MAPACA

Mid-Atlantic Popular &
American Culture Association

Until the last decades of the nineteenth century the United States Navy remained small compared to that of most European nations. The economic growth fueled by industrialization and expanded trade led many Americans to give new weight to the possibility of expanding America’s presence – economic and otherwise – abroad. As a new century approached, the United States was emerging as a major global power. The victory in the war with Spain and the annexation of the Hawaiian Islands signaled the new position of the United States on the world stage. The acquisition of new territory led Congress to rapidly increase military spending, especially on the Navy. As one of the central mechanisms for increased professionalization, the U.S. Naval Academy became a central focus for this expanded budget. Moreover, the Naval Academy emerged as increasingly potent symbol of national power in American popular culture in the early twentieth century.

Public interest in the lives of cadets also intersected with social debates in the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century America. The boys and men of the U.S. Naval Academy served not only as the symbolic embodiment of a strong and virile nation, they functioned as a potential antidote for certain cultural anxieties around the state of white, middle class manhood at the turn of the century.

My essay explores popular cultural representations of life at the U.S. Naval Academy between 1880 and 1930. Coverage of Academy ceremonies and sporting events painted an idealized picture of the cadet as the ultimate devotee to the strenuous life. Even scandals related to hazing at the school became moments for the public to debate the boundaries around ideal masculine identity. I will compare some of these popular depictions with U.S.N.A. yearbooks and other student records to illuminate the parallels and dissonances between the public and personal perception of student life.