Muscular Christianity: Manhood and Sports in Protestant America, 1880-1920

by Clifford Putney

Book Overview

Dissatisfied with a Victorian culture focused on domesticity and threatened by physical decline in sedentary office jobs, American men in the late 19th century sought masculine company in fraternal lodges and engaged in exercise to invigorate their bodies. One form of this new manly culture, developed out of the Protestant churches, was known as muscular Christianity. In this study, Clifford Putney details how Protestant leaders promoted competitive sports and physical education to create an ideal of Christian manliness. Though rooted in the new culture of manhood, muscular Christianity was conceived to reinvigorate Protestantism itself, which in the minds of many was increasingly failing to create masculine, forceful natures capable of withstanding an influx of Catholic immigrants.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0674006348
• ISBN13: 9780674006348
• Release Date: November 2001
• Publisher: Harvard University Press
• Length: 300 Pages
• Weight: 0.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 6.5" x 9.6"