Full bibliography

This article explores mid-19th century masculinity, through examination of the writings and lived experience of New Brunswick tannery worker Martin Butler. What being a man meant, in this historical context, was rooted in the contingencies and determinants of the North American sole leather tanning industry, and can be located as well in the discourses Martin Butler constructed about his and other men's experiences. Rural, working-class men, it is argued, were, in part, the shapers of their own class-specific and rurally-contingent male identifies, although the processes by which these identities were formulated and negotiated are neither easily catalogued nor tidily analyzed.