Homework answers / question archive / Multiple think pieces:Students also will write short “Think Pieces” which have two purposes: to prompt you to think carefully and critically, and to write clearly and succinctly, about the work(s) under consideration

Multiple think pieces:Students also will write short “Think Pieces” which have two purposes: to prompt you to think carefully and critically, and to write clearly and succinctly, about the work(s) under consideration

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Multiple think pieces:Students also will write short “Think Pieces” which have two purposes: to prompt you to think carefully and critically, and to write clearly and succinctly, about the work(s) under consideration. These are to be brief analyses (no more than two paragraphs or 500 words total) that assess some aspect of the assigned material, such as: strengths and weaknesses; links, if any, to course themes; and questions or avenues of discussion that the class might pursue.How you go about writing these is largely up to you, but they should not just be a summary of the reading. Nor is a Think Piece a research paper. (You are, of course, welcome to look into other works on the same subject, but you are not expected to do so.) For some advice on writing in this genre, see this

Think PIeces are on the following:

1.Winnie the WAC comic strip Winnie the WAC | (tcj.com

2.WAC Pamphlet(Choose one from site) Women Veterans Historical Project (uncg.edu)

3. The Home Front Private SNAFU - The Home Front (1943) - YouTube

4. No Exceptions "No Exceptions" 1943 Homefront Propaganda (full) - YouTube

5.Jarvis, Intro, Chapter 1-Uploaded photos of book

A Guide to Think Pieces, Reflection Papers, and Reaction Papers These assignments are short papers with an informal tone that show clear, critical, and independent thought about a reading, series of readings, film, or any other text. More than just an emotional response, these papers should evaluate and question. All three types of assignments require the same steps— reading, thinking, and of course, writing. Reading the text. How you read the text is just as important as how you write about the text. There are many things to consider as you read. ? Keep the assignment in mind. Does the assignment ask for a response to a specific issue within the text, or does it ask for a more general and open response targeting the text as a whole? ? Underline or mark passages that “speak” to you. This practice will save time during the writing stage. ? Write down ideas that are sparked by the text, so you won’t forget your immediate reactions. These ideas might lead to the topic of your think piece (and they might prove useful for class discussions). ? Note the smaller themes in the text as well as the larger ones. They may turn out to be pivotal to the direction of your paper. Thinking about the text. How you think about the text provides a segue into writing about the text. Here are a few questions to ponder while you think. ? How do you react to the text? Does anything strike you as particularly interesting, bothersome, worthy of further thought? Answering these questions will help you come up with ideas for topics. ? Where are the holes in the text? Does the author cover the topic thoroughly? What has the author left out that you feel is integral? Are there any questionable assumptions made by the author? These can be points to elaborate on during writing. ? What path do you want your reflections to take? After exploring your initial reaction, consider what direction to pursue. Short outlines, diagrams, or lists of ideas to cover can be useful at this point. Writing about the text. How you write about the text is a reflection of what you thought while reading. Consider these tips as you write. ? Though your think piece need not follow a formal essay structure, organization, content, and clarity is still important. ? Don’t merely summarize. Develop your own thoughts and reflections in connection to the text. ? Lead your reader somewhere beyond the simple observation; in other words, make a point or several points and examine them in depth. (continued on reverse) The Center for Writing and Speaking • McCain Library • 404.471.5201 W ? ? ? NO. 35 IN THE CENTER FOR WRITING AND SPEAKING HANDOUT SERIES Thinking It Through: A Guide to Think Pieces, Reflection Papers, and Reaction Papers Use examples and quotations from the assigned text to support what you say. Effective quotations make the piece stronger and more convincing. Use the assignment to express more than how you “feel” about the text or problem. Whether you liked the text or not is relevant but should not be the central focus of your think piece. Make connections between the assigned text and the course content (lecture or discussion topics, other readings, films, guest lectures, student presentations). Show that you are thinking holistically. Above all, explore your own ideas and thoughts about the assigned text; after all, that is the point of the assignment. Think pieces are designed to make you, the writer, think! For more information on reflections and think pieces, see: The Responsive Writer, Jocelyn Siler The Student Writer, Barbara Fine Clause: 364-392 The St. Martin’s Handbook (7th ed): 105-106 The Center for Writing and Speaking • McCain Library • 404.471.5201 16 THE MALE BODY AT WAR mensions of the construction project. The three sets of workers in the ously involved in building the dam, Gropper emphasizes the human Although heavy machinery and modern industrial processes are con backdrop for the men's labor. Notably absent, too, is the huge crane a ground upstage the dam itself, which, like the concrete factory, serves 2 ently moving the massive steel liner in the center panel. Reinforcing for where to place the steel piece. Admist fears that mass production has idea of human control, the figure on top of the liner signals to the opette contributed to unemployment and rendered certain masculine skills os lete, Gropper's heroic representation of the dam workers effectively helped restore dignity and importance to physically demanding labor cartoonist for the New Masses, Gropper held leftist political views that un doubtedly influenced his representations; the historically inaccurate im. age of black and white men laboring together reflected his political ideals rather than actual working conditions. Nevertheless, Gropper's mural fit within a larger body of New Deal art that sought to restore people's sense of hope as well as within a smaller body of work that specifically ad- dressed the particular crisis in masculinity. Although many New Deal public artworks shared common aims and themes, the sheer variety of projects and the local placement of murals and sculptures prevented 1930s images of male bodies from having the same widespread cultural effects that wartime representations would have. Lack- ing the coherent, more carefully controlled national imaging campaign that World War Il posters and films created, New Deal art images offered Important but local means for reconstructing images of masculinity during the depression. Notwithstanding, 1930s representations