Running Head: MASCULINITY AND ITS IMPACT ON THE US COLLEGE ADMISSIONSYSTEM IN THE EARLY TWENTIETH CENTURY
Masculinity and Its Impact on the US College Admission System in the Early TwentiethCentury

Since the past, the United States (US) held the concept of masculinity, the qualities
or behaviors that are thought to be associated with men. While the expression of masculinity
varies depending on the cultures and time periods, some of the characteristics that are
regarded as manly include courage, discipline, competitiveness, strengths, andadventurousness (Nagel 245). The preference for the ‘ideal man’ even influenced the college
admission systems, where institutions sought students that satisfied the characteristics of theman with masculinity. Given these facts, this research paper aims to investigate the question:“How was the concept of masculinity formed and what was the impact on the college
admission system around the early twentieth century in the United States?”. It is hypothesizedthat American history plays an important role in leading people to support masculinity and toprovide preferences for young men with manly characteristics. The relevant historical factors,
as well as the specific attributes that the universities looked for and their reasons, will be
discussed.
The American historical ideologies of nationalism, militarism, and imperialism aresome of the factors that are related to the preference for manliness. These three wereinterrelated to each other and together formed the notion of manliness. First, nationalism was
one of the ideologies that the US supported in the past, in which its aim was to achieve
statehood and nationhood (Nagel 247). In the process of state-building, anti-colonial warfare

1Running Head: MASCULINITY AND ITS IMPACT ON THE US COLLEGE ADMISSIONSYSTEM IN THE EARLY TWENTIETH CENTURY
was common and often involved armed conflicts (247). Thus, nationalism and militarism
progressed together. Moreover, nationalism also led to the support for imperialism, where
two imperialist projects existed. One was the manifest destiny that advocated for westward
expansion and another was the Monroe Doctrine, which justified the expansion of the US
influence to the entire western hemisphere (249). These projects were believed to contributeto the progress of the nation, and it was men who were involved in the movements. As wars
started to involve the notion of “‘duty’, ‘honor’, ‘patriotism’, ‘a defense of freedom’ and ‘theAmerican way of life’” (259), men with courage, bravery, honor, and perseverance wereadmired because these traits were crucial to achieving the national goal (Cochran 24, 25).
Thus, with a strong belief or focus on nationalism, militarism, and imperialism, it eventuallycreated the idea that men should have those traits in order to defend as well as to expand thenation.
However, the industrial revolution, the empowerment of women and minority
groups, and the end of the Civil War threatened men to maintain masculinity. First, theindustrial revolution led the US to shift from farming and self-employment to anindustrialized society that required fewer physical strengths (Gillam 15). It also led men to go
out to work, meaning that young boys were raised primarily by women (15). This led to thefear that males would become soft and feminized, instead of developing the manly characters(15). Moreover, at the end of the nineteenth century, the social position of men was

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Running Head: MASCULINITY AND ITS IMPACT ON THE US COLLEGE ADMISSIONSYSTEM IN THE EARLY TWENTIETH CENTURY
threatened by the empowerment of women and minority groups. Women began to entercolleges and the workforce, blacks started to move to cities to find work, and people in theminority groups started to call for more rights (10). Men would have perceived these social
movements negatively because it was the men that have been contributing to the good of thenation since the past, and the entrance of other groups of people could mean that they would
lose the chance to perform such roles or to express masculinity. Furthermore, it was also
worried that men were losing manliness after the Civil War, as the closing of the frontier
meant fewer opportunities to express valor in the battleground, one of the traits of manliness(Karabel 29). Therefore, these examples suggest that such economic and social changes
brought negative impacts on maintaining manliness and people had to find some ways toexpress masculinity.
One of the ways to demonstrate masculinity was to play sports. The ideal masculine
physique and behavior were institutionalized into organizations such as the Olympic
movement in 1896 (Nagel 244, 245), and people also started to strengthen boys’ physicalstrengths to prevent them from being feminized (Gillam 16, 17). This led to the expansion of
the organized sport, and engagement in aggressive sports also became popular (17). Baseballand football were especially preferred among the upper-class, as they involved both civilized
rules and physical strength (17). Moreover, football had a close connection with making asoldier (Karabel 30), as the game defined the patterns of aggressiveness and symbolized3

