Cow boys and cattle men
Subtitle: class and masculinities on the nineteenth-century Texas frontier
By: Jacqueline M. Moore.
Contributors: William P. Clements Center for Southwest Studies.
Publisher: New York University Press
Published: 2009
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 269
ISBN-13: 9780814757390
Subjects: Cowboys -- Texas -- History -- 19th century; Ranchers -- Texas -- History -- 19th century; Masculinity -- Texas -- History -- 19th century; Sex role -- Texas -- History -- 19th century; Ranch life -- Texas -- History -- 19th century; Frontier and pioneer life -- Texas; Cattle trade -- Social aspects -- Texas -- History -- 19th century; Social classes -- Texas -- History -- 19th century; Texas -- Social life and custom -- 19th century; Texas -- Social conditions -- 19th century
Other titles: Cowboys and cattlemen
Description: "Cowboys are an American legend, but despite their ubiquity in history and popular culture, misperceptions abound. Technically, a cowboy worked with cattle, as a ranch hand, while his boss, the cattleman, owned the ranch. Jacqueline M. Moore casts aside romantic and one-dimensional images of cowboys by analyzing the class, gender, and labor histories of ranching in Texas during the second half of the nineteenth century." "As working-classmen, cowboys showed their masculinity through their skills at work as well as public displays in town. But what cowboys thought was manly behavior did not always match those ideas of the business-minded cattlemen who largely absorbed middle-class masculine ideals of restraint. Real men, by these standards, had self-mastery over their impulses and didn't fight, drink, gamble, or consort with "unsavory" women, Moore explores how, in contrast to the mythic image, from the late 1870s on, as the Texas frontier became more settled and the open range disappeared, the real cowboys faced increasing demands from the people around them to rein in the very traits that Americans considered the most masculine."--BOOK JACKET.
Notes: "Published in cooperation with the William P. Clements Center for Southwest Studies, Southern Methodist University."

Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: pt. 1. Doing the job; title: Of men and cattle; title: From boys to men; title: At work; title: pt. 2. Having fun; title: A society of men; title: Men and women; title: In town; title: Epilogue: The cowboy becomes myth.