The Age of the Bachelor

"What a wonderful book! Who would have expected that a history of bachelor subculture would illuminate so much of the nation's past? . . . A major contribution to a hitherto largely unexamined subject."--Benjamin G. Rader, author of American Sports: From the Age of Folk Games to the Age of Television "Being single is typically understood as a stage of life, not a way of life. Yet in this remarkable study of bachelorhood at the turn of the last century, Howard Chudacoff explodes our myths about those errant sons and strange uncles, and reveals a subculture of masculine resistance--and thus gives bachelorhood its first history."--Michael Kimmel, author of "Manhood in America: A Cultural History" "A century ago they were misfits, pariahs, deviants, vagrants, even criminal suspects. Today, bachelors evoke images of hedonistic baby-boomers and Hugh Hefner want-to-bes. Howard Chudacoff strips those images of their simplicity, convincingly showing bachelorhood to be not only misunderstood but a hidden and common social custom in American history. Full of insight and broad vision. . . ."--Timothy J. Gilfoyle, author of "City of Eros: New York City, Prostitution, and the Commercialization of Sex, 1790-1920" ""The Age of the Bachelor" is an extremely well researched study of an important subject that had not been previously examined in any book. Chudacoff has excellent command of the secondary literature. He masterfully generated quantitative data about bachelors in three major cities, Boston, Chicago, and San Francisco, to provide us with a far more accurate accounting of bachelors than we ever had before. While the book concentrates on the period from about 1800 to 1930, Chudacoff does analyze the nature of bachelorhood throughout all of American history. He explains why bachelorhood was so surprisingly widespread, examines bachelors' domestic lives, the institutions and associations they participated in, and how the male bachelor subculture influenced male culture in general. This book is an important contribution to social and gender history, and it should be widely read. The book is analytically sound, well-written, with many interesting anecdotes, and should be of interest to scholars and general readers alike."--Steven A. Riess, Northeastern Illlinois University, author of "Sport in Industrial America, 1850-1920" "This book deals with a distinctive and important topic of broad interest, and it does so convincingly, engagingly, and clearly. A truly superior work of scholarship, it is also a pleasure to read."--E. Anthony Rotundo, Phillips Academy, author of "American Manhood: Transformations in Masculinity from the Revolution to the Modern Era" ""The Age of the Bachelor" adds an important element to the rich literature of gender, culture, and urban history in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries.... The research is exhaustive. The book is very well written and is blissfully free of jargon, making it accessible to readers both inside and outside the field."--Elaine Tyler May, University of Minnesota, author of "Barren in the Promised Land: Childless Americans and the Pursuit of Happiness"