Bowery B'hoys

These Dashing young lads are bowery b'hoys. The bowery b'hoys, and g'hals, were symbols of the high spirited working class. They like, many youths in their individual time periods, were recognized for their sense of fashion. They were the image of hip, young, urban New Yorkers. The b'hoys themselves were recognized for their stovepipe hats, and their long sideburns known as soaplocks, a style still common among days hip, young, urban San Franciscans.



But I digress, the b'hoys and g'hals came from the working class, and had a penchant for the finer things. Things like cheap dancehalls, dime museums, billiard salons, rowdy theaters, performing animals, and boxing. These rough and rowdy characters filled the streets and like any youthful democratic generation lived life as though it were meant to be enjoyed. And like any symbol of youth he came to be mocked on stage. The bowery b'hoy and his g'hal became character types representing a commercial culture, as these characters spent there money more on wants than needs.

What then is the appeal here for Whitman. Well in short everything. Here was a man off the day who enjoyed whatever pleasure struck his fancy. Even if he was being mocked and ridiculed on stage his image was out there. It was commercialized and sold, and these were rough men who appealed to other such men and so on and so forth. To Whitman these characters were the perfect models to study if one wished to include the high and the low. They may not have been depicted in high theater, but they were on stage. They may have been from the working class, but they spent their money freely. To Whitman these would have been the bathers who gallantly showed their nakedness to whoever happened to be in the vicinity