of heroic male establishing the symbolic function and aesthetic ideals of male bodies and Laid the foundation for the wartime efforts to rebuild American masculinity on a national scales a commented on the parallels between a mais F.D.R.'S "TWO VODILS" during the person occurred in the creation of Roosevelt's individual and its leads and body, body pomc thu hoats wing years after 1 ability or of his that the major car 26 THE MALE BODY AT WAR offered In order to depict the traces of local economies and to representa took many forms such as mine canning ang aking have variety of ordinary men and women artists Images of purposete paining sewers, and building das These representations of Americans communicated a sense of hope and optimism and portant messages about under roles democratic ideals, and the sex Vision of labor Art historian bura Melosh has observed that many mon political thetoric. One recurring configuration, Melosh agar Deal artists used images of manhood and womanhood as tropes in a com common goal. According to Melos, this 1930s image of the com Tadely ideal" can be viewed as a revision of companionate martiase. "showed men and women side by side, working together or fighting Vot that deemphasized its privatism and instead made marriage a trope to the farm family, meanwhile, offered icons of "homespun democracy (Melosh). Indeed, many New Deal murals and sculptures accentuated men and women's combined efforts as they simultaneously stressed get Given the particular crisis in masculinity that the widespread unemploy. ment of the 1930s had precipitated, it is not surprising that most images of puid labor almost exclusively featured men. Although a few pieces did in clude representations of women working in traditionally feminine Occupe tions such as teaching and nursing, most depictions of female labor focused citizenship (4). Other images of men and women, such as depictions of der complementarity 3.Like and SC heroist Gener on the domestic sphere. Hy showing an outdated sexual division of labor the images helped calm anxieties over men's lost status as breadwinners while firmly gendering the workplace as a male domain. Often the male workplace in these New Deal artworks was one of heavy industry, as artists focused on the physically demanding labor of blue-collar workers. Like their counterparts in the CCC, these workers were often well muscled and generally depicted in a heroic manner. Often compared stylistically to 1930s Soviet social realist images of workers, these heroic representations of brawny blue-collar workers were no doubt influenced by the growing labor movement in the U.S. and by Marx ist theory, Ultimately, though, the images borrowed the iconography of the labor movement without many of its political intentions. Thanks to the Dam ture tych ley fear stret ers' taske too conservative policies of Section, PWAP, and TRAP administrators, sugges- tions of labor unrest were not permitted. Instead of portraying class strug gle or radical politics, artists largely focused on workers' physical strength, mastery, dignity, and cooperation with one another (Melosh 92). In Section art by Behn Shahn, Maurice Glickman, William Zorach, Michael Lensen, Int ous Wa jac the abe their environment.23 Sahl Swarz, K. William Gropper, and others, Ordinary workers are endowed with a type of heroism as they labor productively and in full control of en Covering the front entry of the Department of Interior Building in Washington, D.C., William Gropper's Section mural "Construction of the fo of working offered im wany w in a com at Ang tot se "com age, O rope for eions of ?????? tuated od gen- ploy ses of din- - Like many other New Deal artworks, K. William Gropper's 1939 Section of Painting und Sculpture mural Construction of the Dam" endows workers with extraordinary General Services Administration) erolsen evident in their muscular physiques and awe-inspiring tasks. (Courtesy of the used abor nets nale ists ke nd of 0 Dam (fig. 3) provides a superb example of these artistic attempts to cap- ture the heroism of industrial masculine labor. The grand scale of the trip- tych provides a certain epic quality to the scenes from the Tennessee Val- ley Authority construction project, but it is the brawny physiques and fearlessness of the workers that primarily convey their heroism. The strength and power of their bodies is revealed not only through the work- ers' broad shoulders and sturdy frames but also through the awe-inspiring tasks they perform. Five men in the far right panel forcefully ply their tools as they collectively bend and shape a set of steel reinforcement rods. In the center panel, a group of construction workers engages in a strenu- ous levering task, which compels some of the men to remove their shirts. Workers in the left panel, meanwhile, bravely attack the rock face with fackhammers and traverse sheer cliffs as they prepare the future side of the dam. Whether bending steel or moving rock, the workers reveal their abilities to tame the landscape through their physical prowess. Even the engineer and surveyor pictured in the corner of the center panel have muscular physiques. Physically completing the triangular configuration of men, the engineer and surveyor, it seems, could easily step in and per- form this strenuous work as well. middle-class or ating the hea CCC enrollees significance, a figures during portant traini to mobilize THE MALE BODY AT WAR 14 cam civilian orgas served then 1940 requiri ing "essenti. (qtd. in MCE McEntee wa camp was also desidere Manners and morals. In addition to shaping and the bodies of enrollees, me Youth Commission, Frank mest and Kenneth Holland note Visit to the home of the study of the CCC for the NC most COC Youth had we knowledge of social sige at the time a Folining the Corps. They were wat in such marrers as appropriate etiquette" (2101. To cut these respectable behaviors, some on simple Caracadut, sprch meeting people, and spread or overnment CCC administrators and educational others Instituted courses in the though these classes were never wid working on traducing the course on social training as ular part of imple during the ways of the Corps's existence perimental educational programa en cumps offered courses and w vidual guidance on such topics as table manners, courting, social dancing and the art of conversing socially camp administrators also sought to eradicate online former rough recreational activities such as drink Ing gambling and "bumming around" by promoting participation in singing groups and the camp newspaper. Indeed, brochures reinforce wholesome activities such as woodworking, sports, leathercraft, formal) this idealled representation of camp recreation activities by including Pictures of youths swimming playing volleyball, attending religious set Throughout Holland and Hills and McEntee's writings on the CCC proper social conduct, educational training and wholesome recreational CCC do are With years pline, the fense work retooling soldiers be The CC workers at projects su Relief Art (1934-43 vices and reading in the library ( WPA/FA program man-bul siderably activities are inextricably linked