Picturing Men: A Century of Male Relationships in Everyday American Photography [Illustrated] [Hardcover]

John Ibson (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 17, 2002

These photographs, spanning from before the Civil War to the 1950s, reveal a lost world. They show men comfortably sitting on each other's laps, embracing, holding hands, and expressing their various relationships through countless examples of simple physical contact. Rather than imposing contemporary notions of sexuality by assuming the images only illustrate a portion of the gay past, John Ibson returns them to their own time to examine what they meant to the subjects. His perspective unearths a hidden aspect of American men's history. His analysis focuses on the history of male intimacy and how these everyday photographs challenge conventional boundaries between erotic and platonic, homosexuality and heterosexuality. He explores the photos as symbols of male association from a time when America was far more gender-segregated than it is today, and men felt no anxiety about showing their affection for one another. The images present men of different ages, classes, and races in a range of settings: posed in photographers' studios, on beaches, in lumber camps, on farms, on ships, indoors and out. Ibson concludes his study with images from the 1950s, in which the men begin to show a rigid and limited set of expressions. All the photographs are being published here for the first time, and are drawn from Ibson's private collection of more than 5,000 images.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

John Ibson's research for this book took him not only to conventional sources consulted by historians but also to flea markets, gun shows, and internet auctions. He is professor of American studies at California State University, Fullerton.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: Smithsonian (September 17, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1588340554
• ISBN-13: 978-1588340559
• Product Dimensions: 10 x 6.9 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,182,709 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

39 of 40 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful historical documentation, February 26, 2003

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S. Kay Murphy "Heretic" (Mt. Baldy, CA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Picturing Men: A Century of Male Relationships in Everyday American Photography (Hardcover)

When my son first told me about this book, he had seen it briefly at a book signing. He told me that it was "a collection of old pictures of men together," and that it was not meant to be eroticism. He was right on both counts, but the book is so much more than that. It is a chronicle--historical documentation of a segment of our culture, a glimpse of part of who we were as a society that might have been lost had not John Ibson meticulously produced this work. Can you imagine that at one time in the not so distant past, men of all walks of life--cowboys, soldiers, athletes, businessmen--felt comfortable enough with each other to display their kinship openly? A hand laid firmly on a shoulder or knee, an arm draped around another man's neck--regardless of sexual orientation, these were demonstrations of genuine affection. I bought the book because I love black and white photography and for that I knew I would appreciate the book's significance. But there is far more there; John's commentary on the culture of our times is well-researched, insightful, and extremely well-written. For historians, sociologists, collectors and artists, this book is a must.

36 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Major Contribution to the Field of Gender Studies, February 26, 2003

By 

Grady Harp (Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Picturing Men: A Century of Male Relationships in Everyday American Photography (Hardcover)

Writing in an erudite, scholarly manner Professor John Ibson has managed to present a substantive survey of the evolution of male gender perception in his PICTURING MEN: A Century of Male Relationships in Everyday American Photography. And for all its heavily researched scholarship, Ibson also has created a very tender elegy about the history of male intimacy, tracing the genuinely warm comraderie as depicted in extant studio and personal photographs rom the mid 19th Century to the gradual emergence of homophobia after World War II.

This is a book that probably is best read twice: the first 'read' should be a slow thumbing through the pages of wonderfully tender and humorous photographs of men in pairs, in poses, in groups of pageant/pantomime, in dorm rooms, barracks, and in nature. The second read should be on of thoughtful attention paid to the written word, an experience which is never cloyingly sentimental, yet ever mindful of the sad fact that our society has created a ban on men expressing tenderness to other men. He wisely shows the tendency to use rough-housing and elaborate greeting techniques to convey the feelings now considered not only 'inappropriate' but worse - as in the 'Don't ask, don't tell' stance of the military. In the most sensitive chapter of this gentile book Ibson studies life in the military from the Civil War through World War II, pointing out both sides of the argument that war and its accompanying terror encourages men to bond, at least psychologically if not sexually. And in keeping with the tenor of the title "in Everyday American Photography" he references the manner in which Life Magazine - that pre-internet, pre-mass media resource which shouldered the burden of documenting for Americans how things were - shows the intensity of male relationships during WW II and its waning in the 1950s.

Ibson is careful to remind us that his picture research comes from his own collection of photographs gathered from swap meets, antique stores, and auctions and that his own feelings are supported by such disparate sources as songs (especially "My Buddy"), memoirs of soldiers, studies of wars by such men as Stephen Ambrose, John Horne Burns, Norman Mailer, and Allen Drury, and movies. In other words, this book stands solidly as a statement about the sad loss of man's ability to accept intimacy, especially when it comes to his fellowman. A beautifully written, highly readable, very valuable book and treatise.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Back to future of American male?, July 7, 2007

By 

M. Paul Iwao "M Paul" (Virginia) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Picturing Men: A Century of Male Relationships in Everyday American Photography (Paperback)

Since I came to this country almost forty years ago, I have always felt American males are the most isolated, and handicapped emotionally in the world. I don't classify this book as gay history, but it is a book on visual testaments of male emotions(affections?) when it was intact. This book will give you a smile you didn't know you had. I sincerly, and eagerly wish that we take few deep breaths, and take few backward steps to regain what we have lost not too long ago. LOVE. I thank you for this book.