Ciencia, patria y honor: los médicos e ingenieros y la masculinidad romántica en España (1820-1860)

Abstract

In the mid-nineteenth century, Spanish physicians and engineers relied on the public dimensions of their professional activity in order to embody the new liberal masculinity. There were two ways of getting acknowledged as a part of liberal elites: first, the link to public institutions; second, the argument that their knowledge and skills contributed to the progress of civilisation and to common good. Exploring the link between usefulness and sciences, that had already been established already in the discourse of the Enlightenment, these men argued that their professions made them particularly useful for the country, as they contributed to make it wealthier and its inhabitants happier, but also to strengthen the position of Spain among the «nations of cultured Europe». What was the role of gender in this process? Did scientific professions have any features that were considered particularly masculine? How did class interact with gender? Our research points to the need to radically rethink the standard visions of modern masculinity, often reduced to a stable and static model that opposes masculine reason to emotion, always feminine. The passions and feelings, with all their contradictions, appear as fundamental elements in the professional practice of physicians and engineers, and also when these men constructed themselves as men of science within a national community. While the control of passions was indeed a defining feature of the way these men constructed and experienced their masculinity, so was having passions and using them the right way, to the benefit of the country and of the Humankind.