“ The object of this exercise, at least for men, was personal autonomy—the ownership of one’s self. Only in the United States was it ========== Rebirth of a Nation (Jackson Lears) - Highlight Loc. 1252 | Added on Thursday, January 01, 1970, 07:00 AM into monomania. A “manly man” did not fear ========== Rebirth of a Nation (Jackson Lears) - Highlight Loc. 1252-57 | Added on Thursday, January 01, 1970, 07:00 AM poverty or disaster except as it affected his wife and children—for their sake, investments had to be chosen conservatively. The bottom line was to underwrite the larger aim of independence: “no man can be otherwise independent who is not pecuniarily so.” The dependent man “must smile on those he hates, he must extend his hand where he would strike, he must speak pleasantly with a curse in his throat, because he is ever seeking work…he wears dependence like a yoke.” Independence, in contrast, kept a man “dignified and self-respecting, above the need of asking for favors, above all the inevitable meannesses of poverty.” Thrift and forethought, in other words, were necessary (though not sufficient) to manliness. ========== Rebirth of a Nation (Jackson Lears) - Highlight Loc. 1275-79 | Added on Thursday, January 01, 1970, 07:02 AM unhealthy depletion of limited vital energy. The most flagrant exploitation of this “unhealthy excitement” was the lottery, which demoralized the poor with its false promises of instant success, encouraging their “neglect of business and general shiftlessness.” Hence by 1890, lotteries had been forbidden in all nations that considered themselves enlightened and every state in the Union except Louisiana, from which a state lottery continued to extend its appeal. The siren song of something for nothing was never completely silenced. ”
