| Abstrakt: |
The march of the Paxton Boys on Philadelphia in 1764 prompted an outpouring of printed polemics and satires. Scholars have frequently dismissed these pamphlets and cartoons as scurrilous adjuncts to "real" political debate. This article argues that these writings represented an attempt to reimagine how virtuous civic identity should be displayed, performed, and recognized. Launching charges and countercharges against their opponents of cowardly effeminacy and sexual deviance, participants in this debate offered their readers a new, acceptable form of civic identity: martial, masculine, white, and adherent to normative sexual behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
