Queer cowboys: and other erotic male friendships in nineteenth-century American literature

151 Pages·2006·17.928 MB·English

by  Packard, Chris

QUEER COWBOYS

QUEER COWBOYS
And Other Erotic Male Friendships
inN in eteenth-Centu ry
American Literature
Chris Packard
palgrave
macmillan
*
QUEER COWBOYS
© Chris Packard, 2005.
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1s t edition 2005 978-0-312-29340-6
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any
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quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
First published in 2005 by
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ISBN 978-1-4039-7597-3 ISBN 978-1-137-07822-3 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-137-07822-3
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available from the
Library of Congress.
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Design by Newgen Imaging Systems (P) Ltd., Chennai, India.
First edition: May 2005
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
CONTENTS
List ifI llustrations Vll
Acknowledgments IX
Introduction 1
Chapter One All-Male Qyeer Interracial Families in
the Wilderness: James Fenimore Cooper
Solves His Progeny Problem 19
Chapter Two Rehearsing and Ridiculing Marriage
in The Virginian and Other
Adventure Tales 41
Chapter Three American Satyriasis in Whitman,
Harris, and Hartland 71
Chapter Four "Qyeer Secrets" in Men's Clubs: Humor,
Violence, and Homoerotic Elision in
Works by Mark Twain, Bret Harte,
and Eugene Field 95
Notes 119
Index 137

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
I. "Cowboys around the Campfire" 8
a
2. "A Hair-Cut la Puncher," ink wash on paper 10
3. "TheJA Wagon Cook Taking a Shave," 1908 11
4. Three cowboys with cards and liquor, n.d. 29
5. "Outdoor sleeping arrangements at the W.D. Boice
Cattle Company" 42
6. "Occ. Cowboys" posing on a tree trunk, 1904 46
7. "Cowboys Bathing in Pond" 47
8. "Wister's Hunting Party in Camp atJackson
Hole, Wyoming, 1887" 52
9. "Dance! You Short Horn Dance!" ink and transparent
watercolor over graphite underdrawing on paper 54
10. Frederic Remington's "Hello, Old Boy," illustrating
a willowy young cowboy parting the flaps of the
artist's tent 58
1I. "Dancing, seemingly not hampered by lack
of women" 72
12. "Pioneer Mining in California" 73
13. "Two cowpunchers posed with their horses outside a
saloon in Mexico" 79
14. Walt Whitman styles himself as a "rough" on the
frontispiece of Leaves of Grass (1855) 90
15. "Cowboys Rolling Cigarettes, Comanche County" 97
16. Cowboys dancing, flanked by band and woman
with infant 98
viii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
17. Mark Twain, shirtless, ca. 1883 106
18. Eugene Field and Francis Wilson 109
19. Facsimile of "Socratic Love," ink, graphite, and watercolor on
vellum, 1888 113
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
T
hanks to the librarians, archivists, collectors, and interpreters of the
American West who steered me toward manuscripts, objects, pictures,
and indexes that revealed the evidence I use in this book. Most particu
larly, thanks to the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center at the
University ofT exas at Austin for a 2001 fellowship and unlimited access to
their collections; to those friends, family, and friends-of-family who let me
stay in spare rooms during my research trips through Kansas, California,
and Texas.
Writing is necessarily solitary, but my companions who generously gave
suggestions are Lucienne Reed, Deborah Williams, Cyrus Patell, Mark
Thompson, Sarah Johnson, Brita Servaes, Greg Anderson, Dameon
Macnamara, Ron Caldwell, Matt Clark, Mark Tyler, Mike Muffoletto,
Ann Brunjes, Hugh McGowan, Bruce Rinderman, Robert Doyle, Phillip
Brian Harper, Dale Hrabi, Chris Schelling, John LaValle, Jack Booch,
Cathy Lavender, and Kristi Long. For invaluable help with images, Don
Sumada, Laura Foster, David Webb, Mike Anderson, Robert Flynt, and
David Dietcher. A writer needs a room, and for generously providing
housing assistance of various kinds, I humbly thank John Sugg, Matt
Goldman, George Talmadge Grigsby, Basil Racuk, Jim Hoffman, Scott
Hamm, Gene Mignola, Richard Sacks, the Kennedys, the Wrights, the
Cahills, the Comptons, and the Keiths. Essential encouragement came
from Clyde Martin, Sam Pendleton, Kevin Wells, Don Pitkin, Russ Virani,
Priscilla Rodgers, and the entire swim team.