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Becoming A Yale Man: Intimacy Among Yale Students In The Nineteenth Century, Matthew Busick

Kaplan Senior Essay Prize for Use of Library Special Collections

This essays demonstrates that relationships between men at Yale College in the nineteenth century were largely the product of the environment in which they occurred. The atmosphere on campus was such that intense intimacy between men was not an anomaly or a perversion, but rather a culmination of the deep bonds forged among all students. Behavior that in another time and place would have aroused suspicion was perfectly acceptable on campus grounds. The elite background of the students, the fact that the school was predominantly Christian, the nature of the college as an all-boys institution, the pressure on the students …