to the notion of developing good citizens While discussing the more than 85,000 CC enrollees who became literate wa part of camp educational programs, McEntee notes that their ability to participate as citizens in a democracy has been substantially improved (51). While the connection between literacy and voting is logical in any discussion of democratic citizenship, other comments about enrollees' so- cial deportment reveal that camp administrators often had a more specific model of respectable male citizenship in mind. Citing the necessity for ad. ditional courses in social training. Holland and Hill write, "It was not diffi- marry. perform grams s cult to show that getting and keeping a job, successful courting and ing the proper raising of a family, and the future role of the youth as a citizen might all depend greatly upon phases of social knowledge and prac. ther am By linking citizenship with both "proper" social behavior and enrollwer status as future husbands and fathers, this comment once again the crea posters librarie people withic Alt one s men and highlights the Corps's efforts to produce respectable working-class to preserve the ideologically laden ideal of the male breadwinner. the herit then mon Ame by employing and training more than 2.9 million men, the CCC PIO vided an important site for literally and symbolically rebuilding masculini ties damaged by the depression. The Corps produced highly visible heroic and useful workers, and through its inculcation of respectable" values, the CCC also preserved and extolled values associated with the ideal of the Wh side ??? BUILDING THE BODY POLITIC 25 rollees, We the orals. We for the Amet and note than She time of the appropriate de eople, and table S, some camp ere never wide al officers were ning" as a ter existence. Ex ses and indi ocial dancing So sought to Acadwinner. Moreover, omncial government discourses associ in the health and vigor" of the nation with the brawn and abilities of Cees endowed youthful male bodies with special metaphorical A World War II. More practically, CCC camps also became im sce, opening the door for a more widespread use of symbolic male A training grounds for defense workers and soldiers as the US. began A Bor war Although initially conceived of and publicized as a organization, the CCC was quickly converted into an agency that the nation's defense. In fact, Congress enacted legislation in June sential to the operations of the Military and Naval Establishments" Oring the CCC to provide its enrollees with noncombatant train- in Mcntee 6-4). Even without substantially modifying CCC programs, Be was able to boast in 1940 that "over 70 per cent of the jobs the With years of vocational training experience and proven military disci- O do are the same kinds that engineer troops perform in wartime" (67). ping the CCC easily modified its focus to produce much sought after de free workers and soldiers. Once again, C Camps offered a location for Alles began to replace those of heroic workers. tooling national images of masculinity, as representations of toughened uch as drink icipation in craft, formal reinforced including -ligious ser projects such as the Public Works of Art Project (PWAP, 1933-34), the Treasury the CCC ecreational d citizens ne literate eir ability mproved al in any llees' so- specific for ad- ot diffi- marry th as a d prac The CCC was not the only New Deal agency that presented images of heroic weekers and strong masculine bodies. Artists working for federally funded art Relief Art Project (TRAP, 1935-43), the Section of Painting and Sculpture (1934-43), and the Works Progress Administration's Federal Art Project WPA/FAP, 1935-43) also created images of brawny male workers as part of the programs' larger aim to uplift the American people's spirits. Unlike the explicit man-building focus of the CoC, the goals of New Deal art programs were con siderably broader. In addition to employing thousands of artists in the visual, performing and written arts and documenting the American Scene," the pro- grams sought to "democratize" art by bringing it to a wider audience through the creation of community art centers and public artworks 20 With murals and posters appearing in schools, post offices, state capitols, government buildings, libraries, hospitals, prisons, and other tax-supported institutions, the American people entered into a new relationship with art- especially as they interacted with ideologically charged images. Although it is impossible to characterize New Deal art in terms of any one style or content matter, public art as a whole was intended to supply the American people with optimism, patriotism, and a sense of common heritage and purpose (Park and Markowitz 31). To this end, several key themes emerged, as artists attempted to celebrate the dignity of the com- mon man and woman, the practicality of the arts, New Deal programs, American history, social activism, and the "American Scene" (Bustard 22).21 side, artists frequently captured the heroism of everyday life, often through representations of Americans engaged in purposeful labor. or and again n and pro- lini eroic the the Whether presenting the past or present, farm or factory, city or country- THE MALE BODY AT WAR that 22 to latoare writes drill the ENSE S fob" (42 most m ciency these at cam The photographs of CCC enrollees also reinforce official claims program built able men by conditioning their bodies through work and isthenics. Showing generally fit, lean men completing tasks requiring do time in a CCC camp generally produced a striking change in an ous physical strength, the photographs support McEntee's assertion that rollee's physical appearance" (58). Indeed, on average, youths gained 12 the hard work, calisthenics, and nutritious meals that were part of pounds and grew one-half inch in height during their stays largely due to helped promote the program to Congress and future participants, reports life (Salmond 129). While testimonials from McEntee and former entonces the physical transformation of the CCC man's body carried important sy bolic resonance as well. In his introduction to McEntee's book, FSA admin "building up the strength and vigor of society" (xi). After metaphorically Istrator Paul McNutt claims that the CCC was a key institution for describing the depression in terms of tubercular disease, McNutt notes that "the creation of the COC was one of the first strong measures taken by the CCC as attitude cated "value This aged government of the United States to combat the ills of the depression" The healing and preservation of society, McNutt suggests, stems from "building the health and character and skills of young men" (xii). Equating national strength and health with men's fitness and vigor, McNutt's com- Al soug! spect bodi sym gro and ease tais gie ments point to the growing symbolic importance of the male body that would later become more widespread as America mobilized for war. In offering both a literal and symbolic site of "man building," CCC camps endeavored to produce a particular type of working-class masculin. ity that fostered service to the nation. As McEntee outlined, the