Running Head: MASCULINITY AND ITS IMPACT ON THE US COLLEGE ADMISSIONSYSTEM IN THE EARLY TWENTIETH CENTURY
masculinity (Connell 217, 218), as well as providing the opportunity to endure hardness andsuffering (Karabel 30). Thus, sports were regarded to form and strengthen manly
characteristics. The popularity of sports was clearly seen in the Groton school, for instance,
which is one of the boarding schools in the US. It aimed to create manly men that could
contribute to creating a great nation, and every student was asked to play football (29, 30).
Competing in sports was believed to allow students to develop courage, loyalty, masculine
strength, and cooperation, which are some of the main characteristics of masculinity (30).
Therefore, it suggests that US society started to form a strong relationship between manlinessand sports.
With the growing notion that masculine men are those who can play sports,
universities started to prefer admitting boys with high athletic abilities and other manly
characters. This phenomenon was clearly seen in the Big Three, which refers to Princeton,
Harvard, and Yale University. Princeton, for instance, gave strong preference to applicantsthat displayed high athletic skills in secondary schools. It regularly listed the number offreshmen students that have participated in varsity football, baseball, or hockey in their highschool years (Karabel 297). This annual report indicated that more than 25 percent of the
freshmen belonged to the varsity athletes in 1957 (297), supporting the idea that Princeton
actively sought students who could play sports. The data matches with the statement given by
E. Alden Dunham, the director of the admission who referred a few times in his official

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Running Head: MASCULINITY AND ITS IMPACT ON THE US COLLEGE ADMISSIONSYSTEM IN THE EARLY TWENTIETH CENTURY
statement on admission that physical energy is the qualities that Yale is seeking in every man
admitted to Princeton (318). Harvard also favored candidates with high athletic ability.
Varsity-level athletes, especially in football were rated high and compensated for low
academic records (190, 191). This preference for athletes was part of the university’s policy
which focused on the candidate’s physical characteristics (191). One of the criteria on theconfidential guidelines given to the Schools and Scholarship Committees was “‘Health andAthletic Activities’”, where young men with all-American looks were favored (191). For
instance, an applicant from a leading day school who has experienced the position of a leader
was accepted even with low academic scores, where he was described as a “‘large,
wholesome, attractive boy’” (191). This suggests that Harvard prioritized the experience of aleader and physical appearances over academics, which may have originated from the idea
discussed earlier, where men had to have manly characters and traits in order to take the leadin protecting and expanding the nation in the past. Thus, physical appearances, which is tied
to athletic ability, were an important criterion to look for a manly applicant who could
contribute to the good of the nation in the future. Yale was another university that preferred
men with manly traits. In 1928, it established the University Regional Scholarship, in order toadmit the ideal Yale man. The criteria were based on three factors and two of them were:“manhood, force of character, and moral leadership” and “physical soundness and vigor as
demonstrated by interest in sports and in other ways” (216). These explicitly show that Yale

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Running Head: MASCULINITY AND ITS IMPACT ON THE US COLLEGE ADMISSIONSYSTEM IN THE EARLY TWENTIETH CENTURY
emphasized the concept of masculinity since “force of character” suggests the power toinfluence the nation and “physical soundness and vigor” imply the strength needed to protect
and to prosper the nation, according to the historical idea mentioned earlier. Thus, theseexamples in the admission systems of the Big Three clearly suggest that athletic abilities andmanly characters were some of the most important elements for the US universities at thetime.
The preference for manliness was also reflected in the denial of admitting Jewish
applicants. In general, Jews were thought to be lacking in masculinity, which partly referredto having the courage to engage in violence to protect the nation, at the time (Karabel 133).
They were described to be bookish, have a weak physique, and show little preference toengage and succeed in sports (133). Part of the reason for this is that Jews lacked military andstate, where they have not experienced getting out of the oppression31, unlike the US which
had won independence from the colonial power. This led Jews to not have the opportunity toengage in manly adventure and to be physically strong, lacking the manly character. The
Jews also defined manliness differently from the US, where they emphasized more on
learning than physical empowerment (133, 134). Thus, all of these factors led many Jews to
be unattractive to some US universities. For instance, Robert Nelson Crowin, the chairman of
Yale’s Board of Admission between 1920 and 1933, stated that Jews lacked “‘manliness,
uprightness, cleanliness, native refinement, etc’” (111), clearly suggesting Jews be deficient

