You are invited to the Brown Bag Lecture Series

Wednesday, November 14, 2007

12 noon to 1 p.m

Cow Boys and Cattle Men:
Restraining Masculinity on the Texas Frontier

Jacqueline Moore
The Summerlee Foundation Research Fellow for the Study of Texas History 2007-08
Clements Center for Southwest Studies, Southern Methodist University

In the Texana Room, DeGolyer Library

Cow Boys and Cattle Men on the Matador Ranch 1883
Courtesy of the Southwest Collection, Texas Tech University

Historians have often documented efforts of ranchers to control their workers economically, but the attempt to control ranch hands also reflected a gender hierarchy. Cowboys and cattlemen had differing, and ultimately competing, ideas of masculine behavior. While the rest of the country may have viewed cowboys as the ideal masculine image, early cattlemen treated their employees with paternalistic concern. Their “boys” were just that, in a stage of arrested development, less educated and in need of a firm hand to mold them into men. While they respected the cowboys’ abilities, they nonetheless believed they needed restraint.

Jacqueline Moore is Professor of History at Austin College.  Moore received her Ph.D. in U.S. History from the University of Maryland in 1994. She will spend the 2007-08 academic year at the Clements Center for Southwest Studies as a Summerlee Foundation Research Fellow for the Study of Texas History completing her manuscript, “Cow Boys and Cattle Men: Nineteenth Century Masculinity and Class on the Texas Frontier," for publication.