Comments on: A History of the American Bachelor: Part II — Post-Civil War America

By: SquirrelFarts McAwesome

SquirrelFarts McAwesome — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 16:14:39 +0000

By the way, there’s a small typo in the article. Boston is home to the Somerset Club, not Somerest. The club still exists today, though, not being a member, I couldn’t tell you what goes on in there.

I had no idea that bachelorhood had such an intriguing history. Wonderfully written.

By: Jaime

Jaime — Sat, 21 Apr 2012 07:36:08 +0000

W.A.S.P’s

By: Tom Anderson

Tom Anderson — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 04:50:28 +0000

Brett, really enjoying this series.

Even as someone who is not from the US, the historical aspect of bachelorhood is really interesting to me.

Really appreciate the time you’ve taken to research and put this together.

Cheers!

Tom

By: Jones

Jones — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 17:53:17 +0000

Interesting stuff. I hope you guys comment on the recent stories about frats and hazing – I would love to hear your thoughts on that.

By: Steve

Steve — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 22:17:23 +0000

This is genuinely one of the most enjoyable and interesting series you guys have run on this blog. Give yourselves a big pat on the back for this one!

Really looking forward to more articles in this series.

By: Matthew

Matthew — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 18:12:39 +0000

Not surprised that there were anti-Poolroom leagues. After all we know that they are

“Trouble with a capital ‘T’
And that rhymes with ‘P’
and that stands for pool!”

By: Chris McLain

Chris McLain — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 16:36:07 +0000

Love the blog and enjoy this series, but I was surprised to see that the discussion of bachelor life was limited to urban areas during this period.

My great great grandfather was a Civil War veteran and bachelor who did just about every manly thing you could do in rural post-Civil War America. He worked on a plantation in Alabama, went on cattle drives from Texas northward (during which he witnessed attacks by Native Americans that prompted him to fight with, then colonel, George Armstrong Custer for a time), panned for gold, and all manner of things before settling down and having a family.

I get the point that about the anxiety of urban bachelors, but I can’t help but think he would disagree that there was “no more frontier to settle or wars to fight.”

By: P.M.Lawrence

P.M.Lawrence — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 08:13:35 +0000

Readers will probably get a lot of the sense of this ambience from Jerome K. Jerome’s “Three Men in a Boat”. It was his swan song as a bachelor – he based it on his honeymoon, with his wife changed to male friends; his later “Three Men on the Bummel” was much less fun, apart from a few patches.

By: Andrewson

Andrewson — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 06:02:53 +0000

great.

By: Derek

Derek — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 17:40:55 +0000

This is an amazing series that I have shared with a bunch of my friends from college and my fraternity. Great work!

@James I completely agree, I was extremely involved with my fraternity and I think the fraternal experience is very different from place to place. I believe the fraternity I was a part of and some of the others I know of are some of the only places where these ideas of mentoring and camaraderie still exist in our modern culture.