Gentlemen of the woods manhood, myth, and the American lumberjack
The folk hero Paul Bunyan, burly, bearded, wielding his big ax, stands astride the story of the upper Midwest--a manly symbol of the labor that cleared the vast north woods for the march of industrialization while somehow also maintaining an aura of pristine nature. This idea, celebrated in popular...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Books Print Book |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Minneapolis :
University of Minnesota Press,
[2024]
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| Edition: | [Hardcover edition]. |
| Subjects: | |
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| Summary: | The folk hero Paul Bunyan, burly, bearded, wielding his big ax, stands astride the story of the upper Midwest--a manly symbol of the labor that cleared the vast north woods for the march of industrialization while somehow also maintaining an aura of pristine nature. This idea, celebrated in popular culture with songs and folktales, receives a long overdue and thoroughly revealing correction in Gentlemen of the Woods, a cultural history of the life and lore of the real lumberjack, and his true place in American history. Along with its portrait of lumberjack life and its analysis of the creation of lumberjack myth, this book offers new insight into the intersections of race and social class in the logging enterprise, considering the actual and perceived roles of outsider lumberjacks and Native inhabitants of the northern forests. |
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| Physical Description: | xxxiii, 319 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations (some color), maps, portraits, facsimiles ; 24 cm |
| Bibliography: | Includes bibliographical references (page 239-293) and index. |
| ISBN: | 9781517912451 9781517917579 |
| Author Notes: | Willa Hammitt Brown first had her picture taken with Paul Bunyan when she was four years old in Akeley, Minnesota, and she grew up spending summers on Deer Lake in Itasca County in the heart of the Northwoods Vacationland. She is a writer and historian specializing in American cultural, gender, and environmental history and holds a PhD in history from the University of Virginia. She has taught history, gender studies, and expository writing at the University of Virginia, Harvard University, and onboard the MV Explorer for Semester at Sea. Her writing has been published in The Atlantic, American Jewish History, Western Historical Quarterly, and Environmental History . She lives in Minneapolis. |
