Contesting the Norm: Women and Professional Sports in Late Nineteenth-Century America

摘要

Athletic opportunities for females have reached an extent that few women living in the nineteenth century might ever have imagined. For more than two decades the women's 10,000-metre run has been part of the Olympics. Women's wrestling was added at Athens in 2004 and women's boxing competitions will begin at the 2012 London Games. Changing cultural norms, especially those brought forth by ‘women's movements’ of the 1960s as well as the ensuing amazingly successful athletic performances that women attained, have been of the utmost importance. In the United States, as the ‘New Woman” of the late 1800s began to engage in a modest game of golf or tennis, or take a leisurely bicycle ride, the then dominant theme - strenuous physical activity is inimical to a female's health - that had been articulated in books like Edward Clarke's Sex in Education, Or a Fair Chance for Girls (1873) began to be challenged. Few late nineteenth-century women offered a greater challenge than did ‘professional sportswomen’ like pedestriennes Ada Anderson and Exilda La Chapelle, competitive cyclist Louise Armiando, and the boxer Hattie Stewart. Whereas their feats were ignored by more elevated publications like Scribner's Magazine and Outing daily newspapers sometimes could be quite complimentary. The coverage given by Sporting Life (considered by many to be the major sports journal of the times) was somewhat mixed. When it came to baseball (the game that ‘made men men’) Sporting Life was vehemently opposed to any woman engaging in America's ‘national pastime’. So was Albert Spalding, co-founder of the lucrative A.G. Spalding Sporting Goods Company. This article sheds new light upon these and other still too little known matters regarding women who ‘contested the norm’ in late nineteenth-century America.View full textDownload full textKeywordswomen, professional, strenuous sportsRelated var addthis_config = { ui_cobrand: "Taylor & Francis Online", services_compact: "citeulike,netvibes,twitter,technorati,delicious,linkedin,facebook,stumbleupon,digg,google,more", pubid: "ra-4dff56cd6bb1830b" }; Add to shortlist Link Permalink http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09523367.2012.675205