Gilded Age elites defined white civilization as the triumphant achievement of exceptional people hewing to a relational ethic of strict self-discipline for the common good. This title demonstrates that between 1880 and 1940, cultural discourses of whiteness and heterosexuality fused to form a new concept of the 'normal' American.

A study of the racialized construction of heterosexual normality based on the analysis of medical pamphlets, marriage manuals, and sex-instructional literature.