This thesis explores the notion of gentility among wealthy women in Virginia from 1750 to 1850 by comparing it to Scottish Enlightenment-inspired codes of politeness practiced among the Scottish gentry residing in Edinburgh, the Highlands, and London in the same era. It analyzes how books that taught the codes of polite morality, here referred to as didactic literature, were read by genteel, young women in Scotland and Virginia and the ways in which this literature was applied to their education, courtship practices, and social behaviors. Scots and Virginians in this era were linked through migration patterns, correspondence between families, and a transatlantic book trade, but they were also linked through the interpretation of politeness. The polite manners of genteel individuals in Britain, instilled as a part of Scottish moral philosophy, were adopted by many who aspired to gentility in America, but original, archival research has indicated that this was especially true among the elites of Virginia society from the middle of the eighteenth to the middle of the nineteenth centuries. This comparison serves to emphasize the connection between Virginian and Scottish standards of politeness, indicating similarities in the interpretation of politeness, but also a divergence over time as a result of the influences of the American Revolution and evangelical religion. It has concluded that, by the middle of the nineteenth century, while the standards of didactic literature did not entirely disappear with regards to shaping Scottish manners, the codes taught in conduct books and instructive novels of an earlier era were more widely regarded in Virginia and came to form a uniquely Virginian interpretation of politeness.

This thesis assesses the ways in which gentility served as a catalyst for the creation of a new masculine identity during the early American republic:  the Republican Gentleman.  In particular, I utilize taverns in Richmond, Virginia from 1780 to 1820, in which to understand the significance of gentility.  This thesis analyzes how Richmond taverns represented the growth of gentility through refined architecture and its male patrons.  It discusses how taverns, as predominantly male spaces, allowed for the expression of the Republican Gentleman's masculine identity.  The guiding research question for this thesis is how refined Richmond taverns illustrated the prominence of gentility, and thus provided a stage for the performance of the Republican Gentleman during the early national period.  Furthermore, this research is informed by the following secondary research questions:  In what ways did gentility and republicanism shape masculine identities?  How did evolving ideas of gentility and refinement shape physical tavern space and architecture?  The broader significance of this thesis is to offer an avenue in which to further develop scholars' understanding of the intersection of masculinity, class, and gentility during the early national period. / Master of Arts

This thesis argues that British naval officers provide a useful category of analysis for social and cultural historians. While previous scholarship has largely ignored naval officers or treated them as equivalent, socially and professionally, to army officers or the traditional professions, the present study argues that the nature of service at sea presented challenges to officers' social status. Drawing on thousands of recently-digitized sources, as well as extensive archival materials, it explores the formation of naval officers' social identity, the forces that shaped their careers, and the changing landscape of social status at the end of the eighteenth century. The demands of life at sea placed naval officers in a liminal social space. Their claims to gentility were contingent and contested. They needed to be proficient in practical as well as theoretical skills. At the same time, officers were expected to be gentlemen. How officers shaped, and were shaped by, the changing definitions of that term provides the framework for the thesis. It makes three central contributions to the fields of British social and naval history. First, it emphasizes the continuing significance of social status boundaries in Georgian Britain. The existing literature misconstrues the chronology of the changing nature of gentility and misunderstands the relationship of naval officers to issues of gentility and professionalism. Second, it recalibrates our understanding of the nature and mechanisms of patronage networks. Social backgrounds made relatively insignificant contributions to shaping officers' careers; patrons used a much wider range of criteria when selecting clients. Finally, it questions the traditional separation of naval history from social and cultural history. The Navy and naval officers were central to British life at the end of the eighteenth century and cannot be effectively analysed separately. The Navy was both socially unique and uniquely important to Britain during the crisis of the Wars with Revolutionary and Napoleonic France.