America is facing a “boy crisis.” The statistics are stark: Boys are far more likely than girls to fall behind in school, die by suicide, and end up in jail.
When experts offer solutions to the problems facing the male population, most push for a fundamental reimagining of masculinity — urging boys to reject the supposed stereotypes of manhood.
A century ago, Progressive reformers faced their own “boy crisis.” Like today, they worried about juvenile delinquency, substance abuse, and poor educational outcomes.
But their solution couldn’t have been more different from our modern approach.
While today’s experts push to make boys less traditionally masculine, these early Progressive reformers believed in working with boys’ natural inclinations rather than against them. Their most surprising conclusion?
Boys need to join gangs.
The Gang Instinct
Progressive reformers of the early 1900s observed that unlike girls, who tended to form one-on-one relationships with their female friends, boys naturally socialized in groups. They ran in packs. They formed gangs. These boy gangs could be found on street corners and in parks, getting up to adventures, games, and all manner of hijinks.
Influenced by John Dewey’s Pragmatist philosophy (which was influenced by Darwinism), these reformers hypothesized that this tendency for boys to form gangs was an innate, evolutionary adaptation.
They called it the “gang instinct.”
In a 1911 article for Lippincott Monthly Magazine, educator Luther Gulick unpacked this idea:
Those possessed of these [gang] feelings would be better fitted to survive than those who were purely selfish, and so, gradually, the egoistic man would be eliminated from the race. The man who could sympathize with the gang feelings, whose life could be molded into conformity with the rest, would have a better opportunity to reproduce himself in the succeeding generation than the individual who was sufficient unto himself.
Through the steady elimination of the more egoistic, and the survival of the more altruistic, the children would inherit social capacity, and be more and more cooperative in their tendencies and actions.
The gang instinct, then, is of evolutionary origin. It expresses itself in the individual boy in those feelings of sympathy and desire for the companionship of others of his own kind, which were elementary factors in the survival of his forefathers. Those early fighters who had not the gang instinct were so effectually eliminated, and the qualities of those with the more social natures were so thoroughly stamped upon the human race through the action of selection, that now the normal boy demands associates of his own kind as naturally as the baby cries, or the bird builds its nest.
Other writers from that time echoed Gulick. In 1912, J. Adam Puffers published a book entitled The Boy and His Gang, where he argued that boys have a “deep seated unconscious need” to join a gang with other boys. According to Puffers, the gang drive in boys begins at around age nine and intensifies through adolescence and into young adulthood. For Puffers, belonging to a gang, or group of boys, was a vital step in the healthy social development of a boy, for it is in the gang that a boy learns the art of camaraderie:
In the gang, then, we find the natural time and place for the somewhat sudden birth and development of that spirit of loyalty which is the foundation of most of our social relations. We must, in short, look upon the gang as nature’s special training-school for the social virtues.
Only by associating himself with other boys can any youth learn the knack of getting on with his fellow men; acquire and practice cooperation, self-sacrifice, loyalty, fidelity, team play; and in general prepare himself to become the politician, the business man, the efficient citizen of a democracy.
Nature, we must believe, has given the boy the gang instinct for the sake of making easy for him the practice of the gang virtues.
The impulses to loyalty, fidelity, cooperation, self-sacrifice, justice, which are at the basis of gang psychology, are powerfully reinforced, as we have already seen, by nearly all the typical gang activities.
Puffers believed that boys who didn’t have the gang experience would end up socially stunted: “they fail to pass through the normal development of human males; they lack a fundamental virtue and their fellows will not trust them, boy or man.”
Gulick argued the same thing, positing that boys who didn’t have the gang experience while growing up may turn out to be “fine individuals, in the main” but often become “incapable of social action. The give and take involved in gang activity was beyond them. . . . The period seemed to have passed for the development of those fundamental traits which make the gang teamwork and cooperative endeavor possible.”
In 1915, Albert Hines wrote in the journal Work With Boys that gangs provided a way for a boy to engage in “muscular action [and] adventure” where he could gain the “approval of his fellows which he finds in his gang.”
For these thinkers and educators, a boy’s pack of friends was the arena in which young men developed the social virtues necessary to be good citizens as well as their sense of manhood. It was the arena in which their more annoying, socially-retarding tendencies were checked and their need to feel valued was affirmed. Through their participation in a gang, Progressive reformers believed, a boy was able to begin the process of proving himself a man, and gaining the confidence that came with it.
The Way of Men Is the Way of the Gang
Modern research has confirmed this century’s-old intuition. Anthropologist Lionel Tiger documented how men across cultures naturally form cooperative groups to achieve common goals, while Harvard psychologist Joyce Benenson’s research shows that boys tend toward socializing in groups while girls prefer dyadic relationships. Both argue this male “gang instinct” evolved because group cooperation helped our ancient male ancestors hunt and fight successfully.
Writer Jack Donovan summed up this research on the male gang instinct in his book The Way of Men when he asserted: “The way of men is the way of the gang.”
For Donovan, masculinity is fundamentally about being “a man among men” — the ability to succeed within male groups is how you figure out if you’re a man. Being a man isn’t an individual task, but one that is done within a small, honor-bound community. You can’t evaluate for yourself whether you’ve achieved the masculine virtues; it’s something that has to be assessed by one’s respected peers.
Donovan’s conclusion aligns with both modern research and the principles of early Progressive reformers: the gang is fundamental to male social development.