ultimate goal of the CCC in turning "idle boys into "sturdy young men" was to produce better husbands..., better workers, better neighbors, and better citizens (69). During most of the agency's existence, this goal of producing "better" men meant instilling "respectable" masculine values associated of tes ca with the middle-class breadwinner ideal. Jeffrey Suzik has noted, however, that after 1939 the CCC model of masculinity shifted from worker to sol- dier as America began its military preparedness programs. Although care- fully portrayed as a civilian agency during the antimilitarism and isolation- ise of the early and mid-1930s, the CCC, which employed some 225,000 World War I veterans and used Reserve Army officers as camp comman- ders, cultivated a model of masculinity compatible with military service thoughout its entire nine-year existence. Indeed, many "World War II offi- cers prized CCC veterans as noncommissioned officers" (Bird 129) because of the training, work ethic, and prior national service. At the heart of the respectable masculinity advocated by McEntee and woket tequilted more than developing physical strength and performing wonderlike the docile bodies in Michel Foucault's Discipline and Punish, COC enrollees were expected to develop self-discipline and self-correction 20 THE MALE BODY AT WAR out Thor buld sta bre: cor of rejection rate, while the Northwest,"referred to by draft boards as geographical areas. Throughout the war, the South averaged a 50 peta health triangle, produced more this for general service) men than other region (Ralph Martin 2). The reasons for refection were also tena Signs of the general health of the nation's men. A leading cause for de missal (17.7%) among peacetime draftees and volunteers was dental dards. Considering that these so-called "high standards required te natural incisor teeth" or in the place of natural teeth,"serviceable de trants "to have six serviceable natural masticating teeth and six serviceable tures, the health expectations for American men were by today's standards quite low (Foster et al. 21). These rejection figures reveal that the deptes sion had an enormous toll on the bodies as well as the minds Of Amenn men and boys. Given the extreme challenges to public and private con structions of American masculinity during the 1930s, it is not surprising that F.DR.'s New Deal programs attempted to repair damaged models the con th in WA ye gr manhood as they sought more generally to provide national relief. of va be ir HEROIC WORKERS --THE CCC AND NEW DEAL ART ha Part of Roosevelt's broader goals to restore economic and social stability 1 immediate relief for families by putting people back to work. Although they a New Dear programs such as the che conosadministration (CW never supplied enough jobs to eliminate America's unemployment prob lems, these programs quickly put idle hands to use completing a wide range of public projects such as building parks, repairing roads, planting trees, and beautifying public spaces. The CWA, for example, employed 4 million people within two months of its November 1933 inception, and the WPA hired more than 8 million Americans during its eight-year life span (Nash 4). While providing immediate economic relief, the programs also worked to restore men's status as breadwinners. Because of the gendered nature of many programs' jobs, and restrictions that allowed only one family mem- ber to receive this relief work, the agencies primarily put men back to work Employment in the CCC, in fact, was specifically limited to young men between the ages of 17 and 25.14 Created on April 5, 1933, under Roosevelt's Executive Order 6101, the CCC employed more than 2.9 million single, jobless, primarily working clas young men during its nine years of existence. One of the New Deals most popular programs, the CCC helped preserve America's natural re. sources as its enrollees transformed parts of the nation's landscape. Men in the CCC ultimately planted 2,356,000,000 trees, erected 66,000 miles of firewall, built 122,000 miles of minor roads, stocked streams and ponds with 1,000,000,000 fish, and constructed more than 300,000 permanent dams and 45,000 bridges (Merrill 196).15 Moreover, the agency aided Ameri can families by requiring that CCC workers send home a minimum of $22 THE BODY POLITIC 2a us that the k and can iring or ition than n lan en zained 12 ly due to of camp enrollees eports of ant sym- admin- ion for orically es that bor expectations. Explaining the Corps's role in this process, McEntee more important, the CCC can teach men how to work. It can the habit of work into them. It can teach them how to work when the Dos mor around. It can teach them how to follow instructions on the ANO 2. This proper attitude toward work" (60), Mcintee suggests, is al- most more riportant than the technical knowledge of mechanical profi devices would learn during their time in the camps (60). Based on COC as producing management-friendly workers. 1Instilling this proper" these and other statements by Mountee, it becomes clear that he saw the atinde meant shifting away from a rough masculine culture that advo- cuted opposition to employers to a "respectable" model based on the Values of control, skill, autonomy, and independence" (Meyer 15, 16). The proper work ethic also lent itself to military service, which encour- And respect for command and independent completion of tasks. Along with cultivating a good work ethic among enrollees, CCC officials sought to instill principles of "clean living and discipline as they built "re- spectablemen. Often this involved the social disciplining of the men's bodies According to McEntee and others, if CCC enrollees were to serve as symbols of America's potential, it was important that they be clean, well groomed, and disease free. In addition to an initial physical examination and regular monthly inspections of the enrollees' bodies for venereal dis- secamp officials checked barracks to guarantee that the youths main- by the from ating com- that ??? ulin- mate us to etter ing cained sanitary conditions and displayed proper habits of personal hy- glene" (Holland and Hill 198). To ensure that the enrollees took proper care of their bodies, educational courses on health, safety, and first aid were of fered at many camps. As former CCC member Blackie Gold recalls, the camps' emphasis on clean living was often so successful that enrollees themselves enforced Corps personal hygiene standards: ted ver, Sol- re- en- 00 In the days of the CCC's, if the fella wouldn't take a bath, we'd give 'im what we call a brushing. We'd take this fella, and we'd take a big scrub brush and we'd give 'em a bath, and we'd open up every pore, and these pores would get in fected. That's all he needed was one bath. I imagine we gave a hundred of 'em. A guy would come in, he'd stink, ten guys would get him in the shower, and we'd take a GI brush. If a guy come in, he wanted to look like a hillbilly--no reflection on the boys from the South--but if he wanted to look like the backwoods, we'd cut his hair off. Yeah, we'd keep him clean. (qtd. in Terkel, Hard 58-59) ce 1- ce 1 While it is impossible