Coffeehouses and the shaping of Male Identity in Brian Cowan's The Social Life of Coffee

In The Social Life of Coffee, Brian Cowan highlighted an interesting cross between masculine identity and the English coffeehouse. He claims that in The Spectator and The Tatler, Richard Steele and Joseph Addison set forth ideals of a masculine coffeehouse. Men in 18^th century London used coffeehouses to prove their masculinity; coffeehouses were also venues for which effeminate men were ridiculed for their primary interest in “self-display.” These “fops,” “beaus,” and “mollies” were not only criticized for their “self-display” and interest in feminine matters, but also because they did not contribute to the political, business, and cultural discourse of the coffeehouse. Joining in on this discourse was an expectation of coffeehouse “manners.” There was a fear that coffeehouses were becoming places that catered to “cheap gossip and egotistical self promotion” (Cowan 233).  It seems to me that coffeehouses dictated “proper” masculine discourse, and those who strayed from this discourse were not masculine enough, or were simply too female.

Effeminacy, newsmongering, obsessions with fashion, novelty, and self-display, were frowned upon. Coffeehouse patrons feared that there was a “misuse of the public sphere” (235).  Addison and Steele envisioned the public sphere as a “forum for urbane but not risqué conversation” (237).  They wanted to differentiate the “male” public sphere from the “female” private sphere. Thus, “male coffeehouse manners” became a popular concern of the day. In their periodicals, Addison and Steele were popular commentators on proper male behavior. How men behaved in coffeehouses was indicative of how masculine their identities were.

The idea that coffeehouses were so prominent in shaping male identity fascinates me. My research tends to focus on female identity as set forth by the pressures of society, and how conduct books, magazines, or novels of the time aimed to teach women how to behave. We can think of Steele and Addison’s periodicals as doing the same thing. Cowan says that even within “the Spectator’s accounts of female coffeehouse workers…the object of reform was not the women, but the men” (244). Addison and Steele used the coffeehouse as a venue for exploration of 18^th century male ideals, and then commented on the behaviors of men within those coffeehouses. Their periodicals take the shape of male conduct manuals that differentiated proper from improper behavior, and set forth proper topics to be discussed in public spaces. Cowan comments that Addison and Steele’s periodicals created awareness to “masculine failings” (245).

But why was it so important to dictate proper behavior within a coffeehouse? If we think about coffee shops today, it would be difficult to answer this question. But in Addison and Steele’s contemporary society, the London coffeehouse represented the larger, British public sphere. Male identity was representative of a larger, British identity.