Most men intuitively understand what these thinkers were talking about. We remember our own “gangs” — whether it was a sports team, a church group, or just a crew of neighborhood friends. My own fondest teenage memories revolve around these groups: my football teammates pushing one another through brutal summer practices; my church youth group taking on ambitious service projects; my high school friends getting into occasional mischief.
As a grown man who has spent eight years leading church youth groups and coaching boys’ sports, I’ve gained a more birds-eye view of the gang instinct as well. On the flag football team I coached, I watched 12-year-olds transform from individual players into a tight-knit unit, developing their own culture and codes. At church, I’ve seen teenage boys turn scripture memorization into a team sport, their natural competitiveness driving them to achievements they probably wouldn’t have taken on alone. Through my son Gus, I get glimpses of how modern boys still form natural packs, complete with their own rituals, inside jokes, and occasional innocent rebellion against authority.
And I’ve also noticed, just as Puffers did back in 1912, that boys who don’t have the “gang” experience end up socially stunted. Often bright and capable in other ways, these boys never quite catch the gang spirit. Despite their peers’ best efforts to include them, they remain on the periphery, missing crucial opportunities to develop social skills and emotional intelligence. They never develop the capacity for teamwork and “true comradeship.” And they become grown men who often struggle to navigate male social dynamics, keep to themselves, find it difficult to form close bonds with other guys, lean on their wives as their only friends, and have trouble understanding the unwritten rules of group dynamics.
Harnessing the Gang Instinct for Good
I am in the gang business. I believe in the gang spirit. The gang spirit is noble. It is the social spirit, the spirit of one for all. The trouble with the gang spirit is that it is not utilized by the community. —Albert B. Hines, Work with Boys (1916)
The word “gang” has a negative connotation today and is associated with “toxic masculinity.” When we think of gangs, we almost exclusively think of the urban, inner-city variety, which are often the source of violence, crime, and disorder in a community.
The same 20th-century reformers who boosted the value of the gang spirit also recognized that gang life could potentially be destructive. Frederic Thrasher published a comprehensive study in 1927 that highlighted how gangs in Chicago often led young men into criminal behavior and social dysfunction.
However, these same reformers argued that the solution wasn’t to suppress the gang instinct, but rather to channel it in positive directions.
In 1933’s The Building of Boyhood, Frank Cheley argues:
Thus the true gang spirit, which in the past has been heralded as the greatest menace of boy life, can easily be turned into the largest factor for personal growth and development. Gangs need direction, not annihilation, wise guidance, not stupid opposition, a worthwhile stream of activity, not hands-off policy.
Lyman Beecher Stowe made a similar argument about harnessing gang energy for positive ends when he wrote: “The best thing to do with a boy is to put him in a ‘gang’ — and watch the gang. . . . with supervision, even the worst gangs can become helpful agencies.”
These leaders understood and respected the energy of the gang spirit in boys. It’s like electricity. Without a proper channel, it can be dangerous. But give it a conduit, and the power becomes life-giving.
How did these reformers suggest harnessing the gang spirit for good?
Team sports was one way.
Organizations like the Boy Scouts was another.
Some of these reformers were clergymen as well, so they thought churches could also provide an arena where healthy male gangs could form.
In The Building of Boyhood, Cheley urged fathers to encourage their sons and their friends to congregate in their homes and to lead the boys in a semi-structured program of arts, crafts, fitness, character development, and skill-building.
So what would positive gangs look like in the 21st century?
For the most part, I think they can look the same way as they did in 1920.
Team sports still provide opportunities for healthy boy gangs to form, which is why I think every boy should play one.
I don’t think large organizations like the Boy Scouts and the like work in the 21st century. Those organizations were products of their time and aren’t well suited for the ethos of today’s more fragmented society.
I think if parents and teachers want to more effectively reach boys and help nurture positive gangs, it will have to be a grassroots effort. There’s not going to be some large, Progressive-era organization that will save you. Those days are gone.
That’s why I think Cheley’s vision of father-led neighborhood groups is a good one. I’ve done this with my own son and his best friend. My son’s friend’s dad and I took our boys through a modified version of the Strenuous Life Challenge a few years ago with success.
I also think male teachers can play a role in fostering positive gangs. Over the years, I’ve gotten letters from men who are teachers and have used AoM’s content to create edifying school clubs for the young men they mentor.
Your Son Is a Natural Gangster
Your boy is a natural gangster, therefore encourage him to join a clean gang. — Edwin Puller
The modern push to remake boys into less masculine beings and, in some cases, break up boy gangs altogether has largely failed because it works against, rather than with, boys’ natural inclinations. Like the Progressive reformers understood, we need positive realism: boys will form gangs whether we like it or not. Our choice is whether these gangs form in the shadows of Discord servers and unsupervised spaces or in constructive environments with adult guidance.
The goal isn’t to eliminate the gang spirit but to channel it. When properly directed, the same energy that can lead to delinquency can be used to forge strong character, teach social skills, and build future leaders. Your son’s gangster nature isn’t a flaw to be fixed — it’s a force to be harnessed.
The challenge for parents, educators, and community leaders isn’t to make boys less boyish, but to create the positive gangs that modern boys critically need. Whether through sports teams or church groups, we need to give boys what they truly desire in their hearts: the chance to belong, to achieve, and to prove themselves among their peers.
