Between Anarchy and Hierarchy: Nat Love’s and Theodore Roosevelt’s Manly Feelings

Abstract

Nat Love’s 1907 memoir, The Life and Adventures of Nat Love, contains a well-known and often-reproduced photograph of the author, dressed up as a cowboy with all of the ubiquitous accessories: saddle, lasso, bandana, hat, chaps, revolver, and rifle (figure 2.1). Love claims to be the real-life model for “Deadwood Dick,” and while this claim is unsubstantiated, it does give a new meaning to the dime-novel hero’s black leather costume since Love, himself, was an African American born into slavery who, after emancipation, eventually made his way West to work as a cowboy. While in dime novels flexible, heroic masculinity remains bound to whiteness, Love demonstrates that cowboy masculinity can cross racial as well as class boundaries. Made in a studio with a decorative screen behind the figure, this photograph evidences the enigmatic power of cowboy masculinity in the turn-of-the-century United States. Love’s relaxed posture resonates the calm confidence often associated with the Western hero. Notably, this heroic stature is produced through Love’s use of cowboy accessories. His leg rests on his saddle, one thumb hooks into his ammunition belt, and his hand rests atop his rifle. Like T. S. Eliot’s “Stetson” or Deadwood Dick’s “kid gloves,” fashion constructs cowboy masculinity, and this cowboy masculinity connotes strength and mobility.

As I emerged from the water I heard the little Wood boy calling frantically to the General: “Oh! oh! The father of all the children fell into the creek”—which made me feel like an uncommonly moist patriarch.

—Theodore Roosevelt, An Autobiography