Manning the Torpedo Boats: How Gendered Insecurities Shaped Naval War in the United States and Britain, 1860–1900 (October 2022)
Applying a gendered lens to the torpedo boat's adoption (ca. 1860–1900) in the United States and Britain, this article explores the cultural dynamics of military innovation. In the nineteenth century, armored or "ironclad" warships disrupted the ideals of elite "naval manhood": an emphasis inherited from preindustrial officers on physical bravery, seamanship, and endurance. In response, a group of Anglo-American officials, artists, and authors repurposed the torpedo boat to prop up masculine heroism under threat from technical shifts. Ironically, it was a radical technology that preserved old values. This nostalgic effort explains how, in under a generation, the torpedo morphed from an "unchivalrous" weapon into an attractive investment. By refashioning cultural representations of the torpedo boat, advocates both insulated elite "naval manhood" from industrialization and upended modern naval force structures. The adoption of the torpedo boat was as much a gendered reaction to the ironclad revolution as a tactical calculation.
...MoreSimilar Citations
Book
Wildenberg, Thomas;
Polmar, Norman;
(2010)
Ship Killer: A History of the American Torpedo
(/isis/citation/CBB001212158/)
Thesis
Gregory N. Stern;
(2015)
Designing victory on the Civil War's sea: The Development and Use of Ironclad Warships in the American Civil War, 1830-1865
(/isis/citation/CBB930830394/)
Book
Oldenziel, Ruth;
(1999)
Making Technology Masculine: Men, Women, and Modern Machines in America, 1870-1945
(/isis/citation/CBB000500100/)
Chapter
Oldenziel, Ruth;
(2007)
Technologie als Merkmal amerikanisch-bürgerlicher Männlichkeit, 1830--1978 (Technology as a feature of American bourgeois masculinity, 1830--1978).
(/isis/citation/CBB001181702/)
Book
Lori A. Henning;
(2019)
Harnessing the Airplane: American and British Cavalry Responses to a New Technology, 1903-1939
(/isis/citation/CBB246948205/)
Article
Turtiainen, Jussi;
Vāānānen, Ari;
(2012)
Men of Steel? The Masculinity of Metal Industry Workers in Finland after World War II
(/isis/citation/CBB001320685/)
Book
Springer, Carolyn;
(2010)
Armour and Masculinity in the Italian Renaissance
(/isis/citation/CBB001211171/)
Article
Braun, Hans-Joachim;
(Winter 2020)
Hedy Lamarr, Radio-Controlled Torpedo
(/isis/citation/CBB460686157/)
Book
McBride, William M.;
(2000)
Technological change and the United States Navy, 1865-1945
(/isis/citation/CBB000111239/)
Book
Hacker, Barton C.;
(2016)
Astride Two Worlds: Technology and the American Civil War
(/isis/citation/CBB227040534/)
Article
Goodman, Seymour E.;
(December 2019)
Deploying Technological Innovation in “Real Time”: Union and Confederate Ironclads
(/isis/citation/CBB715470633/)
Article
Bergman, Yoel;
(May 2015)
Union and Confederate Views on Guncotton
(/isis/citation/CBB787655726/)
Thesis
Nichols, Marcia D.;
(2010)
The Man-Midwife's Tale: Re-Reading Male-Authored Midwifery Guides in Britain and America, 1750--1820
(/isis/citation/CBB001567182/)
Article
Mohun, Arwen P.;
(1997)
Laundrymen construct their world
(/isis/citation/CBB001180917/)
Article
Ronald Bailey;
(1994)
The Other Side of Slavery: Black Labor, Cotton, and Textile Industrialization in Great Britain and the United States
(/isis/citation/CBB418683510/)
Book
Weightman, Gavin;
(2007)
The Industrial Revolutionaries: The Making of the Modern World, 1776--1914
(/isis/citation/CBB001033457/)
Book
Knowles, Anne Kelly;
(2013)
Mastering Iron: The Struggle to Modernize an American Industry, 1800--1868
(/isis/citation/CBB001320950/)
Article
Withey, Alun;
(2013)
Shaving and Masculinity in Eighteenth-Century Britain
(/isis/citation/CBB001451622/)
Book
Alan Meyer;
(2015)
Weekend pilots: Technology, masculinity, and private aviation in postwar America
(/isis/citation/CBB247025452/)
Book
Kikuchi, Yoshiyuki;
(2013)
Anglo-American Connections in Japanese Chemistry: The Lab as Contact Zone
(/isis/citation/CBB001421134/)
Be the first to comment!