When Baseball Went White: Reconstruction, Reconciliation, and Dreams of a National Pastime - Couverture souple

Swanson, Ryan A.

 
9781496219534: When Baseball Went White: Reconstruction, Reconciliation, and Dreams of a National Pastime
Couverture souple
ISBN 10 : 1496219538 ISBN 13 : 9781496219534
Editeur : University of Nebraska Press, 2020

Synopsis

An important piece of sports history, his work also offers a better understanding of Reconstruction, race, and segregation in America.

The story of Jackie Robinson valiantly breaking baseball's color barrier in 1947 is one most Americans know. But less recognized is the fact that some seventy years earlier, following the Civil War, baseball was tenuously biracial and had the potential for a truly open game. How, then, did the game become so firmly segregated that it required a trailblazer like Robinson? The answer, Ryan A. Swanson suggests, has everything to do with the politics of "reconciliation" and a wish to avoid the issues of race that an integrated game necessarily raised.

The history of baseball during Reconstruction, as Swanson tells it, is a story of lost opportunities. Thomas Fitzgerald and Octavius Catto (a Philadelphia baseball tandem), for example, were poised to emerge as pioneers of integration in the 1860s. Instead, the desire to create a "national game"--professional and appealing to white northerners and southerners alike--trumped any movement toward civil rights. Focusing on Philadelphia, Washington DC, and Richmond--three cities with large Black populations and thriving baseball clubs--Swanson uncovers the origins of baseball's segregation and the mechanics of its implementation.

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À propos de l'auteur

Ryan A. Swanson is an associate professor and the director of the Lobo Scholars Program in the Honors College at the University of New Mexico. He is the author of The Strenuous Life: Theodore Roosevelt and the Making of the American Athlete.

Les informations fournies dans la section « A propos du livre » peuvent faire référence à une autre édition de ce titre.

Éditeur
University of Nebraska Press
Date d'édition
2020
Langue
anglais
ISBN 10 
1496219538
ISBN 13 
9781496219534
Reliure
Broché
Nombre de pages
276
Coordonnées du fabricant
non disponible
Personne responsable
non disponible

Autres éditions populaires du même titre

9780803235212: When Baseball Went White: Reconstruction, Reconciliation, and Dreams of a National Pastime

Edition présentée

ISBN 10 :  0803235216 ISBN 13 :  9780803235212
Editeur : University of Nebraska Press, 2014
Couverture rigide