Abstract
Based on fieldwork completed in two British Columbia locales—Prince George and Abbotsford—this study places oral histories of fatherhood in the context of idealistic depictions of masculine domesticity that circulated in the mass print media during the baby boom. It addresses tendencies among the men interviewed to frame stories of being husbands, parents, coaches, and family vacationers in material terms. Their self-portraits of domestic masculinity, incorporating the details of trailers, boats, cars, televisions, or vacations, suggest how gendered aspects of consumption by fathers in the 1950s and early 1960s became privileged as identifiable measures of both manful assertiveness and respectable manhood.
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