Discourses of Race and Masculinity in the Nashville Press

Abstract

As the state that provided the final vote ratifying the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920, Tennessee is critical. The two newspapers in Nashville, the state capital, differed vehemently on suffrage. Using discourse theory to interrogate suffrage coverage in the decade preceding 1920, this chapter focuses on the intersection of gender and race at the height of the Jim Crow era. Although the prosuffrage Tennessean strongly favored ratification while the antisuffrage Banner opposed it, this chapter argues that a more complicated story emerges when race and masculinity are considered. Despite its prosuffrage stance, the Tennessean included subtle warning signs against Black women’s power when race was integral to a story. The Banner consistently reinforced traditional gender roles, responding to ratification with an eruption of verbal violence aimed at recouping hegemonic white masculinity.