Post-Grant Reports

Title

Masculinity Studies on Two Continents and in Two Eras: Thomas A. Hickey in Victorian Dublin and Progressive Era America, 1868-1925

Document Type

Report

Publication Date

3-6-2014

Disciplines

United States History

Abstract

This project was part of a much larger work, a definitive biography of Thomas Aloysius Hickey (1868-1925) in the genre of the “New Biography,” which means by necessity using more than collections of letters, diaries and writings—work that is attentive to the lives of non-elites, women, workers, people of color and all manner of others whose lives and experiences are often obscured in more sweeping historical studies. The new biographer strays far from the narrow bounds of history to include sociology, anthropology, psychology, and even fiction to put together a profound and interesting account of a life. Beyond all that, the “new biography” must also use, in Hickey’s case, masculinity studies, a relatively new (20 years) discipline in the United States but still in its infancy in Ireland. The theory of masculinity studies and its application through the “New Biography” was very helpful in understanding the mindset of an Irish-American revolutionary leader and in rereading Hickey’s correspondence with his significant other, Clara Boeer, in a completely new light. The paper that resulted from this project was presented at the very first conference on masculinity studies in the history of Irish academia (Ireland and Masculinities in the longue durée), held at the National University of Ireland in Galway, and it will be published in an anthology by Palgrave Macmillan in 2016.

Comments

This research was conducted as part of a Linfield College Student-Faculty Collaborative Research Grant in 2013, funded by the Office of Academic Affairs.

The student collaborator was Alanna Stanton.

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