to estimate how many of these "brushings" went on In the CCC camps, Gold's story suggests that the carefully enforced hygiene begulations indeed had an important impact on former enrollees' bodily habits and deportment. Foreshadowing the mass military management of male bodies that would occur in World War II, the camps' clean living and discipline regulations even mandated that CCC enrollees wear a spruce- green military style uniform when they were not performing on-site labor. BUILDING THE BODY POLITIC SAS 21 boards were also building American manhood, - Care Pas de required Six SI ???? aviceable de my's standa at the de out of their 30 monthly wages. As historian Jeffrey Ryan Suzik has noted, touch the nation's 1,500 CCC camps were also important locations for Unlike other New Deal work relief programs that restored men's statusas breadwinners as a side effect of their larger mission, the CCC was explicitly constructed as a "man-building agency. Promotional brochures, posters, the key and of the program was to make its enrollees "feel like and be official histories, and reports on the CCC frequently mentioned that one of Curre men corps director James McEntee, in fact, titled his 1940 book on the sky Now They Are Mon to Sugest that the CCC played a pivotal role in helping enrollees achieve manhood. Further exploring this connection within his volume, McEntee explains that within the Corps's then-seven- year history two and a half million boys have had the opportunity to grow into men (57). Indeed, throughout his descriptions of the conser on work done by the CCC, McEntee repeatedly turns to the "man- building process that occurs during enrollees' six-to thirty-month stays of America private the ot sur sef d models al stability on (CWA 20 provide pugh they ent prot- ide range ng trees million the WPA n (Nash worked ature of mem in the camps. Describing the tree planting program, Mentee writes, When a CCc enrollee' that is what the CC boys are officially called) has planted 25,000 trees, he feels like a man" (18). Central to McEntee's definition of feeling like a man here, and throughout his volume, is the notion of performing useful, productive work. In his chapter on Results, McEntee clarifies this connection between manhood and social useful ness: "The only way that boys grow to manhood is to undertake the work and responsibility of men. In the CCC they can feel like the work they are doing is important to the nation's welfare as the work of any man they know" (57). Given the program's official rhetoric and dominant cultural constructions of masculinity based on the breadwinner ideal, it is hardly camp had made a man" of them. surprising that former enrollees often reported that their work in the Program brochures and other forms of publicity likewise stressed the so- cial usefulness of the unskilled and semi-skilled labor that CCC enrollees performed. The Federal Security Agency's (FSA) promotional booklet The CCC at Work, 16 for example, featured numerous photographs of the young men engaged in various types of manual labor. Often in their work uni- forms but sometimes shirtless, the men in the photographs are shown swinging axes, carrying piping, and wielding picks and shovels as they en- gage in collective tasks such as road building, dam construction, and land terracing. To reinforce the social value of this manual work, one photo cap- tion promises that "When this boy leaves the CCC he will know how to do something useful" (73), while another reminds readers that many CCC projects have an important bearing on the community's health" (70). While primarily selling the program to working-class youths who wish to receive the "on the job training" (86) that the CCC provided, the booklet also elevates the nature of CCC enrollees' efforts by picturing men bravely fighting forest fires and rescuing families from floods. work men! 1, the king. Deal's al re- en in es of onds ment eri 522 BUILDING THE BODY POLITIC den NOEK cover every area for the past twenty-five years" (335). Due to Aces in mass commercial culture and technology, Helton complains, w" (308). Even the last domains of true manliness-felds like mining and in are threatened by technological advances: "The male eco- enfardainter World than our fathers, but also a far less Vine e action is taken over by Uranium 235, and there is nothing left for s is the end product of our modern Industrial romancing (540). De meno do but grow long hair or shake their fists at the planets. A Mr. Lip- Ne cms that America has adopted a woman as its national symbol and that manhood is becoming obsolete, Helton is hopeful that the U.S. can 10 segue degeneration (339). The answer, according to Helton, is "to tie a sophis emnine intuence before the nation has too much comfort, and made purpose to democracy (342), to "harden" our young men and TOT Dy work and weather to meet every possible storm (345). Under- Ding much of Helton's article is a eugenics rhetoric, which places the body of the center of his plans for America to achieve a more masculine put pose (342). Indeed, Helton calls for a resolution to raise up on this con- tinent the strongest, ablest, hardiest, and most intelligent race of men and women that ever inhabited the world (343). Taking care to distance his vi- Steak take ud Set wete the Peal phasis on physical strength and hard bodies. For America to succeed in its in. Of es- 78 e 8 sion of a newly strengthened, fit Ame from Hitler and his "machine- ske" men, Helton nevertheless admires Germany's discipline and its em upcoming war and for democracy to flourish in the postwar world, he sug- gests, the United States will need to reinvent its body politic and rebuild the individual bodies of its citizens. Although disturbing to modern readers who know the outcome of Hitler's racial hygiene programs, Helton's emphasis on strengthening Amer. ican bodies must be considered within the context of the depression's very real impact on the nation's health. Caroline Bird's description of the 12- year crisis as an "invisible scar" fittingly illustrates that the depression pro- foundly marked the bodies of many Americans; the scars, however, were far from invisible. While relatively few Americans actually starved to death, sickness and malnutrition increased dramatically, especially among the un- employed. 