and encouragement. I have also received crucial support from the members of my dissertation committee—John Kasson, Jim Leloudis, Donald Mathews, and Heather Williams. They offered comments on grant proposals and early chapter drafts as well as general encouragement along the way. I am also grateful to Kathleen DuVal, who graciously read early drafts of my work as well as provided professional advice. Many thanks are also due to Jacquelyn Hall, Mike Green, and Theda Perdue, who advised and encouraged me as I developed this project. I have incurred numerous institutional debts. I am grateful for two summer research grants from the University of North Carolina‘s Center for the Study of the American South, and a Mowry Research grant from the History Department. I especially thank the Spencer Foundation for the dissertation fellowship that allowed me to complete v this project. I also owe countless thanks to the staff at the Southern Historical Collection, especially Laura Clark Brown and Matt Turi, who offered invaluable research leads, but perhaps more importantly friendship along the way. They made the ―Southern‖ truly feel like home. I am also thankful for the help of all the staff at the North Carolina Collection, the Special Collections Library at Duke University, the North Carolina State Archives, and the University Archives at Wake Forest University. I owe special thanks to Erika Lindemann. Her years of work in the history of antebellum student writing— manifest in Documenting the American South’s immensely helpful collection, ―True and Candid Compositions‖—made this project easier and more enjoyable than it may have been without her work. As I wrote this dissertation, I also received valuable help from scholars outside of the University of North Carolina. I am grateful to the anonymous reviewers of the Journal of the Early Republic and to Roger Geiger, Christian Anderson, and the anonymous reviewers of Perspectives on the History of Higher Education for their comments on portions of Chapter Six. Many of my scholarly role models also provided feedback on drafts and conference papers, especially Stephen Berry, Peter Carmichael, Anya Jabour, and John Mayfield. I am grateful for their assistance and encouragement. Writing this dissertation would not have been nearly as enjoyable or profitable without the friendship of numerous colleagues and friends in and beyond UNC‘s History Department. I am especially grateful to Natasha Naujoks for her friendship and intellectual camaraderie; she has read drafts and listened patiently to my musings on the phone, over coffee, and even during happy hours. Other friends have also offered support and feedback, including Patrick O‘Neil, Paul Quigley, Nancy Schoonmaker, vi David Silkenat, Elizabeth Smith, Christina Snyder, Dwana Waugh, and Ben Wise. And among my fellow Spencer Dissertation Fellows, I owe much to Diana D‘Amico, Christina Davis, John Hale, and Camille Walsh. Finally, I owe the greatest thanks to my family. My parents, Harold and Evelyn Williams, have supported me in every moment of my life with constant love and encouragement; I dedicate this dissertation to them. My little brother, Andrew Williams, has listened patiently as I dominated many holiday conversations with talk of history. But most importantly, he has been a great and true friend. Finally, I am most thankful for Dean Mundy, my partner and best friend. His love, enthusiasm, confidence, humor, and patience have sustained me through the entire process of researching and writing this dissertation. I could not imagine having written a word without him. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Figures .......................................................................................................................... ix Introduction ................................................................................................................................1 Chapter 1: ―Youth is the Time‖: Ambition, Conflict, and Inspiration.....................................23 Chapter 2: Educating Young Men: The Formal Curriculum ..................................................68 Chapter 3: ―Not merely thinking but speaking beings‖: Speech Education ..........................137 Chapter 4: ―Every Great Public Questions‖: Literary Society Debates ................................176 Chapter 5: Reading Makes the Man: Young Men and Reading ..........................................216 Chapter 6: The Informal Curriculum: Gender and Sex in a ―Wilderness of Sin‖ ...............268 Conclusion .............................................................................................................................309 Bibliography ..........................................................................................................................319 viii LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1. Young America,‖ cartoon ................................................................................ 8 2. James Hilliard Polk ........................................................................................ 27 3. Thomas Cole‘s The Voyage of Life (Youth) ................................................... 29 4. Thomas Cole‘s The Voyage of Life (Manhood) ............................................. 29 5. William Miller ............................................................................................... 56 6. David Lowry Swain ....................................................................................... 58 7. James Knox Polk...........................................................................................