Building Your Boy: How to Do It How Not to Do It
Building Your Boy: How to Do It, How Not to Do It
The Mother, Home, and Heaven Collection features many books that focus on female etiquette, but Kenneth H. Wayne’s 1910 how-to book that addresses both etiquette and marriage provides an intriguing glimpse at what society asked of men.
The book outlines ways to facilitate a boy’s transition into manhood, pointing to what Wayne, and presumably much of the middle-to-upper-class American demographic, deemed appropriate behavior for adult men.
This text also addresses marital roles, as raising children still remains one of the pivotal responsibilities of a married couple. Interestingly, the author attributes the responsibility of raising a boy to the father, stating it is too important to leave to the discretion of a woman.1 While this may seem to encourage men to step into a traditionally female role, it ultimately makes a claim for men’s superiority over women in regards to raising sons, which society reveres as more important than daughters.2
Upon inspection of the Table of Contents, it becomes clear that a boy’s etiquette relies less on manners and more on developing skills of a successful workingman, to carry on his father’s name. As you continue exploring this exhibit, you will find that content of women’s etiquette books differ greatly. To further question America’s tale of progress in the early twentieth century, Wayne’s Exordium upholds the misogynist view of men’s prominence,“The moral justification of this discrimination is not a matter for debate in this booklet. This is simply a statement of fact, which seems to be sustained by a dominant public opinion, and law, which follows public opinion.”3
*** Wayne also authored the book, Building Your Girl: How to Do It How Not to Do It, which would provide an excellent opportunity to compare the expectations placed on both boys and girls, and therefore, men and women. Though it is not housed in the College of Wooster's collections or databases, it may act as a significant our furthure analysis.
1. Kenneth H. Wayne, Building Your Boy: How to Do It How Not to Do It (Chicago: A. C. McClurg & Co., 1910), 2-4.
2. Kenneth H. Wayne, Building Your Boy: How to Do It How Not to Do It (Chicago: A. C. McClurg & Co., 1910), ix,-x.
3. Ibid.