11 Unemployed families had an illness rate that was 66 percent greater than that of families with at least one full-time worker (McElvaine 18). Many unemployed workers were so malnourished that when they did receive work through New Deal programs or other sources, they had prob- lems physically performing the same work they did before the depression. Nowhere is the story of American men's ill health during the 1930s more clearly told, though, than in the Selective Service's prewar and wartime re- jection rates. Between November 1940 and August 1945, the army rejected close to 6.5 million men, or 35.8 percent of the men they examined for military service. The peacetime rates were even higher, when "total rejec- tions for induction ran as high as 52.8 percent" (Foster et al. 16).12 The re- glons hardest hit by the depression averaged more rejections than other 18 THE MALE BODY AT WAR don ady VO rna Although oral history accounts and letters reveal that the breadwi Ideal featured in these advertisements was held by many mien outside the ads' middle-class target audience, the ideal didn't always cut a racial lines. Recalling different expectations for black and white males du ican men actually had one big advantage" in often having been deste ing the depression, former teamster Clifford Burke notes that African Amer. had received. Remarking on these differences, Burke states: the status and social and economic privileges many white male WOLX.IS Our wives, they could go to the store and get a bag of beans or a sack of and a piece of fat meat, and they could cook this. And we could eat it. Steak A steak would kick in my stomach a mule in a tin stable. Now you take the white fella, he couldn't do this. His wife would tell him: Look at you do any better than this, I'm gonna leave you seen it happen. He couldn't stand bringing home beans instead of steak and capon... Why did these wheels kill themselves? They weren't able to live up to the standards they were accustomed to, and they got ashamed in front of their women. (qtd. in terkel st SE t 5 1 Hand 82-83) Like many indigent whites and other minorities, Burke recognized that the culturally dominant model of masculinity based on the breadwinner idea was not only racially inscribed but also firmly linked to middle-class in come and social values . For many poor and working-class families, it sim. ply was not feasible for the women to stay at home. The percentage of women working outside the home actually increased during the depres. sion, and "fully 25 percent of American women labored for wages during the 1930s" (Nash 76). The percentage of black women working outside the potential of black men. home was twice that of whites, in part because of the limited wage-earning In the wake of severe challenges to men's status as breadwinners, a few writers went so far as to view the United States as a "feminized" nation. Even before the depression, some male employees had begun to see the workplace as a feminized sphere. Many women had entered the workplace en masse in the 1920s and 1930s, and jobs themselves were increasingly viewed as "feminized, requiring less sheer strength and unique "mascu- line" skills. According to labor studies scholar Stephen Meyer, "Removing the male traits of brawn and brain from workplace skills, Taylorism and Fordism redefined skill as the endurance of repetitious and monotonous tasks and their speedy and dexterous performance. For both craftsmen and laborers, their work became unmanly" (17). Written at the tail end of the depression, Roy Helton's 1940 Harper's article "The Inner Threat: Our Own Softness captures fears that America had become a soft, feminized nation. Helton claims that America's greatest threat to survival war machine, which had already taken but rather the feminizing in BUILDING THE BODY POLITIC 17 O's te > Tot had on ng the 930 many artisements continued to prey upon men's fears about losing their Seful breadwinning remained strong throughout the 1930s. In fact, winner status in the same periodicals that promoted these new forms of mption-based masculinity: A 1934 Listerine advertisement, for exam caped on the anxieties of unemployed middle-class workers to pro- wer with his hat in one hand and his business card in the other, and the te proc. Featuring a photograph of a timid, dow cast white collar normerly with ... superimposed across his upper body, the ad focuses At that wa MILLION MEN. With its bold type and suggestion ons of "wrecked men, the ad clearly taps into concerns about current ment. The text of the ad explains the worker's specific plight: unemployment statistics and the diminished economic prospects of most There is peal to se. akan Pears of mas at "for e. Un them. pop ederal men Ot do) n the mer d the atre body ecog rkel, avere for He hands you a card half apologetically, half eagerly. You read across the bottom-"Formerly with. Then follows the name of a company that is a better company than the one he now represents. So with the company he represented before that one, and the one before that one. Downhill ... pillar to post... same line of work... but down hill... and he doesn't know why. Not surprisingly, the man's problem is halitosis, which is easily solved by using Listerine. While playing into consumer-based models of masculinity that focus on appearance and liability, the ad also relies on the ideal of the self-made man; it ultimately holds up the ideal of the go-getting fellow, a stem-winding whirlwind producer who can still rise to the top-provided that he has pleasing breath, of course. Other advertisements were more specific in targeting men's anxieties about their abilities to support their families. For instance, a 1938 magazine ad for the Fidelity Investment Association focused on the impact that a man's unemployment would have on his household. Featuring a photo- graph of a middle-aged white woman confronting her seated husband with the question "What would happen to us, John, if you lost your job?" the ad compels male viewers to reflect upon their status as the family providers. Shown only the back of the man's head, the reader is forced to meet the woman's worried stare and accusing posture as her husband contemplates the question that "husband and wife both dread to answer." Further elabo- rating on this query, the text of the ad asks "Where would they be, if the breadwinner were to lose his job?" While specifically gendering the role of the breadwinner as male, the ad also describes the man's "obligations" as family provider. He is expected to maintain the respect of his wife, to pay the regular bills, and the ad suggests, to have money enough to see [him] through the sunset years, to educate his children, to take advantage of business opportunities, to travel, (and) meet unforeseen emergencies." Al- though the ad promises that the Fidelity Investment Association will help en achieve these goals, the real onus is placed upon the male viewer and his ability to bring home and save part of a regular paycheck. ilies argh aan- hat, an't -op- ep- ad- als 2X- ew es by od BUILDING THE BODY POLITIC 15 ind initet and other heroes ch ASOOS Workers depicted in New Deal artworks help establish figura can relationships with public images. Moreover, many of the images Als that were later used in wartime representations of servicemen MAKING MEN 1930S CHALLENGES TO AMERICAN MASCUUNITY tad As journalist and depression historian Caroline Bird reminds us The devastating and longlasting effects of the depression cannot be stock market crashed in October 1929, America stopped growing and did "What is frequently overlooked and frequently forgotten is this: when the noty got moving again until the attack on Pearl Harbor - mobilized our resources Civ). The most obvious elements of this stagnation were the employment rates that remained high throughout most of the depres- o 12 years. Just one year after the October 1929 crash, unemployment rates for non-agricultural workers had risen from 3.2 percent