Sports in American History

Gerald R. Gems, PhD, is a professor emeritus in the kinesiology department at North Central College in Naperville, Illinois. He is a past vice president of the International Society for the History of Physical Education and Sport and a past president of the North American Society for Sport History. He presented the 2016 Routledge Keynote, where he received the Routledge Prize in Sport History.Gems is an international scholar and the author of more than 250 publications, including 28 books. He served as the book review editor of the Journal of Sport History for more than two decades. He also received the Fulbright Senior Specialist award from 2007 to 2012 and was an Illinois Humanities scholar in history from 1999 to 2003. Gems earned his PhD in sports history at the University of Maryland.Linda J. Borish, PhD, is chair and an associate professor in the department of history at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Borish’s publications in sports history include her work as lead editor for The Routledge History of American Sport (Routledge). She is the author of numerous book chapters about women, gender, American sports history, and American Jewish history, including chapters in Gods, Games and Globalization: New Perspectives on Religion and Sport; Sports in Chicago; Sports and the American Jew; Jews in the Gym: Judaism, Sports, and Athletics; A Companion to American Sport History; New York Sports: Grit and Glamour in the Empire City; With God on Their Side: Sport in the Service of Religion; and others. Her scholarly articles have been published in the Journal of Sport History, The International Journal of the History of Sport, Rethinking History: The Journal of Theory and Practice, Journal of Jewish Identities, American Jewish History, and others. Borish is the executive producer and historian for a 2007 documentary file—“Jewish Women in American Sport: Settlement Houses to the Olympics”—and is a past research associate of the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute at Brandeis University.Borish was selected as the international ambassador for the North American Society for Sport History for 2001-2002 and served on its executive council and publications board as well as serving as co-editor of book reviews for the Journal of Sport History. At Western Michigan University in the College of Arts and Sciences, Borish was awarded the Diversity and Inclusion Faculty Recognition Award for 2019-2020 and previously earned the Outstanding Faculty Achievement Award in Professional and Community Service.Dr. Borish earned her PhD in American studies from the University of Maryland at College Park.Gertrud Pfister, PhD, is a retired professor at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark. She served as president of the International Sport Sociology Society from 2001 to 2007. Pfister also served as president of the International Society for the History of Physical Education and Sport from 1993 to 2000 and won the association’s award for lifelong achievements in the area of sports history in 2005. She is a past vice president of the German Turner-Bund.Pfister won the Darlene Kluka Award from the Women’s Sport Foundation in 2006, the award of the European Working Group on Women in Sport in 2009, the Dorothy Ainsworth Research Award of the International Association of Physical Education and Sport for Girls and Women (IAPESGW), and the German Gymnastic Association’s Els Schröder Award for research on women and sport in 2013.She has published more than 40 books and has been awarded two knighthoods from the president of Germany and one from the queen of Denmark. Pfister earned honorary doctorates at the Semmelweis University in Budapest 2007 and at the University of Malmö in 2013. She is to receive a third honorary doctorate from the National University of Taiwan in November 2021. Pfister earned PhDs in sports history and sociology at the University of Regensburg and the Ruhr-University Bochum.

Sports in American History: From Colonization to Globalization, Third Edition, journeys from the early American past to the present to help students grasp the compelling evolution of American sporting practices.

Chapter 1. Sporting Experiences in Early America, 1400–1820Native American Pastimes and SportsInfluence of Religion on English ColonistsSport in American ColoniesThe Great Awakening and the Place of SportConsumerism and Changing Patterns of Colonial LifeThe Enlightenment in America and Ideas of Sport and the BodySport for Exercise Promoted in the American Revolutionary Era and Early National PeriodSporting Practices During the American Revolutionary WarWomen’s Active Recreation in the Revolutionary Era and Republican MotherhoodTurn of the Nineteenth Century and Societal PatternsSummaryChapter 2. Antebellum Health Reforms and Sporting Forms, 1820–1860Overview of the Antebellum PeriodHealth ReformersMuscular ChristianityWomen and Physical ActivityRural Sporting PracticesRise of Agricultural and Sporting JournalismSporting Practices of the Middle and Upper ClassesPublic Spaces for Health and SportSporting Pastimes of African Americans and Native AmericansImmigrants and Sporting CulturesSummaryChapter 3. Rise of Rationalized and Modern Sport, 1850–1870Concept of Modern SportSubcommunities and the Growth of Modern SportSporting FraternityGrowth of Sports Clubs and Advancing Rational RecreationGrowth of American Team Sport and CompetitionRise of Intercollegiate SportThe Civil War and Sporting ExperiencesSummaryChapter 4. New Identities and Expanding Modes of Sport in the Gilded Age, 1870–1890Sport and Social StratificationMaintaining Ethnic Forms of LeisureDevelopment of an Intercollegiate Sporting CultureMale Sporting CultureBusiness of SportGendered Sport, Class, and Social RolesRegulation of Sport: Amateurism Versus ProfessionalismSummaryChapter 5. American Sport and Social Change During the Early Progressive Era, 1890–1900Social Reformers of the Progressive EraPlay and Games in American IdeologyRecreational SpacesBack-to-Nature MovementEthnic GroupsBody CultureSport and TechnologyModern Olympic GamesSummaryChapter 6. Sport as Symbol: Acculturation and Imperialism, 1900–1920Sport, Ethnicity, and the Quest for Social MobilityAssimilation of Disparate Groups in American SocietyChallenging Gender BoundariesResistance to Social ReformSport and ColonialismSport During World War ISummaryChapter 7. Sport, Heroic Athletes, and Popular Culture, 1920–1950War, Depression, and the Shaping of AmericaSocial Change and the Spread of SportHeroes in the Golden AgeMedia and the Commercialization of SportSummaryChapter 8. Sport as TV Spectacle, Big Business, and Political Site, 1950–1980Sport in the Cold WarEvolution of the Sport–Media RelationshipCoverage of Alternative HeroesProfessional Sport and Labor RelationsSport and the Civil Rights MovementSport, Narcissism, and the Existential Search for SelfScientific Advancements and the Growth of SportSummaryChapter 9. Globalized Sport, 1980–2000Corporate Sporting CultureDrawing Fans to BaseballMichael Jordan and the Growth of Professional BasketballIntercollegiate Sport and the NCAAWomen and SportDrug and Body Abuse Among AthletesViolence in SportDiscrimination at the End of the Twentieth CenturyIndividuality and Sport IconsAlternative SportsSummaryChapter 10. Sport in the Early Twenty-First Century, 2000–2020Business of Professional Sports TeamsIntercollegiate Sport and Conference ChangesTitle IX and Sport LeadershipWomen’s Professional Teams and EndorsementsModern Olympic Challenges and StarsSporting CrisesTraumatic Brain InjuryCovid-19 Virus PandemicX Games and Alternative SportsSports Across the PopulaceRise of the RunnerThe Future of SportSport in the Age of the Global PandemicSummary