What has it meant to be a man in Canada? Alexander Ross, fur trader; Percy Nobbs, architect, fisherman, fencer; Andy Paull, residential school survivor and athlete; Yves Charbonneau, jazz musician and commune member; “James,” black and gay in postwar Windsor. Who were these men, and how did they identify as masculine?

Populated with figures both well known and unknown, Making Men, Making History frames masculinity as a socially and historically constructed category of identity, susceptible to variation across time, place, and social context. This examination of historical Canadian masculinities reveals the dissonance between hegemonic ideals of manhood and masculinity and the everyday lives of men and boys.

The volume showcases some of the best new work in masculinity studies. With an introduction that contextualizes the international origins of the field, Making Men, Making History is the first book to explore these themes entirely in Canadian historica settings.

Peter Gossage's profile page

Robert Rutherdale's profile page

Peter Gossage is a professor of Quebec and Canadian history at Concordia University, focusing on family, gender, and society in Quebec. His published works include Families in Transition: Industry and Population in Nineteenth-Century Saint-Hyacinthe and, with J.I. Little, An Illustrated History of Quebec: Tradition and Modernity. Robert Rutherdale is an associate professor of Canadian history at Algoma University. He is the author of Hometown Horizons: Local Responses to Canada’s Great War and co-editor, with Magda Fahrni, of Creating Postwar Canada: Community, Diversity, and Dissent, 1945–75.