to 8.7 percent. By 1937 that figure climbed to 15.9 percent and rose steadily until 1933, when one in four members of the workforce was jobless (Badger 18). As mas those statistics are, historian Anthony Badger argues that the reall- Dies of unemployment were probably worse: "The unemployment statistics were notoriously unreliable. It is quite likely that one third of those avail ng 2 able for work were jobless" (18). Most with jobs were not significantly better off than their unemployed counterparts; between 1929 and 1932, workers lost nearly a third of their real income, and "one economist estimated in January 1932 that half of those with jobs were working part-time" (Badger 19). It is hardly surprising, then, that an estimated one-third of the nation's families had an income below $1,200 per year and another third was right at subsistence level with an income of $2,000 per year (Badger 25). Even after a full four years of New Deal policies and federal relief, over a third of the nation was still "ill-housed, il clad, (and) ill-fed," as Roosevelt noted in his 1937 inaugural address. This one-third of the nation, the permanently poor, included much of America's black and elderly indigent populations. Often the last to be hired, blacks, women, and older workers were often the first to be laid off. An Urban League survey of 106 American cities reported that the proportion of blacks unem- ployed was anywhere between 30 and 60 per cent greater than for whites" (Badger 25). In southern cities it was not uncommon for half of black workers to be unemployed with the other half relegated to racially marked jobs such as garbage collection, street cleaning, and domestic service. Despite these high unemployment statistics for blacks, many African Americans who grew up in the 1930s report that depression did not alter job prospects and eco- nomic conditions as radically for blacks as it did for whites. Recalling his memories of the period, Robin Langston notes that "it was the Depression because no white(s) and no blacks were working. The whites not working made it official" (qtd. in Terkel, Hard 90). 16 THE MALE BODY AT WAR 11 with suc many ac breads consi ple, car mote it worker words on "72 of milli unem men." to appeal honest living" (qtd. in Badger 11). While these statistics begin to sketch out some of the depressioni's inous effects on the U.S. economy and standard of living they do TIO many American men. Numerous stories of men's despair over losing dress the particular psychological impact that 1930s hardships had jobs are preserved in the letters and oral histories left behind. In a 1950 cide note, for example, a Houston mechanic detailed his loss of sewah no work to be had. I can't accept charity and I am too proud caused by his unemployment: "This depression has got me licked. There is land flowing with milk and honey and a first-class mechanic can't make my kin or friends, and I am too honest to steal. So I see no other coun the depression, this man's death also speaks to a powerful crisis in mas Part of the rise in the national suicide rate during the first few years of most men the Depression was emasculating both at work and at home. U culinity that the depression created. Michael Kimmel has argued that "for employed men lost status with their wives and children and saw them selves as impotent patriarchs" (Manhood 199). With 35 percent of the pop ulation (more than 46 million people) receiving some form of federal assistance at some point during the 1930s (Badger 190-91), millions of me were forced to swallow their pride (as the Houston mechanic could not do and accept federal relief, eroding notions that they could still fit within the contemporary masculine ideal of the self-sufficient breadwinner. Former Not usin that self- ster tha businessman Ben Isaac recalls the humiliation he felt when he joined the relief rolls in Chicago: "Shame? You telin' me? I would go stand on that he lief line. I would look this way and that way and see if there's nobody around that knows me. I would bend my head low so nobody would recog. nize me. The only scar it left on me is my pride, my pride" (qtd. in Terkel, Hard 426). Often men's pride was hurt not just by the fact that they were receiving direct relief but also by the form in which it came. Local relief or- ganizations continued to distribute food and goods directly to families rather than provide financial assistance. As one unemployed Pittsburgh man noted, this form of relief was frequently another affront to one's man hood: "Does a man's status change when he becomes unemployed, so that, while he was perfectly able to handle money when he had a job, he can't abc ad ma th ?? SE w ti TE be trusted when he's out of work?" (qtd. in Badger 195). The depression op- erated on many fronts to erode a sense of masculinity based on the concep tion of the self-reliant breadwinner and patriarch. To counter the many challenges mass unemployment posed to the bread- winner model of masculinity, men's magazines and other popular periodicals t of the 1930s expanded their notions of manhood to include internal and ex temal qualities that were not necessarily tied to men's status as wage earners. Magazines such as Collier's and the American Magazine began to promote new forms of modern masculinity that allowed men to understand themselves through their personality, their physical vitality, and their ability to enjoy leisure time" (Pendergast 163). Nevertheless, the impulse to equate manhood ONE-BUILDING THE BODY POLITIC FROM THE DEPRESSION TO WORLD WAR II The Barclay pos newly refooled for man has replaced strength, activity, body the characte man's hands are main gun on a da the right arm cr clenched fist. 77 gests strength an magazine: the fo gaged in heroica depression coun man's muscular enough, Barclay placing the wo of Great Depression and World War II images Muscles will win this war Barclay's poste that the proces pression was ar Two poles i ages, the Bar transformatio American boc the countless possible pairing ---Charles Atlas, god. in of the male body, perhaps none is as striking as Will Barnet's Federal Art Project (FAP) lith. Marok, June 6, 1942 ograph "Idle Hands" (fig. 1) and McClelland Barclay's navy recruitment poster "Man the Guns" (fig. 2). Produced a mere six years apart, the two images of American masculin- ity represent remarkably different though closely linked cras. Barnet's print depicts an unemployed man, hunched over with his head resting on his arms. The title, coupled with Barnet's careful shading and strong lines, forces the viewer to gaze at the worker's sinewy, elongated hands. Like many of Bar- net's other FAP pieces, "Idle Hands" calls at- tention to the general despair of the depres- sion as well as to the particular crisis in masculinity that the 1930s precipitated. With approximately one quarter of the male work- United State though sever ages of masc tion during strongly gen war demand into war on warships as ments, Am the 1930s over 135,0 force unemployed and millions of others re- duced to part-time and federal relief work, the depression created millions of idle hands and raised numerous doubts about