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Running Head: MASCULINITY AND ITS IMPACT ON THE US COLLEGE ADMISSIONSYSTEM IN THE EARLY TWENTIETH CENTURYin manly character. With the negative impression on Jews, he decided to put a quota on themto limit its number admitted being below 10 percent of the whole class (112), a big
disadvantage for them.
The research results suggest that historical ideologies play a role in forming andsupporting masculinity, influencing college admissions. This raises a debatable point that
historical events could influence the opportunities available to young adults. In the case of the
topic of masculinity, those who did not satisfy the favorable characteristics of men had
difficulties in entering some universities, limiting their chances to succeed in higher
education and probably in their careers. Even though the movements toward gender equality
should have mitigated the issue later on, it is expected that some boys suffered from theadmission system at the time. The research also proposes the idea that the idea of masculinity
would vary among nations. The American ideologies of nationalism, militarism, andimperialism were introduced as some of the factors influencing the definition of the idealmen, leading to the preference for athletes and other manly characters. However, this alsomeans that countries with different historical backgrounds and cultural values would havedifferent perspectives on manliness. Additionally, while social and economic changes led the
US to use sports as a means of expressing masculinity, other countries may have found othermethods, again creating differences in the definition of manliness. Thus, it would be

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Running Head: MASCULINITY AND ITS IMPACT ON THE US COLLEGE ADMISSIONSYSTEM IN THE EARLY TWENTIETH CENTURY
important to understand that the concept of masculinity is not definite but varies dependingon the countries and their backgrounds.
In conclusion, it was found that the American historical ideologies contributed toforming the concept of masculinity, eventually leading the US universities to prefer admitting
applicants with high athletic abilities and other manly characteristics in the early twentiethcentury. In precise, the ideologies of nationalism, militarism, and imperialism in the pastcreated the notion that men with traits including courage, bravery, honor, and perseverance tobe important in order to defend and progress the nation. However, economic and socialchanges including the industrial revolution, the growing empowerment of women and theminorities, and the end of the Civil War led to the fear that masculinity would be weakened.
Thus, sports became popular as a means to express and strengthen manly characteristics. Thiswas reflected in the college admission system at the time where men with high athletic
abilities and attractive physical appearances, as well as manly characters were preferred. It
also led to limiting the number of Jews admitted to the class, partly because they lacked
masculinity. Therefore, these findings suggest the strong support for manly traits around theearly twentieth century in the US and how universities tried to admit potential students who
are more likely to bring benefits to the nation in the future.
As the scope for future investigation, the research can be extended by comparing the
masculinity between the US and other countries, such as Japan. With different cultures and8

Running Head: MASCULINITY AND ITS IMPACT ON THE US COLLEGE ADMISSIONSYSTEM IN THE EARLY TWENTIETH CENTURY
historical backgrounds, it is very likely that the two nations had different perceptions of theideal men and thus, leading to the differences in the admission systems in universities.

Works Cited
Cohran Susan Sims. “Exploring Masculinities in the United States and Japan.” Dissertations,
Theses and Capstone Projects, vol. 59, 2009,https://digitalcommons.kennesaw.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1054&context=etd.
Accessed 23 Dec. 2020.
Connell, R. W. “Teaching The Boys: New Research on Masculinity, and Gender Strategies for
Schools.” Teachers College Record, vol. 98, no. 2, 1996,
https://moodle.swarthmore.edu/pluginfile.php/62517/mod_resource/content/0/Readings/Wee
k_08/Connell.pdf. Accessed 23 Dec. 2020.
Gillam, Hallie. “The Culture of Football in the United States: How Hegemonic Masculinity
Affects and Is Expressed in American Football.” Honors Thesis, 2019,https://egrove.olemiss.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2043&context=hon_thesis. Accessed
23 Dec. 2020.
Karabel, Jerome. The Chosen: The Hidden History of Admission and Exclusion at Harvard, Yale,and Princeton. Houghton Mifflin Company, 2006.

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Running Head: MASCULINITY AND ITS IMPACT ON THE US COLLEGE ADMISSIONSYSTEM IN THE EARLY TWENTIETH CENTURY
Nagel, Jonae. “Masculinity and Nationalism: Gender and Sexuality in the Making of Nations.”
Ethnic and Racial Studies, vol. 21, no. 2, 1998,
doi:https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/014198798330025. Accessed 23 Dec.
2020.

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