Part I. In the woods. Bull cooks and walking bosses : camp life in a booming industry -- "His flesh hung in tatters and strings" : the violence of nature -- On greenhorns and white men : skill and the boundaries of race -- Part II. In town. That restless,roving spirit : itinerancy and resistance -- "Such people may invade the city" : tramp scares and skid rows -- Five hundred drunks in the street : snake rooms, sprees, and saloons -- Part III. In memory. The only American hero : reinventing the lumberjack -- Papering over a wasteland : creating a corporate myth -- The passing of the pines : buying and selling legends

"The folk hero Paul Bunyan stands astride the story of the upper Midwest-a manly symbol of the labor that cleared the vast north woods for the march of industrialization while somehow also maintaining an aura of pristine nature. This conception receives a long overdue and thoroughly revealing correction in Gentlemen of the Woods, a cultural history of the life and lore of the real lumberjack and his true place in American history"--