manhood in America. As masculinity studies scholar Michael Kimmel notes, "Never before had American men experienced such a massive and system-wide shock to their ability to prove manhood by providing for their fami- lies" (Manhood 192). Indeed, the male body in "Idle Hands" provides a fitting representa tion of masculinity in a nation crippled by had only (Dear 117 million m despite th military f bilize the to recons ous New the Wor the depression. male wc help tra BUILDING THE BODY POLITIC The Banday poster by contrast, offers a picture of American masculinity renooled for the United States' entry into World War II. The service- has replaced the worker as a key symbol of masculinity, and the the activity, and purposefulness of the figure in Harclay's Image em. body and characteristics of a nation involved in full-scale mobilization. The gun on a destroyer. While the left hand grasps the end of the shell, RUS hands are no longer idle; Instead, they hold a six-inch shell for the clenched it. The hist, like the rest of the sailor's muscled physique, sus the right am cradles the tip, leaving the right hand free to create a magazine the forceful diagonal lines in the image emphasize that he is en strength and power. But the man is no mere model in a 1940s muscle od in heroic activity, that he is doing his part to win the war. Unlike his open counterpart, the sailor's manhood is not in question. As if the enough, Barclay reminds us of his subject's unquestionable masculinity by man muscular upper body and his possession of the phallic shell were not Pacing the word "Man in bold, red letters in the center of the poster in Barclay's poster, a transformed symbolic male body emerges, suggesting that the process of shoring up damaged models of masculinity from the de precion was at last fully under way. airings images triking P) lith lelland transformation of male bodies that accompanied the very real rebuilding of an the years sculin nough cts an zh his eupled Trong orker's Bar- sat. res- in with ork- re- Two poles in a wide spectrum of depression and World War Il-era im. ages, the Barnet and Barclay pictures offer a glimpse into the symbolic American bodies, the armed forces, and the economy that occurred as the United States emerged from the depression and mobilized for war. Al- though several New Deal programs took Important steps to reconstruct im- ages of masculinity and to strengthen Americans' confidence in their na- tion during the depression itself, they did not produce the coherent and strongly gendered body politic that the rapid, full-scale mobilization of the war demanded. Militarily, the United States was ill prepared for its entry into war on December 8, 1941. Having scrapped close to a million tons of warships as part of 1922 Washington Naval Armament Conference agree- ments, America failed to maintain even a "treaty strength" fleet and during the 1930s kept on average fewer than 100,000 men in the navy and just over 135,000 soldiers in the army (Dear 1177). As late as 1940, the army had only 269,023 men, the navy 160,997, and the marines a mere 28,345 (Dear 1177). These numbers were well below the anticipated force of 12 million men that the United States needed to engage in a global war, and despite the peacetime draft implemented in September 1940, the American military found itself short by more than 10.5 million men. In order to mo- bilize the necessary manpower and flex U.S. muscles abroad, it was crucial to reconstruct public images of masculinity on a national scale. While vari- ous New Deal programs such as the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) and the Works Progress Administration (WPA) offered some heroic images of male workers, a more sustained national imaging campaign was needed to help transform millions of still unemployed men and their thin physiques ds Od ar d e 14 THE MALE BODY AT WAR America of cour tive Ide and oti COAT way the UNMA into muscular, able-bodied servicemen. For the United States, though, problem of reconstructing the symbolic male body was not limited to vidual citizens, the country had to take measures to reimagine and a body politic partly based on a disabled president. States was or is represented in any singular embodied form the The term "body politic is not used here to suggest that the United dieval body politic was figured in the idealized body of the monarch that metaphorical representations of a nation through embodied image Rather, the term is used as art historian Nicholas Mirzoeff uses it to propos whether in a monarchy, republic, or dictatorship, are always "sitels of ex change... mediated by visual signs (88). These spaces of exchange be tween people and nation are also in constant dialogue "with changing nation both reflect and influence prevailing gender, racial, and other cu ideas of gender and cultural politics (88). Thus, embodied symbols of the tural norms. Although both male and female bodies and symbols con tributed to the newly strengthened national body politic of World War the media utilized the human body syrnbolically in their representations of male bodies were particularly significant, as U.S. government agencies and the nation. In keeping with centuries of artistic representation of heroit the serviceman offered a more easily interpreted image of national strength male bodies, the symbolic muscular, youthful (often white) male body of The overst "Wha stock not ourr unen sion rates By I whe grin ties we: abi CO and power than its female counterpart and was more in keeping with a min Because the body politic has since the late eighteenth century, failed to be located in any one centralized site, in investigating the rebuilding of the American body politic during the 1930s and 1940s, we must explore multi- ple places in which the nation was figured bodily: representations of male workers in New Deal artworks and in literature about the CCC; the media and government conspiracy to distance ED.R.'s political body from his real, disabled body, the deployment of Uncle Sam images in cartoons and posters, and the general utilization of young, heroic male bodies in recruit- ment and other wartime posters and magazine advertisements. When ana- lyzed concurrently, these subjects help provide coherence to a fragmented and changing body politic in the 1930s and early 1940s, which took shape ree th th be al E il across a wide cultural field. Upon examination of the ways in which the president, the symbolic head of state, and cultural icons like Uncle Sam were depicted in conjunction with idealized versions of "average" service men's bodies, a broader, ideologically inscribed American rhetoric of mus des and health emerges during the war and prewar period. Before turning to these topics, however, we must first examine the effects the depression had on the bodies and psyches of Americans as well as the particular chal- lenges to masculinity that occurred in the 1930s. The Great Depression not only provided an important context and impetus for rebuilding the body politic during World War Il but also ushered in important cultural and artistic programs and mass-production techniques that helned transform